Pokemon IP Law Expansion Pack

The 18 Card Expansion Deck

Project Statement

For this project, I chose to take one of my favourite intellectual properties, Pokémon, and mash it up with key themes from our course. The result is an 18-card “IP Law Expansion Pack” for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Each Pokémon or Trainer card represents a concept or a major case in Copyright, Trademark, or Patent law that we explored this semester.

My original intention was to create six cards from each of our major topics. In the end, the deck leans more heavily toward copyright, reflecting both the emphasis of our syllabus and the point in the semester when I produced most of the work. That said, I did look ahead to ensure that trademark and patent themes are also represented.

The Cards

Each Pokémon’s name appears at the top of the card, either directly identifying the concept or providing a nod to it, along with a sub category label indicating whether it relates to copyright, trademark, or patent law. Beneath the artwork, I have included a key case associated with the concept the Pokémon represents. The abilities and attacks further explore the idea through mechanics that could function as actual moves within the Pokémon card game. Finally, in the bottom right corner of each card, I have added additional legal details or context where space allows, such as an important quote, a legal test, or brief explanatory notes.

For the card layout, I used a software template. This template happened to include a copyright notice for Pokémon/Nintendo/Game Freak along the bottom edge. I considered removing it in Photoshop but ultimately decided to keep it.

These cards are also theoretically playable. I incorporated weaknesses, resistances, retreat costs, health points, typing, and move sets. While this is probably not the most balanced expansion pack, the primary goal was to capture the spirit of both the Pokémon game and the course material.

Use of AI

I used ChatGPT’s image generation tool to create the artwork for all the Pokémon and Trainer cards in the deck. I then took that PNG image and edited it into my template cards. The reason for using AI generation is simple: I can’t draw. Using AI allowed me to achieve the visual style I envisioned while ensuring consistency across the entire set. To produce each image, I created a series of prompts outlining the concept behind the card and how I wanted them to look. I have included my prompts (and reprompts) for each card below.

As a fun bonus, relying on AI-generated sprites ties directly into one of the major themes from our course: authorship in the age of AI. In CCH, the Court emphasized that a copyrighted work must involve an “exercise of skill and judgment” that is more than a merely mechanical action. There was certainly judgment involved in refining the prompts, in fact, I was surprised by how difficult it was at times to capture exactly what I wanted, even with detailed instructions. That said, I’m not sure how much “skill” my role truly required since some of my prompts were pretty simple. I also tried to finalize each image within one or two attempts given the limitations of the free version of ChatGPT and its daily image generation cap.

Image Generation Prompts

Pokémon and Trainer Card Prompts are listed below with the text I inputted into ChatGPT’s image generator. I have indicated re-prompts with “/”.

