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Several Publishers Sued for Infringing 3D Patent
jok writes "According to a story on GameDaily, law firm McKool Smith is suing several publishers for infringing their patent on a "Method and Apparatus for Spherical Planning", filed in 1988. Among the companies being sued are several big names, such as Square Enix, Electronic Arts, Vivendi Universal, Sega."
I quote:
"Common sense says it's ridiculous, and from a moral standpoint it's outrageous," anonymous employee at major publisher.
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If that was in 1988, how much longer will that patent last?
Playing pornographics games during the day is evil! Play at night!
Does this mean I'm no longer allowed to play UT??
Have lawyers finally realized "why sue (and win) for others if we can do the same thing for ourselves"?
Now the middlemen are selling direct! You own a patent, you file a lawsuit, and you take all the profits^H^H^H^H^H^H^H compensation.
The article has mentioned enough "common sense" and "ridiculous" so I guess we have get the point.
What's interesting is why/how did a law firm get this patent? Did it 'invent' 3D on monitor, or did it purchased the patent from a third party? The patent's inventor is "Waller, William G. (Portland, OR)" but McKool Smith is claiming these 12 companies infringed on their (not their client's) patent.
Either way, it's going to get ugly because this is a law firm, it probably has all the resources and knowledge to do well in court, and we all know owner-operators usually work harder.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Because they seem to be the largest growth industry as of late. This is ridiculous, just like the Eolas patent.....Ben Franklin's descendants should try and patent electricity, it just might go through in the systems current state.
-or so you'd think
A few more such patents, and this will end up snowballing companies into realizing how futile their patents are.
Slowly, companies are beginning to realize that although they could make money suing people, they could also get sued by equally greedy asshats.
It's only a matter of time. You can only be so stupid.
should expire after 5 years. I am generally an advocate of patents for VERY SPECIFIC things that obviously required a lot of R&D, but lets face it, if you can't make money off a patent in 5 years, you are in the wrong industry........
Monstar L
Molyneux, I'm looking in your direction... but lots of games had spherical texture views of the gameworld, but they were usually just representing a simple rectangular map, like in SimEarth and StarControl II.
NT
So is this patent on Pi? or just on a technique for simulating depth, for prior art, do I need to pull up van gogh or dali? or just mario 1?
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Oh, no. No I don't dare to play more of GTA: San Andreas
uspto link
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Due to pending lawsuit.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
"...a method that uses a moving plane to show 3-D image..."
Sounds like the 2 1/2 D methods pioneered by ILM and used by nearly every compositing/post house on the planet.
Ruh-roh.
By the time it comes out the patent will be expired!
This sounds very similar to this.
Because of this litigation, we might see higher prices for video games. Video Games don't sell well for $50, they sell great for $20 dollars. Why am I willing to pay 50+ for a video game because of this lawsuit.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=/netah tml/srchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l= 50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=4734690.WKU.&OS=PN/4734690&RS=PN/ 4734690/
Before everyone starts going full steam.
"The patent is ridiculously broad. It's purely McKool Smith trying to make money. It's an abuse of the legal system"
McKool Smith? WTF kind of name is that for a law firm? Sounds like a shakedown scam operation from GTA:San Andreas.
And I hope that day comes sooner rather than later. This is about as asinine as suing others over "patenting" online coupons or graphical images. With every day I live, the more I despise lawyers. Vioxx lawsuits, personal injury attorneys, bogus technology patent lawsuits... It never ends. It's next to impossible to do business in this country anymore. Please, lord, make it stop!!
1) read slashdot story on "Method and Apparatus for Spherical Planning" 2) patent "Method and Apparatus for Cubic Planning" 3) wait 16 years 4) profit!!!
According to the filing, the patent is "Method and apparatus for spherical panning".
That doesn't use spheres. Sports games can just use a cube shaped ball.
My submission at 6am EST had more links & info.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
the patent in question
"The patent is ridiculously broad. It's purely McKool Smith trying to make money"
Actually, I don't want to waste my breath calling McKool Smith names. The big perpetrator here is the patent system and the patent offices who allows these general patents.
Underholdning.info
To give you an idea of where they are coming from, and it's purely money, here is the title of another article featuring McKool, Smith: Patent field yields high-tech gold"
I think that tells us that we will see more and more of this.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Does this mean the end of all those overused Matrix-style shots? I sure hope so.
For those who find it odd that a law firm would own such a patent, they don't. The editors managed to munge this somehow... a quick trip to the patent database here shows that th epatent is currently assigned to Tektronix, which makes a bit more sense. As an old, slowly dying company, Tektronix is doing what many companies do and seeking to "monetize their intellectual property assets", which unfortunately involves suing the living bejezus out of everyone in sight.
But more because of the tradition of letting the greenest coder figure out the camera positioning and 3D collision algorithms than because of patents.
