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Are Video Game Patents Next?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Jun 01, 2005 07:55 AM
from the this-could-get-scary dept.
The Almighty Buck Patents Entertainment Games
MarcOiL writes "Gamasutra is running an article titled It's Just a Game, Right? Top Mythconceptions on Patent Protection of Video Games where two IP lawyers try to convince the videogame industry of patenting everything in sight: ideas, technical contributions, etc. They show as an example a Microsoft patent on Scoring based upon goals achieved and subjective elements. They also have created a weblog, The Patent Arcade, to promote their business. Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?"
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Are Video Game Patents Next? 50 Comments More /

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  • ugh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 01 2005, @07:57AM (#12693016)
    "where two IP lawyers try to convince the videogame industry of patenting everything in sight: ideas, technical contributions, etc. "

    Q. What do you have when you have 2 lawyers buried up to their necks in cement?

    A. Not enough cement.
    • For these guys, I think we need...

      Q. How many lawyers does it take to shingle a roof?

      A. Depends on how thinly you slice them...

    • You have target practice.
    • Q: Why don't sharks bite lawyers?

      A: Professional courtesy!

      ------

      Q: What's the difference between a sucker fish and a lawyer?

      A: One's a scum sucking bottom dweller, and the other's a fish!

        • I hereby declare my patents on the following:
          BFG
          Scoring system based upon shooting your opponent
          Status display system based on a HUD

          That should cover nearly all FPS games. ID, Blizzard, Rockstar, etc are hereby granted royalty free use of said patent. M$: I want 10% of the retail of each copy sold ;)
          -nB

  • Aren't they already here? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mopslik (688435) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @07:59AM (#12693026)
    I thought I remembered seeing a Slashdot story or post about Namco holding a patent on "displaying a mini-game while the actual game is loading" not too long ago.

    • Re:Aren't they already here? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Game Genie (656324) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:06AM (#12693102)
      Too bad nobody has patented "really frickin slow load times". Perhaps I should get the patent and then refuse to licence it. That would save us all a lot of trouble.
    • Surely there's oodles of prior art back on the old 8-bits?

      I fondly remember invaderload on Alpha Centauri!

    • Yes, they're already here (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Stunning Tard (653417) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:12AM (#12693168) Journal

      I saw that on slashdot last week with 'A Gamers' Manifesto' [pointlesswasteoftime.com]

      From the essay:
      Patents. Did you know there's a patent held by some microscopic software company on spherical camera controls in realtime 3D, and they're starting to level lawsuits against EVERYONE? Did you ever wonder what happened to force feedback, controllers that push your hands around so you can feel the action in the game as well as see it (we're talking real force feedback, not controllers that vibrate like pagers)? Somebody has a patent, that's what. Did you know you can't have mini-games during a loading screen because of patent law?
      • I started reading this manifesto, and I was immediately struck by some of the brain damaged logic the writer employs. Here's an example, culled early on from the section on AI:

        It has to do with the fact that both the XBox 360 and the PS3's Cell CPU use "in-order" processing, which, to greatly simplify, means they've intentionally crippled the ability to make clever A.I. and dynamic, unpredictable, wide-open games in favor of beautiful water reflections and explosion debris that flies through the air prett

    • Prior art available (Score:5, Informative)

      by FromWithin (627720) <stuff@fr[ ]ithin.com ['omw' in gap]> on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:15AM (#12693198) Homepage

      That patent can probably be killed with prior art. The Commodore 64 had "Mix-E-Load" during loading of the cassette version of Thalamus' Delta in 1987. This had music playing and would let you mess with the tracks, changing the bass line, drum beat, etc. and letting you mix your own music.

      A year later, in 1988, the Mastertronic game Kane 2 had a Space Invaders game (called Invade-A-Load) that you played while the main game was loading. Again, this was on the cassette version.

      These can be played by downloading the relevant .TAP files [64.no] and loading them into an emulator such as x64 [viceteam.org].

      Anyway, back on-topic, most of the classic games in existence would not be with us had game companies been patenting stuff like these mutants are suggesting.

      • Who gives a shit about prior art? What if the concept really is original? Do they deserve to sit on it and squeeze everyone else for 20 fucking years for it?

