Can an unintentional creation due to a software glitch be trademarked or copyrighted?
<p>Say that I write a computer game that involves a number of characters. I choose to trademark some of the characters I think are more marketable, and copyright my game. To my surprise, fans discover that it is possible to glitch the game in such a way that a new character is created (perhaps it's a Frankenstein-type character of other parts). It rises in popularity and becomes fairly recognizable. </p>

<p>Does the fact that it was an unintentional creation still mean it is eligible for trademark or copyright protection?</p>

<p>For reference, this sort of thing happened in <em>Pokémon Red Version</em> and <em>Pokémon Blue Version</em>. It is possible to glitch the game to create what appears to be a Pokémon called "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MissingNo." rel="nofollow">MissingNo.</a>", which was clearly unintentional. It became pretty popular and is rather recognizable among those who played the games. To have a more specific version of the question, could Nintendo theoretically choose to trademark "MissingNo."? Is it protected under copyright?</p>

<p>Ability to register a trademark is not affected by the way the mark was created or discovered. If a mark is otherwise registrable, the fact that it was created by accident doesn't preclude that registration. </p>

trademark