Hopefully Fred J. McAwesome, Esq. will show up with some prior art on this.
Perhaps this will be what finally makes the general public take notice and demand patent reform. One-click shopping was just an inconvenience for web developers and offended only the well-informed. If they try and mess with the largest developers of neo-hollywood, to mess with the new supply of games to the general public... This could potentially get media attention, and a lot of it.
Haven't CAD programs like Autocad been out for years? I know Autodesk has been in business for over 20 years. Isn't this prior art?
Not to troll, but, couldn't this journalist have done a little more than just quote from one anonymous employee of a major publisher?
To quote the abstract from the USPTO page: "A graphics display terminal performs a pan operation with respect to a view motion center to effectuate spherical panning, thereby providing perspective and non-perspective views. Three dimensional instructions stored in terminal memory are re-transformed in accordance with a panned direction. Also a zoom feature is provided so that displayed images may be magnified as desired." Which makes it totally clear... NOT!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
What is claimed is:
1. A three-dimensional panning method comprising the steps of:
storing applied graphic information representing a three-dimensional object in a first three-dimensional coordinate modeling space;
defining a second three-dimensional coordinate space as a viewing space from which the object may be viewed, the viewing space being movable at a selected radial distance around a selected reference point in the modeling space;
inputting and storing further information including panning information specifying a position from which to view the object;
moving the viewing space to the specified position in response to the panning information, effecting a transform of the coordinates of the object to the viewing space and to a two-dimensional coordinate screen space; and
displaying a two-dimensional image of the transformed coordinates, providing a view of the object from the panned-to-position.
2. The method of claim 1 where the step of moving the viewing space includes the step of orienting said viewing space with respect to the object, by varying at least one of pitch, yaw, and roll attitudes of said viewing space.
3. The method of claim 1 where the step of inputting further information includes the step of identifying a center of projection relative to the specified view position.
4. The method of claim 1 where the step of inputting further information includes the step of specifying a radial distance at which the object may be viewed.
5. The method of claim 1 where the step of inputting further information includes the step of specifying viewing window size as a degree of magnification of the displayed image.
6. The method of claim 1 where the step of inputting further information includes the step of specifying one of parallel and perspective transforms.
7. Apparatus for performing a three-dimensional panning operation, comprising:
memory means for storing entered information including applied graphic and panning information and a control program, the graphic information representing a three-dimensional object in a first three-dimensional coodinate modeling space;
input means for entering information including panning information for panning to a selected position from which to view the object;
processing means coupled to the input and memory means, and responsive to the panning information and execution of the program, for defining a second three-dimensional coordinate space as a viewing space from which the object may be observed, and for moving the viewing space, a selected radial distance around a selected reference point in the modeling space, to the selected position, effecting a transform of the coordinates of the object to the viewing space and to a two-dimensional coordinate screen space; and
means for displaying a two-dimensional image of the transformed coordinates, providing a view of the object from the panned-to position.
8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the processing means includes a means for orienting the viewing space with respect to the object, by varying at least one of pitch, yaw, and roll attitudes of said viewing space.
9. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the input means includes a means for identifying a center of projection relative to the selected view position.
10. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the input mean includes a means for specifying a radial distance at which the object may be viewed.
11. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the input means includes a means for specifying a view window size as a degree of magnification of the displayed image.
12. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the input means includes a means for specifying one of parallel and perspective transforms.
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
a cube IS a sphere. There'll be a way for lawyers to wrest patent infringement out of cubes, too. I suppose Plato could claim prior art on his solids, though...
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
This is ridiculous.
I find the fact they're trying to claim the feasibility of patenting a, for computer graphics, very basic concept, nearly as amusing as the fact that they were allowed to patent it in the first place.
Having checked US Patent Database for the description of the said patent, I think I'll go ahead and patent... oh... 'Method of creating secondary colors by combining the three primary colors' ? The matter adressed by this patent is, IMVHO, not unique intelectual property - it describes a potential approach to a certain problem on an abstract plane, without describing practical solutions?
Disclaimer: I lack sufficient knowledge of legalese, so I might have missread and missinterpreted the patent description. However, my modesty prevents me from admitting I might be wrong.
'...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons...' Popular Mechanics, 03/49'
His last name is McKool and he's not a public awareness figure!?
i would make BILLIONS! is there a patent on thinking yet?
If that patent really has a leg to stand on, why not sue 3d app makers like Alias as well? Surely there's more profit that way...
Or are they counting on the game companies to simply settle?
So they threaten some smaller companies, some of those could give in, and settlements provide the ammo for going after bigger fish (sounds very much SCO tactics to me).
Maybe some of those big boys should step in and help with legal support for the small guys (eg. in a legal defense fund), so that this McKool firm has a hard time getting any settlements. That could also decrease the funds available to McKool to battle those big boys later on.