        This sort of thing needs to stop NOW. Game companies that take out patents need to be boycotted when the word gets out to gaming fan sites, existing disks need to be returned to them in pieces.

        But it won't happen. I guarantee it will never happen. We will bend over and ask for it harder and deeper once they dangle a few more shiny objects in fron
  • Video gaming is a huge industry, bigger than music, bigger than movies, bigger than cellphones.

    Freaking huge. Gigantic. Teens, young adults, adults dumping - THROWING - disposable income at the latest, the greatest, the trendy, the hip, the best.

    It's too big for the major players to f*$@ up. If a minor player tries to get these patent stuff racheted up the big boys will crush them - and crush them fast and/or acquire them.

    • You mean until EA starts patenting everything in sight.

      • Re:Video games... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Nytewynd (829901) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:13AM (#12693175)
        You can't patent general ideas. Someone might be able to patent a specific implementation of a fighting game, or the software to render the fighters quickly. They couldn't patent 2 guys fighting in a game.

        As far as team games, we're getting close to being screwed already. I think EA has exclusive rights to the NFL next year. That means if you want to play as the World Champion New England Patriots, you will only be doing it in an NFL game. That is terrible since ESPN NFL2K5 was better than Madden to me. Now we will have ESPN Football2K6 with fake teams. Half of the fun is being your team with your players.

  • D&D as Prior Art? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ect5150 (700619) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:00AM (#12693042) Journal
    I would imagine any D&D would be prior art in a general games category? MSoft wasn't exactly the first company to get into games. I'm not sure how they can get a pantent on how points are awarded. Any D&D DM has subjective power to award points, and MS didn't exactly put D&D out there.
    • I would imagine any D&D would be prior art in a general games category?
      Then they'll just add the words "using a computer" to each of their claims.
    • I would imagine any D&D would be prior art in a general games category? MSoft wasn't exactly the first company to get into games. I'm not sure how they can get a pantent on how points are awarded. Any D&D DM has subjective power to award points, and MS didn't exactly put D&D out there.

      You seem to have missed the key prhases: "on the internet" or "using a computer". Those two phrases alone make the idea new and unique and prior art becomes moot... Atleast that's how it seems these days...

  • Ask Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by _Hellfire_ (170113) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:01AM (#12693048) Homepage
    Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?"

    Yes.

    Wow that was an easy Ask Slashdot!

  • Perhaps I'm missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by agraupe (769778) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:02AM (#12693061) Journal
    But if there are patents on videogames, would it not stimulate the production of original games? If you couldn't make a game based on a certain set of ideas, wouldn't you be forced to create an original game?

    Note: I don't agree with software or videogame patents, because I think they screw the consumer in the end by providing a crappy product, at likely a high price. But still, that last sentence made no sense.

    • You don't have to actually produce an implementation of the idea in a patent IIRC (obviously, IANAL). You just have to show that you are taking steps towards an implementation, not that you actually produce one. So, if Duke Nukem Forever contained patented software components, it could be argued that they are making an attempt to bring an implementation to market, hence the patents on those ideas would still be valid.
        • Then, basically, you'd be able to patent something now which cannot possibly be produced until the future, then act like you're making steps towards it?
          Yup. this one [newscientist.com] for example - sony patenting a technology that they themselves admit is just IP grabbing: "There were not any experiments done," she says. "This particular patent was a prophetic invention. It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."

          I would find it funny if it didn't nauseate me.
    • But if there are patents on videogames, would it not stimulate the production of original games? If you couldn't make a game based on a certain set of ideas, wouldn't you be forced to create an original game?

      As unpopular an opinion as it is now a days, the good creative content is often built on older creative content. For instance, we couldn't have had hl/hl2/cs with out id and doom.

      Interesting mental exercise: Imagine a world where ID DID patent Doom and it's methods.

      Imagine patents on books. Or,

    • Re:Perhaps I'm missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cowscows (103644) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:35AM (#12693397) Journal
      The problem is, patenting things like "ideas", and "gameplay" can get a little hazy. Add in the innate human brain's ability to detect similarities and patterns, and you'll be seeing infringement everywhere you look. Everything is built upon something else to some degree. And if they don't get you with a gameplay patent, they'll trip you up with some patented technical detail in your programming.

