A concrete example: the classic game "Descent" was written by Parallax and published by Interplay. The split-up remnant of Parallax owns all of the assets --

A concrete example: the classic game "Descent" was written by Parallax and published by Interplay. The split-up remnant of Parallax owns all of the assets -- the ship name and artwork, the name of the evil corporation, the music, the robot artwork. Interplay owns the name Descent. Anybody can make a game that flies like Descent (Sol Contingency and Geocore are both trying to), but only an Interplay-licensed company can call their game "Descent", and only a Parallax-licensed company can put in the "Pyro-GX" and the "PTMC". And there seems to be some distrust between the two companies. This has led to a fair bit of complication for the Interplay-licensed Descent:Underground game (currently on kickstarter -- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/descent-underground https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/desce... ). A lot of fans are asking "where's the pyro?" Well, they can't have the pyro, because they don't have a license for that part of the game. They can make a ship that looks fairly similar and flies identically, but it has to be identifiably visually different and have a different name.