This patent seems to be on being able to "spherically pan", i.e., change the direction you are looking into, in a 3D graphics system. The claimed novelty, such as it is, isn't even that, it seems to be that the 3D models are "downloaded" and that the user can manipulate them "locally" within the 3D graphics "terminal".
The problems with this patent claim?
But, I think it is great when the "McKool Smith's" of this world go out and start sueing everybody in sight. As long as the patent system only harms the little inventor and small companies, nothing is going to happen. But when the big boys get inconvenienced by lawsuits, maybe things will change.
The thing we ought to, as responsible slashdotters, push on the USPTO is not even "prior art" as most of the crowd pushes on, but the "unobvious to one skilled in the art" clause. Anyone who deals with coordinate transforms - in physics, graphics, or whatever, would have come up with the use of matrix manipulations to view graphics information based on viewer position. The other half of this "invention" is manipulating the viewpoints in a manner which emulates reality - basically it's a patent for an interface which is the same as you or I walking around an object to get a different vantage point.
That aside, there is the issue that 3D graphics have been out in the mainstream for over 10 years and nobody brought this patent up. I hope they're going to lose on statute of limitations.
Perhaps we should draft and file a Friend of the Court brief?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
A graphics display terminal performs a pan operation with respect to a view motion center to effectuate spherical panning, thereby providing perspective and non-perspective views. Three dimensional instructions stored in terminal memory are re-transformed in accordance with a panned direction. Also a zoom feature is provided so that displayed images may be magnified as desired.
Is it me, or does it sound like they patented Bullet Time?
Also, can someone tell me exactly what this means?:
This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 633,156, filed July 20, 1984 and now abandoned.
In any case, if I were the judge I would throw this out. People have been panning like this for decades using mechanical cranes, circular railway tracks, and so forth. It's only natural that they would want to do this in a digital medium as well.
Among the companies being sued...Square Enix
Does anybody besides me think maybe Uematsu-san broke up with them for this reason?
Just a thought.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Atari ST, Amiga, and even C64 had some games that all had 3-D rendered environments... before 1989... All someone needs to do is dig up these games (I can't remember their names) and show the prior art. I think these lawyers will eventually lose their stupid patent infringement bullshit crap and they'll get beat up on by some other large nasty lawyers who are good at beating up stupid lawyers.
The patent.
It's only a matter of time before China finishes off the rest of the lot.
China's economy is booming precisely because they don't have any of this ridiculous patenting.
Once China has the upper hand, it could turn around, rifle through the patents, scoop up all the ones owned by anyone willing to sell them and launch an attack against the remaining copmanies with them.
Forget missles, baby! Here come the patent-wars!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
the patent itself details a method of panning which I have seen in movies long before the patent was filed. I would really like to see some prior art, but frankly I'm too lazy to search it out.
This patent is in fact majestic in my oppinion. It's written in such jibberish that I can't possibly imagine that the patent office let this one pass without further defination of terminology. The wording itself was chosen to work as a tremendous blanket.
From what I can read of the patent (I'm not a lawyer and I haven't had the time to completely review the patent in detail) it appears that they're describing a means for which a 3d model can be stored in memory (not clarifying format or volitile/non-volitile storage) and reprent the model from the perspective of a camera view. Controls may or may not be provided to allow interaction between the user and the camera and may/may not provide zooming.
Their patent literally covers nothing more than a wire frame viewer with yaw/pitch/roll/zoom controls. This is what I can read at least.
Now, I know for a fact that when I was in the 7th grade in 1988, I was already typing in a program that I found in the magazine Compute! which did exactly what this patent describes. I believe the article might have been as much as a year old, so if anyone has an archive of these magazines, I am sure tha prior art could be found there.
Also, I don't know whether or not a concept patent can be beaten with graphics from movies, but I have to assume that a person rotating a 3d model (on a 2d screen not a hologram, star wars doesn't count) was used as a special effect.
Anyone who can think of anything should help to present the prior art on this one. The claim itself is worse than ridiculos.
...whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
Patent fishing never works if you are too ambitious and go after the big bucks right out of the gate. How many examples of this have we seen here on /.?
Sue a couple of small fish. Get favorable court time first. Then go for the gold.
It's like the Vikings have said for ages - pillage first, then burn!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
These thieves have been stealing others hard work for years. Crush them and liberate the indy game business
Go go lunix yoda doll
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The patent itself seems legitimate enough (there's actually technical detail, there.. and I'm not certain how much was known or "obvious" about 3D graphics in the late '80s).. but waiting 16 years to file suit is simply ridiculous.
Isn't there some provision that says the patent holder must try to minimize damages? Or am I thinking of something else (trademark?)
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Bowyer, A. & Woodwark, J.R. (1983) A Programmer's Geometry Butterworths ISBN 0-408-01242-0
Toward the end of the book - the entire first claim is provided - all subroutines necessary for panning.
