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Creative Pressures id Software With Patents
Cryect writes "Earlier today it was announced by Creative that they would be adding in EAX 3D sound support to Doom 3, and that they had come to an 'agreement relating to Creative's patented shadowing technique [also known as Carmack's Reverse in some coding circles] and id's cutting-edge 3D graphics DOOM 3 engine.' This seemed somewhat suspicious, almost as if id was being pressured, and a quick email to John Carmack from Reverend @ Beyond3d got this reply: 'The patent situation well and truly sucks... It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3DLabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users...' There's also some possible prior art [PPT link] to Creative Labs' patent, from a 1999 talk by Nvidia's Sim Dietrich."
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
iD has in the past ripped out sound code that was licensed from 3rd parties. Or John has quickly put something else together that will work to replace 3rd party code.
This was done w/ Doom.
For something other than another patent to be considered prior art, you must look at 35 USC 102(a)-
a person shall be entitled to a patent unless -
(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for a patent.
It is difficult to prove "known", however the talk could be considered a printed publication if it was readily accessable to the public. A paper which is orally presented in a forum open to all interested persons constitutes a "printed publication" if written copies are freely disseminated. Massachusetts Institute of Technology v. AB Fortia, 774 F.2d 1104, 1109. Also see MPEP 2128,2132
"There is no "OpenGL" of 3D audio because Creative owns all of the patents from its acquisition of companies like Aureal and Sensaura."
OpenAL? http://www.openal.org/
----- "Blame the guy who doesn't speak English." -- Homer J. Simpson
Describing it in public before the patent application date is not prior art per se. IANL, but for it to be public I am pretty sure one has to show that it was public before the date of invention - which can preceed the date of filing by many years.
Besides, if he codes a technique before someone patents it then any future patent would be invalid due to his prior art.
If they filed for the patent within one year of the release of the technique, then they could patent it. Yes, with our system, someone can invent something, decide not to patent it in order to let others use it, someone else can see the invention, patent it, and force the original inventor to pay to use it.
Learn to love Alaska
I deal with the same problem. I have an Audigy Deluxe, and an older driver disc (doesn't have drivers for Windows XP on it) -- if I just install the card, and go to Creative's "Auto Update", it wants to only install the bare minimum drivers. No options to install the other apps (taskbar/remote control/speaker setup/etc.) -- what the crap?
Also, digging around the site, if you do find one of those other programs to download.. when you try to run them, they say they can't find an older version to update and force you to quit.
As for normalization, I wouldn't leave that up to your soundcard. Use a decent audio player like FooBar2000, and set replaygain levels on your tracks. Enjoy the stability.
Or, if you want, buy the OctiMax plugin for Winamp2/5.. it's a multiband compressor/limiter, and does a pretty good job at keeping things steady. I use it for radio broadcasts, or LAN parties.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
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