      What if the guys who made marble madness had patented "Using an electronic input device to control a digital sphere through the visual representation of a three dimensional world"? I'm no patent lawyer, so I don't know how much sense that makes, but it reads about as basic and vague to me as most of the patent summaries I browse do.

      By that measure, things like bowling games or Super Monkey Ball could be threatened. Is there a connection between Super Money Ball and marble madness? Yeah, on a really superficial level. Do the games play at all alike? Nope. Were the designers inspired by Marble Madness? Maybe. Did they ruthlessly steal expensively developed ideas from the Marble Madness developers? No.

      Even Katamari Damacy could be argued to fall under a patent like that. And that's generally considered one of the most fun, original games of the past year.

      I'm going to agree that any kind of software patents are going to be very harmful to the industry as a whole. And just shifting the current patent system to something like video games is going to pretty much be death to it.

      The lawyer's argument is basically, getting patents is a way for the current players to make more money and cement their position on top of the biz. You can't seriously make the argument that, in this case, patents will spur on innovation, because there's been leaps and bounds of innovation in the relatively patent free video game universe since its inception.
  • software patents such as most of /., i do think this is a totally bad idea (and i don't see how it would go through)

    I think this more than anything would really stiffle innovation. the whole gaming industry moves so fast that it wouldn't seem worth it to waste money on patents. you would think they would want to crank out the next product to garner more earnings than sit on one idea for to long.

    but then again, that is logical

  • Patents (Score:2, Insightful)

    by oskard (715652)
    Patents are provided to people of the United States (and other countries) to hold a 'temporary monopoly' on a product or idea. They are used to encourage developers to create things without their ideas being stolen. This enhances the level of development in the country as a whole, and is good for our economy and society.

    However, video games don't give back the same benefits as say, food, energy and transportation. A fellow programmer once said to me "What if someone had a patent on the First Person Shoo
    • It already is dead. Because all anybody produces i First Person Shooters. Patents might actually increase development because developers would actually be forced to think of new ideas.
  • Disclaimer: Software patents are bad and stupid.

    However...

    I suspect that an increase in patents on game software features might promote innovation in games, since it might be harder to just spit out yet another first-person shooter without getting sued.
    • Yes, but that's not the sort of thing that gets patented. I've done this before, so I know a bit about it:

      A patent application is usually done as a series of claims from most general to most specific. Let's take Doom as an example. The claims might be:

      #1. We invented interactive entertainment.
      #2. ...in a 3D world
      #3. ...with some elements that move and others that are static
      #4. ...where some of the moving elements are controlled by players connected

      [snip]

      #99. ...where one of the guns is a railgun that us
  • I am going to go out and get a patent for plumbers jumping on mushroom people. That would be the best idea ever.
  • Is it just me, or does that patent seem to apply to Project Gotham Racing? What is interesting is that the game was only published by MS, but was developed by Bizzare Creations. And there are similar elements in Fable.
  • Declares Ross Dannenberg, Esq., aided by a swank free and open source [binarybonsai.com] layout.

    ....siiiiiiiigh.

    Signed,
    Human Capacity for Lameness is Apparently Inexhaustible, Esq.

  • Can you patent plot elements in books?

  • Patents need a longer duration (Score:3, Funny)

    by Overzeetop (214511) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:16AM (#12693214) Journal
    Lets face it - Patent holders, as technical intellectual property creators, have been falling behind the protections afforded to their artistic bretheren! Copyright holders now have an entire century to reap the benfits, adn for their offspring to reap the benefits, of their labors. It seems wholely unfair to limit patents to such short terms as 14 years (20 for non-design).

    I believe patents should be perpetual. Once you create it it should be your forever! And you children and your childrens children. We have seen my the slow - nay, slowing pace (based on patents per dollar spent on healthcare)- of patent applications and inventions in the 20th century that patent protection does not provide the needed impetus for our truly creative technical experts to advance the sciences.

    There are numerous cases of inventors who could have changed the world, but insted of licencing their technology, compaies just waited until the patents ran out, and the used those iventions with no compensation to the creative mind whatsoever.

