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Domain: patentarcade.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to patentarcade.com.

Comments · 11

  1. Re:Dark side? by cgenman · · Score: 1 · on The Dark Side of the Tech Patent Wars

    1. The sound patent bumps into a bit of an ugly area that I have a history with. I'll just say to search for Konami based patents. And if you're working in this area, Harmonix and Activision too.
    2. Crazy Taxi arrow patent - U.S. Patent 6200138. And yes, they've upheld this one over and over again.
    3. The haptic patent is from Immersion, which covers vibration based feedback. There are some strange limitations and extensions here, (nintendo has a different vibration feedback patent, for example) so if this is your issue you might want to get a skilled lawyer and engineer in a room together. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony.
    4. This is a KOEI patent. http://www.patentarcade.com/2007/07/patent-us-pat-no-6729954-attack-power.html.
    5. Cloud-based gaming patent. http://www.shacknews.com/article/66833/onlive-claims-patent-for-cloud.

    I am not a lawyer. From my interactions with lots of patent lawyers, even they don't quite understand this stuff, so expect weird / odd / contradictory interpretations. In short, if you're not going to go to the expense of a head-on attack to get one of these invalidated, and you don't have patents of your own that you can use as counterfire, stay the hell away from anything patented.

    I will also say, that these represent a very small fraction of the game-related patents out there. There are many, and many of them cover pretty mundane things. I believe Sony, for example, had a patent on feeding a camera's direct signal into a game world. And, of course, Namco has a patent on playing minigames while waiting for the main game to load (Ridge Racer). It's silly / crazy the stuff that has been patented.

  2. Re:trademark not copyright by mattack2 · · Score: 1 · on Avoiding DMCA Woes As an Indy Game Developer?

    You're wrong.

    http://www.patentarcade.com/2005/04/case-atari-v-north-american-phillips.html

  3. Re:You overestimate interchangeability by tepples · · Score: 1 · on GaiKai Beta To Start In Europe "Later This Month"

    But the key thing is that there's nothing stopping a developer from making a direct competitor to these games.

    I can think of two things:

    • Small businesses can't get licensed to develop for consoles in the first place, and PCs aren't ideal for some genres.
    • Medium businesses lack the legal budget to defend against copyright lawsuits, whether or not they have merit. Look at what The Tetris Company continues to do against publishers of other puzzle games that use shapes made of four squares.

    The fact that they haven't done so simply suggest that nobody believes strongly enough in a market for such a game.

    In other words, you're saying a given genre might be a natural monopoly.

  4. Re:Copyright law? by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative · on Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open

    How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation?

    Ask The Tetris Company. It thinks it owns the exclusive right to make video games that incorporate falling shapes made of four square segments.

  5. Tetris is not for Linux by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative · on Why Linux Is Not Yet Ready For the Desktop

    The vast majority of desktop computer users is happy with Minesweeper, Solitaire and Tetris.

    The Tetris Company has never put out a product for Linux, except possibly the browser-based Tetris Friends. And it alleges that workalikes such as Lockjaw and Gnometris violate its copyright, though this US Copyright Office document makes Tetris's claims look flimsy.

  6. Atari v. Philips, or Lotus v. Borland? by tepples · · Score: 1 · on Olympic Web Site Features Pirated Content

    See also: KC Munchkin.

    You keep repeating that title. You're talking about Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982). The First Circuit looked at a similar case, Lotus Development Corporation v. Borland International, Inc., and found the opposite: a process was not subject to copyright. This caused a split between circuits, which the Supreme Court resolved in Lotus v. Borland, 516 U.S. 233 (1995). Does Lotus, which was decided later in a higher court, overturn the precedent of Atari?

    And does anybody know of parallel cases under Chinese law?

  7. Re:Booo! by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1 · on Nintendo Cracks Down on Copying Devices

    And personal backups of your own media so that you don't have to buy a new copy when your friend/pet/child/"significant other" scratches it.

    While I agree on the Wii discs, the truth of the matter is that it is probably illegal to backup DS chips. According to the decision of Atari v. JS&A, backups are only authorized when they're necessary to protect against "mechanical or electrical failure" of the cartridge. Given that DS media is similarly sturdy, a US court would be likely to rule in the same manner.

    However, the question that remains is: Do these chips have other legal uses? In the case of DS games, that somewhat depends on whether or not these chips are the ones used by homebrewers. If they are, then you have a significant legal use right there. (This was a defense that JS&A attempted, but was unsuccessful as console homebrew communities did not really exist back in the '80s.) If homebrewers use a different set of chips, then I'm afraid that our HK friends have no real legal leg to stand on here in the US, either.
  8. It was the Canadian Red Cross back in Jan 2006 by DigitalReverend · · Score: 1 · on American Red Cross Sued For Using a Red Cross

    There are a couple of places that mention it:
    http://www.patentarcade.com/2006/02/news-red-cross -enforces-trademark.html
    http://www.davis.ca/en/blog/Video-Game-Law/2006/01 /30/ARE-YOU-USING-THE-RED-CROSS-SYMBOL-IN-YOUR-GAM ES

    Here's an internet archive of the letter mentioned in the blogs in pdf format: http://web.archive.org/web/20060206213819/http://w ww.davis.ca/community/blogs/video_games/files/red_ cross_letter.pdf

    I have also found the link for the Red Cross Emblem Brochure that for some reason doesn't seem to work in the pdf:
    http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000340&tid=0 19

  9. Re:17 USC 117; nine non-Exidy ROM sets by djrosen · · Score: 1 · on Project Arcade

    In the US this was decided back in 1983 when the Atarti 2600 was all the rave.

    http://www.patentarcade.com/2005/04/case-atari-v-j sa-c-nd-ill-1983.html

    And I know how much we love the wiki around here so....

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROM_image#Legal_statu s_of_ROMs

  10. Re:Original carts by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Informative · on Virtual Console Offers 100 Games, 4.7 Million Sold

    Making a copy for use and keeping the original as a backup is legal.

    This is not strictly true. The decision in the Atari v. JS&A case was that cartridges were not susceptible to accidental damage in the same way that magnetic media was. As a result, there was no need for an archival copy of the software.

    A modern judge might see things different given the age of many cartridges, but you should be aware that they are currently NOT covered under the "archival" clause. (Now if only Nintendo would figure out that CDs/DVDs *are* volatile media and stop printing that stupid "backups are not authorized" warning in their manuals.)
  11. Re:In today's world... by snuf23 · · Score: 1 · on Mechanics That Changed Gameplay Forever

    Do you honestly think this type of patenting didn't happen back in the '70s and '80s with Atari and the like?
    Take a look at this page and scroll down to the section on Magnavox vs Atari regarding patents over Pong. Magnavox went on to sue Activision over this patent as well.
    There have been lots of these types of patent lawsuits since the beginning of the video game industry.