Hell - I even did my first 3d movie in tectronix 4010 escape sequences using them (moving around a cube - it looked like the cube was rotating except for the offset center).
I'm pretty sure that it described a number of ways of doing 3d-graphics, and I'm pretty sure it included software methods that match what their patent for a graphics terminal claims as a wonderful new idea.
http://www.mckoolsmith.com/pr_071603.html
To meet the growing demand for intellectual property work, the article notes that many litigation law firms hired patent specialists. In 2000, McKool Smith jumped ahead of the curve with the hiring of Gordon White, a 24-year veteran of intellectual property law who also holds a master's degree in electrical engineering. The Statesman describes Mr. White as "one of the godfathers of IP legal practice in Texas."
An EE? At a law firm? Does he read slashdot? Doesn't he know IP is evil?
I myself wrote software to do exactly what the patent describes, as early as 1982. Due to slower computers and graphics interfaces available at the time, I wasn't able to manipulate complex views such as video games have, but the principle was the same. My software displayed a perspective view of a 3 dimensional function, allowing panning, etc. It was unbearably slow if over 100 points were used.
I don't think any evidence of my old program still exists today, but surely somebody did and documented something similar in the early '80s, when we were first getting excited about computer graphics.
3D patent?
I think God already has the prior art on creating three dimensional objects.
I agree with the 5 year duration.
However, the USPTO pedency for softwrae cases is about 4-5 years. So, 99% of your patent time will be wasted in the PTO fighting for your patent.
Changing software patents to 5 years after issue, just leads to submarine patents.
In either case, you have the difficulty of defining what is a software patent and what isn't. How much hardware can be in a software claim before it isn't software anymore?
Because if we have a "one drop" rule, I am always adding some peice of HW to the claim, which will at least allow me to litigate the issue of SW claim.
So, just shortening the time period doesn't solve the problem.
I for one am glad that McKool Smith is aggressively pursuing those that would rip off McKool Smith's innovative technologies just to make a buck. Without this patent, McKool Smith would have never been able to develop innovative games such as... what? There are no games developed by McKool Smith? Surely with such an innovative technology McKool Smith would have been able to make *great* games. Alas, there are none, because McKool Smith is just a lawyer, not a game developer. This is good for McKool Smith, however, for a number of reasons. The first is that lawyers are the most powerful lobby in Congress. It's practically impossible to pass legislation that would cut down on dear McKool's profits. It's partially because of this that Litigation is the fastest growing industry in the United States. An industry with no product. An industry that lives by leeching from other industries. An industry whose growth, if left unchecked, will cripple our economy. An industry whose growth will remain unchecked, because of a virtual stranglehold on the political process in this country.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Well, actually, reading the claims, what they call "spherical panning" (it's not planning btw, there's an error in the article) is simply the fact of defining a camera position, relative to an object, using three angles, a distance, and a projection type.
They say it is done by going from one space to another. Well, it's called transformation, it's done by multiplying matrices. In fact, what they describe are the minimum math needed to display 3d on a computer screen.
It's way too broad. It's almost like they're patenting basic 3d math.
There are a some games that were released before 1988, like starglider and elite, that displayed wireframe 3d, and that had to apply what's claimed in the patent.
In fact, by 1988, a lot of things had already been done in the field of 3d computer graphics... And this patent is trying to protect the basic stuff that all these things had to do at some point to be able to render 3d stuff.
just how society benefits from IP??? Lawyers and their support systems don't count
What?
The more this happens to big companies, the more they might be inclined to seek changes to the software patent system.
... that Id Software is missing from the list.
And also any of the companies that develop the really serious quantum / particle physics and medical scan 3D data visualization software.
It's obvious that these guys just want to make a big scene.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
I was on a flight and sat next to a lawyer defending square enix. He was extremely tight lipped about it, but the fu**ing law firm that is suing Square Enix, bought that patent with the intention of suing for profit. They only recently purchased that patent. I nosily saw that he was trying to find 3D games that existed in the early 80's. What our society is missing are arena death sports like the Roman's, Aztecs, etc. had. Good for cleaning out the gene pool.
Favorite quote from the patent:
"A graphics display terminal performs a pan operation with respect to a view motion center to effectuate spherical panning, thereby providing perspective and non-perspective views."
Now I see why they call it an 'abstract'.
I have duke nukem 3d at home and that must be prior to their patent, or why didn't they enforce it sooner?
(A.C. and embarassed by it)
A) nice blanket statement. Becuase all lawyers are exactly the same. B) Just wait till you're accused of a crime you didn't commit. Murder, drug possession, hell, even speeding. Then we'll see who thinks lawyers suck.
There are bad lawyers like there are bad doctors, bad postmen, and bad engineers. Just because the bad ones are more visible does not mean they make up even a noticable minority. Do you hate all Palenstinians because a few choose to blow themselves up everyday?