    This must stop. We all must rise up and demand perpetual patents now.

    (aren't you glad there isn't a _really_ organized lobby for patent holders like there is for performance artists?)

  • Ok, this has been said 1000's times before... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jonr (1130) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:25AM (#12693292) Homepage Journal
    But this "patent everything" is getting out of hand, and guess who will be the one to suffer? The patient applicants. Why? I'll tell you why: Because of all the stupid patents claims, people will lose respect for the patent process. Just wait until some random country (Ch*cough*ina) has the engineering knowledge to duplicate whatever patent they want, do they think they will think twice, especially since they can just shrug off any arguments, by pointing at those stupid patents? I think not.

  • Already happens, and is a problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Beolach (518512) <beolach&juno,com> on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:26AM (#12693305) Homepage Journal
    "A Gamers' Manifesto [pointlesswasteoftime.com]" that /. mentioned recently [slashdot.org] discussed this. I don't agree with all the things the "Manifesto" said were wrong with games, but on this I do agree.
    Patents. Did you know there's a patent held by some microscopic software company on spherical camera controls in realtime 3D, and they're starting to level lawsuits against EVERYONE? Did you ever wonder what happened to force feedback, controllers that push your hands around so you can feel the action in the game as well as see it (we're talking real force feedback, not controllers that vibrate like pagers)? Somebody has a patent, that's what. Did you know you can't have mini-games during a loading screen because of patent law?

  • Conspiracy theory (Score:3, Funny)

    by Temkin (112574) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:37AM (#12693415)


    The TV and Movie industries are desperate to get the 12 to 24 year old males back in front of their crap. Killing game innovation could be just the ticket.

  • Might be a good thing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zr-rifle (677585) <zedr&zedr,com> on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:45AM (#12693491) Homepage
    >Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?

    Well, for that to happen there should be some innovation to start with. Paradoxically, software patent could actually enforce some goddamn innovation in games, by preventing game developers from ripping each other off continuosly and rehashing the same stuff over and over again.

  • Parasites. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Carmack (101025) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @11:07PM (#12701745)
    I'm proud that there is "a relative dearth of patent applications for the video game industry, especially considering how technology-dependent the video game industry is, and given its size in terms of annual sales."

    Before issuing a condemnation, I try hard to think about it from their point of view -- the laws of the land set the rules of the game, and lawyers are deeply confused at why some of us aren't using all the tools that the game gives us.

    Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah.

    But in the majority of cases in software, patents effect independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement.

    Why should society reward that? What benefit does it bring? It doesn't help bring more, better, or cheaper products to market. Those all come from competition, not arbitrary monopolies. The programmer that filed the patent didn't work any harder because a patent might be available, solving the problem was his job and he had to do it anyway. Getting a patent is uncorrelated to any positive attributes, and just serves to allow either money or wasted effort to be extorted from generally unsuspecting and innocent people or companies.

    Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone.

    I could waste hours going on about this. I really need to just write a position paper some day that I can cut and paste when this topic comes up.

    John Carmack
    • It could be a good thing, too. Maybe this way we wont have 50 incarnations of the same goddamn game like we do now.

      • Re:yes (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Adrilla (830520) *
        No, you'll just have one company making 50 incarnations of the same goddamn game, and no motivation to change that.

      • Re:Human patents? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Overzeetop (214511) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:59AM (#12693633) Journal
        And for a cancer detection firm in Utah, it ahs paid off. They "patented" a gene sequence which tests for the likelihood of breast cancer (I think). Note that they didn't patent the test process, but the information in the gene. Now, no matter what process you use to determine the condition of the gene, you cannot use it for cancer detection wihtout paying a $10k fee to that company. They "own" the exclusive right to the "data". Sort of like patenting moon-dogs as a predictor of coming precipitation, or the presence of a high pressure as a predicter of clear weather. They're natural facts, observable by anyone with the proper instuments. But they're patentable now. (iirc, Canada got into trouble over the cancer detection thing).

        **note: this is all from memory of a (single?) online news story quite some time ago, the facts may be significantly different that I have implied**

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