Are Video Game Patents Next?

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?"

Aren't they already here?

[mopslik]

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.

I think an excellent comparison is this

[Council]

Can you patent plot elements in books?

Yes, they're already here

[Stunning Tard]

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?

Re:Video games...

[Nytewynd]

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.

Ok, this has been said 1000's times before...

[jonr]

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

[Beolach]

"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?

Might be a good thing

[zr-rifle]

>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.

These are the kinds of lawyers

[suitepotato]

that give the lawyers I know acid indigestion. Not all lawyers are unthinking and avaricious like this. Most of the ones I know are pretty good at long term thinking and believe in property protection the old fashioned way, through due diligence in protecting your own IP and going after the copiers as they get caught, not trying to stifle the industry/sector in advance, which is what this would do.

This is just stupid hucksterism.

Re:Human patents?

[Shopko]

Yes, this is true. For more information (from the trouble Canada got into over this) see this site: http://www.cancer.ca/ccs/internet/standard/0,3182, 3172_61901275__langId-en,00.html [cancer.ca] Yay for patents! Now that your health is dependent on licensing a patent, I think it's time for a social revolution. Perhaps I will try to get a DNA sample from the CEO of that Utah company, and file for a patent on his specific gene sequence. If he can patent a gene sequence that has existed for 2 million years, then I should be able to patent one that has existed for less than 100... Wouldn't it be funny to sue him for existing? "Hey, you're existence infringes on my patent! Either pay up or change your DNA!". :-)

Manifest schmanifesto

[LionMage]

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 prettily.

This is not only a gross over-simplification, it's flat-out wrong. The "in-order processing" done by the PowerPC CPUs in the Xbox 360 and the Cell processor in the PS3 is simply that -- machine instructions are executed in the order that they are presented to the CPU. In other words, these processors don't do instruction reordering. What does this have to do with AI? Absolutely nothing, really. Sure, instruction reordering would probably improve the performance of unoptimized code -- but good compiler tools will do the instruction reordering at compile time and save the transistors on the chip for more useful things.

When I see drivel like this, I tend to tune out the rest of the message, because it's clear the messenger doesn't know what he's talking about.

Having said that, the author of this manifesto probably has a valid point about the patent issues, though. I would have liked some more citations to back up these claims. Just because someone says these things are true doesn't mean they are. Lots of misinformation gets repeated ad nauseum until people believe it's true, when it really isn't. (Remember the old chestnut about video game consoles being sold at a loss? The truth is, few consoles have been sold at a loss. Of the few that started out being sold at a loss, most became profitable as the economics of mass production came into play. I believe the Xbox is the only current-generation console that's still losing money. The last PS2 redesign made Sony's system ultra-cheap to produce.)

Oh, here's another gem from this "manifesto":

Well... our PC's have hard drives and they still have load times. It's a little thing we like to call copy protection, keeping us from installing the game on the hard drive and passing it on to a friend (especially if said "friend" works the return counter at the store we bought the game from).

Ah, yes, load times in PC games are only the result of copy protection! How silly of me to think that it should actually take time for a non-trivial amount of data to be moved from a hard disk into system memory... I mean, seriously, this manifesto was written by someone with near-zero understanding of how hardware actually works, how computers work.

Cripes, I need a toothbrush for my eyeballs...