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Or if you use an LCD screen:
A video display memory 24, which stores information in the form of a pixel bit map, receives the graphics data ultimately used for controlling the image on the CRT 28 during a raster scan.
Now wouldn't that be a bitch of an EULA:
By using this software you agree that you Computer System contains one or more of the following:
An AMD Central Processing Unit
A Non-CRT Monitor ;~)
My first thought was "why the hell would a LAW FIRM file patent relating to digital image processing"? My second thought was "why would they wait over 16 YEARS to defend their patent"?
Not only is the patent itself flimsy at best, the way it is being used is obviously exploitation. Have we all lost sight of why patents were established in the first place? I don't recall the intention was to STIFLE innovation and provide an avenue to generate a sudden, large revenue stream for the patent holder.
Was not the original intent of the patent system to provide incentive for inventors to develop and produce their invention? Wasn't the idea to provide a temporary period of protection to the inventor to establish himself in the market for his invention without getting ripped off by an unscrupulous competitor?
I think that if I am right then the patent system should be overhauled and be more restrictive--especially since it was built around the invention of physical devices. Not just in what is patented, but how patents are granted.
If there already isn't such a provision in place, the patent applicant should be required to demonstrate his intent to USE the information in his patent. Before a patent is granted, I think there must be an "invention sponsor"--either an organisation set up by the inventor himself or an initial licensee--that submits a business plan or similar evidence that the invention will be used and marketed. The patent then could be provisionally granted for a short term (5 years maybe?) and at the end of this term, if there is no progress then the patent is expired and cannot be renewed (though an inventor could start the filing process from scratch).
I think that even if this sounds harsh, lawyers and unscrupulous businessmen have demonstrated they cannot be trusted with an overly permissive patent system. It is an obvious perversion of the system when the patent holder is obviously not in a business related to the patent and has gone for years with no licensee or partner to apply the invention. If patent holders want a high-level of protection for their ideas, I don't think it is too much to ask for them to provide a high-level of detail as to their intent in applying the patent.
Reading the patent, which is obviously a bad patent as a) not inventive, b) it's obvious, c) it's trivial, d) it's too broad, e) plenty of prior art, but it describes a system of the camera moving around an object in a spherical fashion, which is the exact oposite of what happens in a game. If they had the guts, they should go after SGI, and anyone else who has written 3d modelling software, not games companies.
Not only should the patent be removed, but the companies involved should be fined for filing a bogus patent, and the law company disbarred for filing frivolous law suits.
Alternatively, they should win their cases, and this should me more evidence of the evil of software patents, and all software patents should therefore be removed. Rant over...
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
wasn't 88 about when ray tracing was just getting going? It took in the neighboorhood of 4 hours to render a single frame. 'Panning' was just repositioning the 'camera' between frames.
So what about the hundreds of 3D Amiga demos (and ST, c64, etc.) that used exactly that technology before 1988? There is a lot of published source code (and how-to guides) for those around. The patent is essentially an obvious re-implementation of something that already existed in published form way before the patent was applied for.
This whole notion of being able to patent something entirely for trapping the unwary should be made illegal.
I mean what the hell is a law firm doing with such a patent? Its blatant; they obviously don't have the technical expertise or desire to actually produce a product that uses this algorithm.
A law should be passed that if you patent something then don't actually market a product based on it within (say) 1 year, your patent gets revoked.
The US patent office (USPO) is killing innovation (and therefore the economy) in the US. Because of their failure to deny sweeping open-ended patents, nearly every possible new invention has already been stifled by some weaselly-worded patent by some lawyer with no intention to ever actually market a product.
Furthermore, because many existing patent-holders lock up ideas just stop other people innovating, the whole of American society is being held-back from technical advancement.
The rest of the world are not stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot in the same way, so are gaining market share over the US by bringing more innovative products to market better/faster than US companies can.
There are tons of EE's at law firms (how do you think EE patents get written? You have to have a science degree to take the patent bar). And yes, some of us read /.. And no, we don't "know" IP is evil. It's not evil, per se. Just some uses of it are. Are knives "evil?" Are hollow point bullets "evil?" No. They, like IP, are tools. They may be bad or good depending on the wielder. Just because _you_ disagree that IP benefits society does not mean that it doesn't.
It seems that either one of these would be prior art to this patent. In Stellar 7, I seems to remember that if yoy died, there would be a replay from the outside of your tank blowing up. That would take care of the two separate coordinates the patent is talking about.
Also, more obviously, with FlightSim, when the view is taken outside the Plane with the camera pointed at the plane. I don't think this was in the first few Flight Simulators, but I'm pretty sure it was before 1988. Flight Simulator started in 1979.
http://simflight.com/~fshistory/fsh/index.htm
I can't think of a better example of prior art.
m.mmm..myyy
The article talks about displaying 3D objects on a plane. Did they patent the planning or the planing part?
