Author: parminder-dyal

This year’s Games Industry Law Summit in Berlin highlighted the growing importance of AI and intellectual property protection, monetisation, crisis management and cross-border compliance in the world of gaming. This piece outlines the practical takeaways for UK gaming studios and how they can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to IP and broader brand protection.

Who owns what AI creates?

Under section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, copyright in a computer-generated work belongs to the person who made the arrangements necessary for its creation.

For example, in gaming, if a character design is produced using an AI tool, where an art director has briefed the output, selected from variants and shaped the final result, then the human creative contribution could be sufficient to support a copyright claim on ordinary authorship grounds, because they have used AI to shape their original idea. But where AI plays a more dominant role, the human input can be harder to evidence.

This is particularly given the UK government’s March 2026 report on copyright and AI concluded that section 9(3) could now be removed, describing it as uncertain and not much relied upon. Studios should therefore avoid treating it as a permanent foundation for their IP strategy. The stronger position before any changes to copyright law to address AI is to ensure that human creative contribution is clear, consistent and recorded throughout the development process. Being able to demonstrate, if challenged, that the work is the studio’s to own, license and enforce is what gives IP real commercial weight. Studios that are unsure how to develop an IP protection programme should speak to a specialist IP lawyer for advice.

The tools you use and the rights behind them

Beyond what AI produces, there is a growing focus on what was (and is) used to train the tools. For studios already using AI in their processes, this has practical consequences.

The UK government had been working towards a broad text and data mining exception that could have given AI developers a clearer lawful basis for using copyright-protected material in training datasets. Following significant backlash from the creative industries, the government stepped back from that approach in March 2026, but the position remains unresolved.

The result is that the legal basis on which many AI tools are trained remains an open question in the UK. Studios may continue to use this software, but the strength of the protections in their vendor contracts needs to be checked. Those protections might be inadequate for the value of the work being created, and studios must get ahead of this before a problem arises, while the options for addressing it are still open.
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The value of trade mark protection

Where copyright ownership of an AI-generated asset is uncertain, trade mark registration may offer a separate and enforceable route to protection that sits alongside the copyright position.

Consider, for example, a distinctive character design: a visual style, a name, a look that has become strongly associated with a game. If the copyright position on how that character was created is unclear because AI was heavily involved, a registered trade mark in those distinctive elements may give the studio rights that exist independently of the copyright question and do not require the broader legal debate to be resolved first.

In the US, a useful real-world example is the US Copyright Office’s decision on Zarya of the Dawn, a graphic novel created by Kris Kashtanova using Midjourney-generated images. The Office accepted protection for the human-authored text and the selection, coordination and arrangement of the work, but not for the individual AI-generated images themselves. This demonstrates the practical risk for studios: where AI-generated visuals sit at the heart of a creative product, relying on copyright alone may leave important brand assets exposed. Although this was not a trade mark case, it highlights why studios should consider whether key elements, such as titles, character names or distinctive visual features, could also be protected through trade mark registration. If those elements are indicators of origin, trade mark protection could offer a separate and enforceable layer of rights, even when copyright protection is uncertain.

Studios building IP portfolios around significant AI-assisted assets are increasingly treating trade mark registration as something to address early in the development cycle rather than after launch. Specialist advice at the development stage delivers more value than seeking protection once a product is already in the market.

Monetisation under the microscope

The mechanics studios use to generate revenue, whether loot boxes, in-game purchases, battle passes or virtual currency systems, are drawing increasing attention from regulators. Loot boxes are mechanics where players pay, directly or indirectly, for a randomised reward they cannot choose in advance. In a growing number of jurisdictions, they are also beginning to generate legal claims from players and consumer groups.
For UK studios, the Consumer Rights Act and the ASA’s updated loot box guidance are both live considerations. The ASA issued an Enforcement Notice in February 2026, requiring prominent disclosure of loot boxes in app store listings and began actively monitoring from 26 May 2026.

The practical question is whether a studio’s monetisation design would hold up under scrutiny. Is it clear to players what they are buying, what it costs in real terms and how it works? Are there appropriate protections where the mechanics are accessible to children? These are questions that are straightforward to work through at the design stage, when adjustments are still easier to make, and where early legal input tends to add the most value.

Planning ahead

As games increasingly involve cross-media deals, collaborations, third-party IP and user-generated content, the agreements sitting behind those relationships carry commercial exposure if they are not properly structured.

A character licensed for use in a game that also appears in a film adaptation, or community-created content that reproduces protected IP without appropriate permissions, are both scenarios where ambiguous drafting can cause significant problems. At the contracting stage, those issues are manageable. Once they surface as disputes, the options are narrower, and the cost of resolving them is higher.

Operating across borders

The regulatory environment for games is becoming more fragmented. The EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act impose obligations on platforms and publishers operating in European markets. The EU AI Act’s Article 50 transparency requirements apply from 2 August 2026, which means UK studios distributing into Europe need to be clear on what those rules require of them. Age assurance, data protection, content moderation and advertising standards all vary by territory and can carry enforcement risk.

For studios with ambitions across multiple markets, specialist legal advice helps identify which obligations are most relevant and how to plan for them as the studio grows. That picture shifts each time a new territory is entered, or a new product is launched, so it needs to be an ongoing priority rather than a single review.

Get ahead

The studios in the strongest position are the ones that bring legal expertise in early. That usually means building a robust IP strategy, structuring a licensing deal, reviewing a monetisation model before launch or planning for a new market. The advice can add the most value when it shapes the decisions being made.

If you work in gaming and would like to review your IP protection, please get in touch.