Gotta Catch . . . a Lawsuit? A Legal Insight into the Intellectual, Civil, and Criminal Battlefield Pokémon Go has Downloaded onto Smartphones and Properties Around the World, 16 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 329 (2017)

Authors

Andrew Rossow

Citations to This Work

• Mark A. Lemley & Eugene Volokh, Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality, 166 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1051 (2018)

• Danielle Nicole Craft, Common Law Consequences of Catching 'Em All: Exclusionary Property Rights in Augmented Space and an Alternative Notice/Opt-Out Procedure for Location-Based Augmented Reality Technology, 48 Seton Hall L. Rev. 841 (2018)

• Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Tempting Trespass or Suggesting Sociability? Augmented Reality and the Right to Include, 51 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 731 (2017)

Abstract

Our society, and its millennials, have entered the digital age, whereby almost everything is conducted and perpetuated through electronic devices. Smartphones have dominated the mobile device market and have allowed its users to download mobile applications and games to the device. Pokémon Go, is the latest trend in mobile gaming and the start to a bright future of augmented reality. But what happens when augmented reality meets the physical world? Do our modern-day statutes and laws extend into the cyberspace that it is augmented reality? What happens when a user of an augmented reality game enters onto the property of another and interferes with that individual's fundamental property right of quiet enjoyment and use of the property? Should the mobile game user be held liable under trespassing or nuisance laws? Should the Developers of such a game be held liable under theories of negligence, trespass, and/or nuisance? This article attempts to explore the concept of augmented reality as it pertains to the creation of Pokémon Go by Niantic, Inc., The Pokémon Company, and Nintendo. Pokémon Go is the latest augmented reality game for iPhone and Android, which allows its user to travel in the physical world, while catching Pokémon in the virtual world, depicted through a Google interface overlay.

Recommended Citation

Andrew Rossow, Gotta Catch . . . a Lawsuit? A Legal Insight into the Intellectual, Civil, and Criminal Battlefield Pokémon Go has Downloaded onto Smartphones and Properties Around the World, 16 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 329 (2017)