Wargaming Patents E-50M

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Hello everyone,

we all knew that the E-50M is a Wargaming-invented fake, but now, we have a legal document to prove it! :) Many thanks to Alpha_Dude for finding this info.

On 24.7.2012, Wargaming filed a patent application (no. 29/427,959) to protect the E-50M design. The proceedings took more than two years and on 9.9.2014, the patent protection of the E-50M design was approved. It’s now protected for 14 years.

Funnily enough, the “inventor” of the patented vehicle is noone else than Sergei Burkatovskyi (aka SerB). There you have it, SerB is officially the inventor of the E-50M :)

The legal document follows:

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-001

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-002

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-003

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-004

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-005

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-006

patent_USD712786S1_WG_E50M_2014-page-007

62 thoughts on “Wargaming Patents E-50M”

  3. Why patent this? It’s not like any other tank game out there would take this design anyway, I doubt WT would bother.

    • Because producers of scale model kits could sell a model of this tank, without giving any credit to WG’s fantasy :)
      This happened with VK72.01 as far as I know.

    • It’s a good idea actually if it’s iconic enough. As this tank never existed people will associate E-50M with wargaming and WoT. I could make spinoffs, merchandise or whatever with E-50M never saying it has anything to do with WG or WoT yet people would associate it with them.

    • Its not about WT, but there are WoT like copy-paste games. Plus this of course affect companies which would want to manifacture model of E-50M and so on.

    • Its not about WT, its about total rip off games like that Chinese one that was featured on here. Much easier to prove they are rip offs if they contain war-gaming’s IP. Same applies to scale models etc. with war-gaming doing tie ins with scale model makers they are probably moving to protect what IP they can. Since most of the actual tanks are not wargaming IP they need to protect the ones that they did actually make up along with stuff like Logos.

    • Because back in those days USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) was trying to prove how incredibly retarded they really are by approving various Apple “design patents” (“rectangle with rounded corners” and the like) and stories about court battles between Apple and other telephone manufacturers (mostly Samsung though) made headlines every couple of days.

      They trolled the USPTO retards.

  6. WG’s fantasy is becoming official…

    SoonTM for end of the gaming industry. (Now we can expect “Ghost” from CoDMW series getting IP protection by US laws)

    • It’s not about trust but market shares, cost and ease.

      Since patents are quite expensive and have a progressing cost for longer lifetime it’s an economic choice. US patents are actually comparatively cheap in the long run and cover a huge market. Also the US Patent Office is well known for not checking thoroughly during application due to the sheer number of applications. This is making the process much faster than in…Germany for example. They’d rather wait for someone to complain after publication and then recheck it properly. If no one complains its good to go.

      Also patents are only valid in the country they are signed for.
      For example a US patent is only (!) valid in the US. Any EU/Asian/whatever manufacturer can just use the content as they please as long as they don’t import it to the United States.
      The same thing is even true within the EU. Even for a European Patent you have to name and pay for every single country it’s supposed to be valid in. It just removes the hassle of going to each nations patent office individually.

    • When you apply for a patent, you usually file in the countries where you think companies or individuals are likely to infringe or ship to that market. So if you were patenting something that could be built, you’d also file in China, Brazil, India, EU, and USA, plus more. You’d not bother to file for countries were the risk is insignificant, say Iceland, or Botswana. This patent covers the USA. If they only filed in the USA, then there would be nothing stop someone in China making a kit, they would have difficulty in selling it in the USA as legal action would be taken, but would have no difficulty in selling it in any country where they did not file.

  10. Have you felt that? That was Hitler moving in his own grave (OK, I know he has none) that some communist bastards had stolen and patented his Lovely Kitten as theirs :P

  11. So they copied parts of existing WWII German tanks and stuck them together. And want a patent on that? To get a patent shouldn’t they have to build it? I mean anyone can draw a picture of a car or space ship. So let’s see them build one.
    I think the best they can do is copyright the drawing.

    • Yes you can patent anything if you can show how it works, and can afford the patent process, and pay for renewal. British Rail, as it was, has several patents for flying saucers (I kid you not), the technology to build them does not exist, so their patent was pretty general, ie “power source” without actaully mentioning how it would be powered.

  12. Wow you can patent virtual fake tanks?

    Can I patent my tank game I started writing in 1982? I still have all the code and documents, maybe I need to send WOT a letter asking for my royalties.

  13. Soon wargaming will start to build its own tanks.

    You want gold ammo nerf?You want skill MM?Russian tanks too stronk?You don’t want to play World of waprlanes or World of warships?

    Let me fix that by coming to your house!

  16. TBH, the tank looks better without the side skirts….. looks way more cool without them

  17. So what exactly did they patent? Just the name of it?
    What if I go ahead and produce a historical model of the rear-drive E-50 (which is basically the E-50 minus the fantasy turret)?

    • The text on the patent says ‘ornamental design for a military vehicle’ which I think is basically patentspeak for the appearance. So nobody else can make models (virtual or otherwise) of anything too close in appearance to those drawings, apart from the historical E-50 of course. (Trying to recall now if there was any information on the turret they planned to put on it.)

      This means that it might be theoretically possible to break the patent by building a functional machine.

  18. So the solution to the fake tanks is to make them real tanks.

    Fine. However the historical description needs updating.

  19. Pingback: SerB si v USA patentoval E-50M

  25. It looks like a child drew it, so NO ONE will copy it….its laughable

    It is only a “self abuse” and “self obsessed” patent anyway…one mans silly fantasy

    what a sad person the Serb bloke is…..

  29. Well, if they can invent their own patented vehicles on the basis of mid-20th-century designs and tech, I think a WG branch is now officially justified. .-.

  30. So now that they’ve patented it, that means they’re going to build a real-life functional one, right? They have to.

  31. Pingback: Patently Absurd – Part IV: USA | For the Record

  32. I think this article is a bit mistaken, as this is not a patent in the sence of technical solution, but this is design (for silenstalker in czhech it is: průmyslový vzor). It means it does not protect the function or technical solution but the shape/design of the tank, from this point you can have design protection for strangely shape dildo as well. Patents for technical sollution start only with US not USd as designs.