There's been 3D CG work in movies as far back as 1976, well over a decade before 1988. I'm pretty sure that static 3D imagery was around far sooner than that.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
How long has this supposed "patent infrigement" been going on? Its not like the games from these publishers that use 3-D are hidden from the public or anything. Why now?
Anyway, software patents have two big problems. The first one is that about 20 years is way too long time for a patent in information technology field. Another big problem is that software patents have to be obfuscated. Otherwise the patent would cover just one implementation. As a result, nobody can even explain what a patent really does or what it covers because a thorough explanation could also be an implementation of said patent. Especially, one cannot explain the patent with any machine readable language. Or it that's allowed, no open source developer never needs to mind about software patents. Because then we're just distributing the description of the patent and patents do not cover use of patent for personal use -- like using the description to build/compile the software, for example.
However... IANAL, obviously, and I do live in a country that doesn't yet have software patents, so what do I know?
Patent Law -- a system desigened by lawyers, for the lawyers.
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
If we could prove that in court, I think it would void their patent since they are NOT the inventors of the patented math method.
Actually they could be counter-sued for plagiarism!
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
It's an interesting read that demolishes Slashdot myths. Successful world traders tend to share certain values. You'll find english language links here to the Chinese law of copyright, trademark, etc.
Is direct X in breach? Is opengl in breach?
We could have a big problem all versions of microsoft windows could be breached. At least X11 does not depend on opengl to work ie longhaul does depend on direct X.
Question how big will the bill be for the infringment. Can microsoft take it. Linux can reason even if all extisting companys a nuked it can reform.
If there's one thing America needs, it's more lawyers. Can you imagine a world without lawyers?
-Lionel Hutz, "Marge In Chains"
Video clip of this
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Hey my sister is an attorney with McKool Smith... I'll have to call her and get the scoop.
Interesting factoid:
You might ask yourself, "what kind of name is McKool anyway?" It's not Irish, its Lebonese!
When he came to America years ago as a young man the immigration official spelled his name wrong... so he used the new spelling instead.
Hi all,
Just got this spam about two days ago.. Maybe it is related..
------------------
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My thougths exactly. If you don't understand that matrices part you migth want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_projection.
Copyright is not perpetual anywhere, and this is laid down in the US in the constitution IIRC.
In theory they last until 30/50/90 years after the author's death, although with extensions pushed through every time Steamboat Willie or That's All Right looks in danger of entering the public domain, the current limit is effectively forever -1day
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
That is you can choose to play it, but you've heard about the claim so you know and decided to continue using it without having your attorney and a qualified patent lawyer review the claim. Thats triple damages for intentional infringement. You could of course write to the law firm and ask for a patent license or go get some IP violation insurance for all this dangerous proprietary software.
Unfortunately it's probably only a matter of time before these kind of patent law companies adopt all the tricks that have been developed in a certain well known IBM case.
Alan
"Just because it's legal to abuse the patent system like this, that doesn't make it ethical. I think napalm is too light a punishment for parasite companies like McKool Smith."
We abuse the legal system as well when we try "Robin Hood" techniques against legitimate copyright holders (1).
(1) Make note that the law doesn't require that we like them, but simply that we follow the letter, if not the spirit of the law. It also gives us a legitimate way of changing the parts we don't like.
Inverse Sin has been patented, cease and decist doing trig homework.
.omega. degrees about the Y axis: ##EQU1## where OP is the distance between the center O of the circle and the start point P of the vector D, OR is the radius of the circle 11, and f(x) is a monotonically increasing function that satisfies the following conditions:
"
The axis of rotation is obtained from Equation 1 but rotated by
f(x)=0.degree. if x=0 (Equation 3)
f(x)=90.degree. if x=1
By way of specific example, f(x) can be:
f(x)=90*x (Equation 4)
The function f(x) is an interpolating function that allows the axis of rotation to lie on an arbitrary plane which intersects the Y axis. In essence, the function f(x) defines how the top hemisphere of a 3-D trackball is flattened into the reference circle C relative to the location of the axis of rotation. The function f(x) is analogous to projection mapping that a cartographer would use to map features of the earth onto a map.
"
I have a book on Interactive Computer Graphics, written by Newman and dated about 1973 and these techniques are described there.
The ISBN number is: 0-07-046337-9
That should provide sufficient prior art.
Euclid didn't work with analytic geometry, which associates numbers to points in space. You'd have to look to the Descartes estate for that.
And they're not suing CAD vendors because CAD vendors have a chance of being large enough to win by exhaustion.
Aww i posted that story like a whole 45mins before zonk :)
3D video game patent 2004-11-03 8:34 Rejected
I claim prior art!
"should expire after 5 years. I am generally an advocate of patents for VERY SPECIFIC things that obviously required a lot of R&D, but lets face it, if you can't make money off a patent in 5 years, you are in the wrong industry........"
