MCCities Claims and Patents:
Claims and Patents are used to protect new, unique ideas or designs. The purpose of this is to promote the use/contribution of unique ideas while appropriately rewarding those who come up with them.
Claims - Primarily used to protect intellectual rights or in other words ideas. These ideas are not typically physical or tangible themselves, however they may or may not affect physical things on the server. These ideas must by wholly unique, as in you are the first to bring this to light. Proof (if applicable) helps but is not required. If someone believes they have come up with an idea originally or can prove that they have been using the idea in the past, a court case with appropriate proof may be brought forth.
Examples include newspapers that use /library to distribute or classifying loan packages by elements on the periodic table.
Patent - Primarily used to protect physical contraptions, machines, and designs. These ideas can be produced physically, typically using a particular configuration of blocks/objects in order to achieve an explicit result. A successful patent should describe how the blocks are laid out, how they interact, and what the goal of the system/design is. In other words, Machine A is created by placing X,Y, and Z in this specific way. X does this to Y, while Z is used to collect the product. Machine A is designed to produce ______. Like Claims, the design should be completely unique and involve a few degrees of integration/creativity in order to claim uniqueness. For example, redstone clocks have been around a long time and are relatively simple. This may not be claimed, however they may be a key part of your design. Typically unique designs involve combining 2 or more systems (like redstone & slimefun items) that normally wouldn't be used together but now can be through use of a specific placement or the introduction of additional factors, like water or an infused hopper.
A Claim or Patent would not come for free. It should incur a cost to apply for, whether or not it's approved. This would mimic how it's done irl. Something like 20k or 25k would be high enough to keep everyone from submitting claims willy-nilly while still establishing legitimacy for successful patents. Upon approval, the Claim or Patent owner could receive a written book or something approving their claim, possibly with an appropriate number on it as a way to show authority in a situation where they're asking someone to stop using an idea/design. A section of the forums could house all of the approved applications, assigning a number (0001, then 0002, etc.) to the successful ones.
Licenses could be handed out by claim owners in the form of written books. A standard format should be established for these, something like "I, _____, as the owner of patent/claim _____ allow (player) to use this patent/claim until this date ____." Times and price could be negotiated between players, however a patent owner could choose to give a license with an unlimited duration or give one for free. Only original licenses would be valid.
Violations of Claims or Patents could be handled by court cases (maybe their own section of cases, as the American justice system has its own claims court) that could be overseen by a group of objective players (to avoid putting more work on staff's plate) chosen by staff or even voted on by the server. However nice voting seems though every time it seems like there's issues with fraud, so maybe staff choose a Copyright Council every two months or so. Penalties for violating a patent or claim could come with a flat fee, say 10k or something, along with a scaling fee based on how profitable the claim is. This could be determined by how much the idea/designs makes in income per week, multiplied by the amount of weeks the patent has been approved for. This makes it a bigger offence in violating claims that have been around for longer and should be more widely-known. If an idea/design doesn't have income of sorts (say it's a signature design feature in a building or is the name of something) then the flat fee will be sufficient. As always settling out of court is an option.
What do y'all think of that?