Pokemon/ Trainer Card Name	Generation Prompt
#1 Theberge (Trainer Card)	create a water colour image of a stamp lifting the paint off of a canvas: includes streaks of the oily paint coming down
#2 Fair Dealing	Create a watercolour style image of a made up rock type Pokémon that is balancing things on both arms
#3 The Author	Create a watercolour style image of a made up ghost type Pokémon in landscape mode, the Pokémon should be holding an old timey quill with ink dripping off of its tip as though it has just written something, and the Pokémon has a subtle ruffle collar on, like Shakespeare
#4 Statute of Anne (Trainer Card)	create a water colour image in landscape mode showing a stone Victorian statue of a woman holding a very long scroll that flows down onto the ground below. The scroll is subtly radiating a green, warm aura, almost as though its radioactive/ This is a great start. Put the statute on a base, and make the statue more weathered, as though its been standing for 200 years. Make the radiating colour a little less bold, but still as though the scroll itself is pushing out the green aura. Swap out base colour to be burgundy or browns so that the green aura element will pop.
#5 Fixation	Create a water colour style image of a made up steel-type Pokémon, it the style of a hefty mammal, covered like a mummy with a patch work of duct tape, and a roll of duct tape rolling away beside it
# 6 Common Carrier	Create a watercolour style image of a made up flying-electric type Pokémon in landscape mode, in the style of a stork flying and carrying a bonnet in its beak, but insead of a baby in the bonnet its a 1980s computer with green coding written on the screen/ Excellent. Now edit it so there’s a bit of electric static coming off the stork, and that the feathers turn into yellow near their tips
#7 De Minimus	create a watercolour style image of a made up bug-grass type Pokémon in landscape mode. I want to convey that the Pokémon is a very small bug, so there should be a magnifying glass on top of it indicating that its small. Maybe it has vampire teeth poking out
#8 Right of Integrity (Trainer Card)	Create a watercolour style image of a pack of Canada Geese flying. One of the geese should have a small Santa hat on, and I want a green hue radiating from each of the birds. The perspective should be looking up at them.
#9 Fair Dealing Stew (Trainer Card)	create a watercolour image of a big cauldron of stew, bubbling over, and I want a painting of the Mona Lisa to be descending into the stew/ NB: (I then uploaded some of my other sprites to better match the style and asked it to redo it in that style.) Chat GPT copyright push back: I asked it to swap the painting of the Mona Lisa with a picture of a Disney VHS but ChatGPT responded: “I wasn’t able to generate that image because the request violates our content policies. I can still help you make something very similar though.” At this point, I decided to change it to a Nintendo image sticking out of the stew, which ChatGPT didn’t seem to have any problems with.
#10 Coffee Siren	Create a watercolour style image of a made up grass-water Pokémon, in the style of a mermaid who is sitting in a hot spring. There should be a Starbucks cup of coffee resting on a rock nearby. Image should be in landscape orientation
#11 Miss Representation	Create a watercolour style image of a made up Pokémon that is all blonde straight hair that puddles along the ground. I want there to be distinct red lips coming out of the blonde hair indicating where the face would be. Ideally there is a guitar involved in the photo, cute / I really like this direction, but can you edit it so that the hair is holding the guitar, as if it the hair strands can grasp, and incorporate lightning elements about it
#12 Passing Off (Trainer Card)	Create a watercolour image in landscape mode of two classic game boys with a bright orange link cable going between them. Make part of the link cable look like there’s a bubble in it, suggesting a transfer of a pokeball from one game boy to the other Note: This one was very difficult for some reason. It would not remove the orange circle or show the link cables connecting, so I had to go in an edit it the old fashion way through photoshop.
#13 Hurriko	Create a watercolour image of a ghost-water type Pokémon in the style of an octopus moving down a grocery aisle. it has roller skates on each of its legs and is clearly in a hurry, stumbling down the aisle grabbing boxes of cereal and other groceries off the shelves/ Can you make small style changes to make it appear as the same collection as two images I’ve uploaded (uploaded sprites for De Minimus and Fair Dealing)
#14 Champyro	Create a watercolour style image of a made up fire/normal type Pokémon in landscape mode, the Pokémon is modelled off of a champagne bottle, and the bubbling fizz is coming out of the top but its lava/ Great, now go further with the foaming bubbles, have them spilling down the side a bit and put the cork on the ground next to it
#15 Pirate Joe	Create a watercolour style image of a made up colourless-grass Pokémon in landscape mode, the Pokémon should be loosely modeled after a racoon and a pirate. /Let’s rework this a bit. I want the racoon to be brown and black colouring, and a little less cute – more piratey. Instead of a sword lets have him holding a baguette. Swap the pirate logo on the hat for a maple lead, and if we can make the whole thing darker, like he’s being caught in a spotlight
#16 Genoseed	A watercolor-style image of a grass-type Pokémon inspired by a snake plant, emerging from the soil. It has expressive eyes and a single unopened flower bud forming on top of its head, with yellow pollen drifting through the air
#17 Oncomouse	Create a watercolour image of a poison-ghost type Pokémon, in the style of an overweight rat. The creature should have large yellow and green tumours growing off it and oozing out onto the ground. Place a syringe on the ground next to it
#18 Obviousness (Trainer Card)	Create a watercolour image in landscape mode, that depicts a pill bottle spilling over