Iffly Is Officially Patented. So What Does That Mean?
I'll be honest: filing for a patent wasn't originally on my radar. I was so deep in building Iffly that the design felt almost obvious to me; of course this is how a writing tool for interactive fiction should work, of course writers shouldn't have to learn code. Of course it would look this way! It took a good friend pulling me aside and saying earnestly, "Heather, you should really patent this!" to make me step back and see it clearly (thank you, Tiffany!).
She was so right. And in November 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office made it official: U.S. Patent 12,130,868, covering the design of Iffly, specifically the writing tool and how writers use it to create interactive text-based games. It's a milestone that took over three years, a lot of paperwork, several wonderfully patient attorneys, and one memorable interview with the patent office. I'm still kind of buzzing about it. I think I always will be.
What Does a Software Patent Actually Mean?
A patent is a legal recognition that an invention is genuinely novel, that no one has made it quite this way before. For software, that bar is high. The patent office doesn't hand these out for ideas that already exist in some form. They dig for prior art, compare your invention to everything else out there, and ask hard questions.
So what Iffly received isn't just a piece of paper. It's an official, government-issued declaration that our approach to interactive text game creation is unique — not just in our opinion, but by the rigorous standards of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. And because of that, I own the rights to it, which is a huge deal for our tiny team in the current tech landscape. No one else gets to create this tool!
What Makes Iffly Different Enough to Patent?
Here's the thing I had somehow started to take for granted: there is no programming language in Iffly. None. You open the tool, you type, you use keyboard commands, and you build a fully interactive text-based game. That's it.
No syntax. No programming. No code to debug. Just writing.
When I went through the patent interview process, the examiners presented the competing tools they'd found, and I got to explain exactly why Iffly is different. Not gonna lie, it was really exciting to make that case. Other tools require writers to learn some form of syntax, however minor — some layer of technical thinking, some bridge between storytelling and code. Iffly removes that bridge entirely. Your writing is your game.
That's the whole point behind Iffly. And it turns out, it's patentable!
The Journey to Get Here
The process kicked off in June 2021. Finding a patent attorney was its own adventure; patent applications are notoriously expensive, and as a startup founder, my budget was…zero. I was incredibly lucky to find an attorney willing to work with me on deferred payment. They’ve had faith in Iffly from day one, which has meant the world to me.
Then came the waiting. Patent applications don't move quickly; ours took over three years from filing to issue, which is actually pretty normal for software patents. There were filings, responses, and revisions along the way, and ultimately an interview with the patent office itself. I'll admit I was a little nervous going in, but it turned into one of my favorite moments in this whole journey. I got to sit across from the examiners on zoom and make the case for what Iffly is, why it's different from everything else they'd found, and why it deserves protection. Walking out of that conversation, I felt more confident in this wonderful tool than ever.
The patent issued in November 2024. I officially became an inventor (what?!!!). It was a very good day.
Why This Matters for the Iffly Community
If you're a writer using Iffly, this is good news for you too!
It means the core experience that makes Iffly Iffly — the frictionless, code-free, just-start-writing approach — is protected. It means we can keep building on that foundation with confidence. And it signals to the broader world that what we've built here isn't just another tool in a crowded space. It's something new, something unique, something useful.
Every writer deserves the chance to write a game, regardless of their technical skill level. Iffly was designed from day one with that belief at its center — and now there's a patent to prove it.
Want to see what Iffly can do? Try it free at iffly.co.