1) What specific things and why those specific things? How does change affect the choice?
2) Why a lot of R&D? What about a little? Were do you draw the line? Did the telephone, or telegraph take enough R&D to satisfy you?
3) Movies can take many years from idea to final product. Why does the idea that patents doen't always fit an arbitrary time frame bother you so?
What about other "takes a long time" industries?
The owner of a Trademark is required to enforce it in a timely manner, and if it's not defended, it is lost. The plantiff has a legal responsability to mitigate the damages.
As an example, you you cut yourself on the hand on a sharp object in a store, but then don't take care of the wound, and it gets infected, and they end up having to amputate your hand, the store is not responsible for the loss of your hand.
The defendants should be able to point out to the Judge that the holder of a Patent took absolutly no action to prevent their so-call 'damages', were not dilligent in protecting their assets, did not notify the defendants in any way that they were potentially infringing, and therefore are wholly responsible for the result.
A preceedent exists in Common Law, called an 'easement'. For example, if a neighbors driveway cut across the corner of your property for the last 20 years, and it's the only way to their garage, you cannot build a fence to stop them from accessing their own property. If you allow someone to access your property long enough, you lose the right to bar them from it.
If the Plainiffs can show that they atteptment to enforce the patent prior to this then they should have a case, if not, it is clearly their own negligence that lead to their loss of property, and their own stockholders should sue them for not following their fiduciary responsability.
According to these links
9 &l it=1c ases.p df
http://www.fr.com/directory/directory.cfm?aid=4
http://www.stoel.com/Resources/Cases/patent
Ok 2 points here:
1.-The process they claim to have "patented" is not just used in 3d games is also commonly used in about every 3d engine (including apis like directx and opengl) and is also used in the hardware of "new" t&d capable 3d cards (nvidia, ati, matrox) . So basically any aplication that uses 3d (maya, 3dsmax, word, corel, etc) is in "infringement". (they could save a lot of time and just sue every single graphics software/hardware company in the world!)
2.-As stated in a previous thread by an slashdot member, this method existed LONG before computers where invented. It is used in carthesian math to create 3d-2d projections and therefore they DID NOT invented it! (if that can be proved the "patent" could be considered void)
Next case.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
[Use of the word "effectuate" whose dictionary status is disputed] makes the patent sound like it was written by George Bush.
If so, then our President would be right, as respected dictionaries confirm that to "effectuate" means to "bring about".
I did not vote for Kerry.
There does exist a doctrine of laches in patent law. A patent holder who harms an alleged infringer by delaying legal action cannot collect damages for infringements committed prior to serving the cease-and-desist notice.
"The thing we ought to, as responsible slashdotters, push on the USPTO is not even "prior art" as most of the crowd pushes on, but the "unobvious to one skilled in the art" clause. Anyone who deals with coordinate transforms - in physics, graphics, or whatever, would have come up with the use of matrix manipulations to view graphics information based on viewer position. The other half of this "invention" is manipulating the viewpoints in a manner which emulates reality - basically it's a patent for an interface which is the same as you or I walking around an object to get a different vantage point."
Obvious to whom? A lot of patents are multidiscipline affairs, and the person to whom something is "obvious" isn't even on your team.
Also things can be "obvious in hindsight" but not so at the time. Is the telegraph obvious? What about the telephone? The light bulb? The motor car?
"Other systems are available that recalculate a graphics image for each viewing frame, allowing considerable flexibility in movement of the image, but these systems are complex and expensive. "
Now, these systems are not so expensive! But... this statement implies that there is prior art.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
When will people (i.e. workers at the patent office) realize that you CANNOT patent an idea, you can only patent an IMPLEMENTATION of an idea. As applied to situations like this, it means you can patent a SPECIFIC ALGORITHM, not the idea behind the algorithm. This is the same problem we've been seing with other ridiculous patent claims lately.
Go HERE and tell the attorneys to leave our games alone. Maybe they'll back off if they hear some alternative points of view.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Sept 1984 issue of Byte magazine was themed COMPUTER GRAPHICS. One article was titled "REAL-TIME 3-D GRAPHICS FOR MICROCOMPUTERS" by Marcus Newton. A simplified drawing algorithm coded in assembly language permits 3-D animation in real time. Has full source code for use with CPM-86. Does spherical projection and full movement of the viewer and view direction.
Where do I get a McKool Video Card? Or how about a McKool video game? Or just a McKool demo?
Oh yeah, that's right - those fuckers didn't actually invent anything.
Let me update my list. Moving McKool to above SCO on list of people first against the wall when the revolution comes. At least SCO (even Caldera) actually published software.
I think there is a principal of terminal stupidity. At some point, too great a stupidity factor is probably going to lead to death (a Darwin award, if you will).
Thus, death=Luck-Stupidity, except really you've got another outside factor which can be fuzzy:
death=Luck-stupidity +/- stupidity-of-other-people (depending on whether the stupidity of others offsets or enhances your own stupidity).
Oh, and death here doesn't necessarily mean physical, it could be the death of a corporation, where cumulative stupidity is only offset by blind luck and the idiocy of their consumers...
The solution is simple. You must publish at application. Then there are no submarine patents.
From the link provided by parent - 'Method and apparatus for spherical PANNING'. Not PLANNING.
I uh... invented the circle shape. Im going to get me some money from all those schools that are using my invention as a teaching aid, then I m going after the kids.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/ 2316227&tid=204&tid=10
i think Maze Wars can be considered prior art to nullify their claim dont you think?
3d Algorithim == math. As we all know, you aren't allowed to patent math. But what would I know, I'm only an amature 3d programmer.
The patent should be summarily tossed out, and rabid weasles attached to the crotches of all involved. This isn't even close to being a legitimate patent in my book. Software not being math is a silly stand to take, and that looks like a lucid argument compaired to this.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Hmm, that's kinda funny; I don't seem Microsoft on their list...methinks their waiting to build up a larger legal precedent first before trying to taking on the last boss.
But still, even if they do manage to get all the way up to level 10 and square off against the giant 500 lb Gorilla himself...I don't seem them winning. If governments have trouble smacking it up, I really don't see these guys posing much of a threat to it.
I could be wrong, but this might be one of the few times where Microsoft is actually going to stand up for the industry...
Unless McKool Smith entered in the 30 life code....then were all b0rked!!
Why doesn't someone patent spyware? Then they can sue the pants off all the spyware makers. Vigilante Patent Justice.
and his famous projection of the spherical earth on a plane is prior art?
Oh well, what the hell...
The patent (particularly the last part, where the meat of it is) is constructed to cover pretty much any electronic representation of three dimensional geometry... basic geometric equations included!
Much of this stuff was most definitely in existence before 1988. I know without a doubt that the math was. Representing and manipulating it electronically is an obvious evolution (and I would have to say it was being done in the research community before this patent was filed).
Just a sampling (sounds like it came out of a graphics textbook):
1.to get a patent, you should be required to demonstrate what you are trying to patent (i.e. a prototype, working model or failing that complete blueprints). In the case of software patents, you would need to demonstrate working code for whatever it is (e.g. if its a compression algorithim, you would need to demonstrate an implementation that can compress/uncompress data)
This would eliminate a fair chunk of the "overbroad" patents that can be twisted to apply to many different things.
2.Do more to find Prior Art (and make it easier for anyone to submit prior art for an existing patent to get it invalidated). Also, have bigger penalties for patents that get invalidated by prior art (something sliding so big companies get hit much harder than backyard inventors)
3.give the USPTO more money so that they can do their job properly and remove the system where its finantially benifical to them to pass a patent vs failing it.
Together these 3 should get rid of most of the stupid patents...
Post photos, man!
This instead of beads, uses a display and reminds
the believer of his duty to pray. I am also planning
one for use with Muslim believers. Together the patents will get me most of the religious people.
Thinking about one for Hindu believers too.
Any comments ?
I've just read the patent, and it seems that for most of these companies (except Sega), the code that performs the patented process would be found in Microsoft's DirectX libraries.
Does these mean that Microsoft will indemnify them against any potential losses? I mean, Ballmer was going on about the need for users of open source technologies to acquire IP indemnification insurance, so presumably as MS users these people will be protected by MS, otherwise they'd need insurance too and Ballmer wuld have been takling crap, which is unimaginable, isn't it? Isn't it? Hello?
If they went after someone other than EA in the first round.
Firstly, many of you write too much. If you have so much to say, then write a white paper and provide a link.
My comment on the lawsuit is that it is silly and reminds me of SCO. If you get worked up about it, then you are just as silly.
Based upon a cursory look at the patent, I believe there is significant prior art dating back to the 60's when Ivan Sutherland was doing his work with HMDs and started Evans and Sutherland for flight simulation - and if that isn't a user at the center of a sphere, viewing out a virtual window, I don't know what is. Also the Atari Star Wars and Battlezone games (early 80s) and even my own game The Colony (1986-87) mentioned by The Register here: . Frankly, I am surprised that the USPTO granted this patent then. They were still somewhat reasonable and actually required proof of uniqueness, unlike today. If I were EA at al, I would not cave to this.
McKool Smith? Didn't I waste him last night in GTA?
You have to be inventive for a patent to stand up.
Someone please explain to me how the above is Troll? Off topic or redundant maybe, but troll? Really now.
A look at his posting history makes it clear that this is all he ever posts, and almost certainly the reason he signed up with that user name. While his intent probably was to get some funny-mods when he started, at the moment he's just annoying people/moderators who are aware of him. Since he doesn't stop doing it, but keeps annoying people and does nothing else, that would make him a troll.