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3D Games Patent Threatens Industry?
Castar writes "Recently Advanced Video Graphics (AVG) sued several game publishers for infringing on their patent on "Method and Apparatus for Spherical Panning". Since this affects almost every 3D video game, the International Game Developers Association sent out a call for prior art in their monthly newsletter. An industry lawyer has also done an overview of the issue here. I would think lots of CAD software produced before 1983 would invalidate the patent."
Who thought it would come to this frivilous nonsense... Ah well, I for one welcome our vague patent overlords!
My UID is prime... is yours?
Remember back when patents were used to stimulate researchg and development, rather than to emasculate it?
Neither do I, I'm only 22.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
is the world ending?
3d games not allowed?
what about open source 3d development tools?
graphical artists, 3d imagrey for movies to make them look cool?
Someone call PIXAR, those increadables can save us good.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Am I the only one who sees the need for patent reform? If such a thing was to come and change the patent system (I hope to GOD so in the near future), I think that patent reform should include diasllowing patents on things thant ANYBODY can do with ease, or generic items.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Defendants are Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Activision, Atari, THQ, Vivendi Universal, Sega of America, Square Enix, Tecmo, LucasArts, and Namco Hometek. Several of these defendants have joined together to mount a common (and very costly) defense.
well we can deal without EA, i hope the others are leaving them in the cold.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
Now SNK and Capcom can return to dominate the market. I bet those two had a hand in this with their secret society of fighting game developers.
For this patent, anything which existed publicly prior to July 20, 1984 would be considered prior art. Good luck.
Yes, that patent's mine. Now behold the satanic fumes, rising from planet Earth !~ Muahahahhaha
This is a weak submarine patent cash grab. Nothing to see here. Please disperse.
"Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold." -- Joseph Chilton Pearce
The movie Tron released in 1982 contains a shit load of 3D rendered stuff. They used existing products to render the 3D things, these products where commonly used to design technical things.
m l
One of the companies involved was MAGI Synthavision: http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/magi.ht
Does that qualify as prior art?
Should've still been linked in the blurb.
Rob
SGI hopefully has some prior art for this. There has to be others as well in the 3d industry who could kick this.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
It seems like they should be going after opengl & directx or the console & graphic card makers since that is where the 3d transformations actually occur.
And remember that, in most jurisdictions, you are violating this patent by just playing a 3D game, so if you carry on playing these sort of game you are a criminal.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
My solution is to start making the government pay damages when it grants a stupid and economically damaging patent. It could pay for said damages by with a special tax on patent lawyers.
A few years back I researched this very point for a client (I'm a programmer/math guy, not a laywer). We came up with prior art dating back to the 1800s (the very same technique was used in painting for "perspective lanterns" or some such). We turned over what we'd come up with to the lawyers, they wrote a letter, and we never heard from them again.
--MarkusQ
Way back in the day when I was in University, I seem to remember learning how to perform projections of 3-d stuff onto a plane.
I believe we used it in both Linear Algebra and in calculus.
Have they, effectively, patented the underlying mathematics that define such thing? That would be absurd.
The amount of prior art alone is staggering, let alone the entire branch of mathematics which gave it to us in the first place.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Retroactively chasing patents has been proven to not work. I doubt the 3D games industry will be challenged by this
Google for "acacia", they tried claiming a patent on streaming video and eventually failed, in a judges ruling which basically said that patent chasing can not be done.
Hopefully these moneygrabbers will be shot down ASAP
Business Voyeur
Whew! I'm glad I use quaternions in my code. No gimball lock there.
If you take it court, you can have the patent declared void.
If you cannot be bothered taking it to court, take your game industry overseas.
A patent is limited to the country it was issued.
Hehe quaternions :-)
But be careful not to allow "panning", since then you violate claim 1 of the patent. Basically you can have quaternions just allow you to have a sitting duck in 3D.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
What bothers me, perhaps the most, is that this is just one of the many examples where mathematics is applied to make an existing idea that much more compelling. The idea that concepts from mathematics can be ingrained into someone's private money-making scheme seems both non-sensical on the one-hand and a complete affront to science on the other. How can we as a society allow a mathematical transformation (which is a provable FACT) to become someone's private property?
We live in a day where the very nebulous concept of property rules every aspect of everyone's lives for the very limited benefit of those who purport to own said property. When this was limited to tangible goods it was still a regrettable but at least tolerable practice. The rather recent
"inventions" of patent and copyright have completely destroyed the merit of the conception of property, particularly in the context of the information age.
bah. Its like the singer said, "Don't worry -- if there's a hell below, we're all going to go."
For this patent, anything which existed publicly prior to July 20, 1984 would be considered prior art. Good luck.
Yes but keep in mind that in 1984 video game state of the art graphics consisted of things like how to code a better line or arc drawing routines in assembly language.
I have nothing at this point (I'm working outside the US at this moment, I don't even have my notes) but it shouldn't be to hard to dig up again. Pre-google (Alta-vista + brick & mortar library) search took about a day.
Here's what I recall off the top of my head:
- Pretty much every projection to/from a sphere is known art to cartographers, and has been for many decades. Look in a few old cartography books.
- Likewise, the math behind them (called projective geometry) is old hat. We found a projective geometry book from 1900 or so that spelled out the transform
- Artists in the 1800s or so used to do paintings (called anamorphoses, IIRC) that not only used the same tricks but for exactly the same purpose. It may go back much further, but (again, IIRC) the really compelling photos we found were from work in the mid 1800s.
Anyone who wants to is welcome to run with this, expand on it, and pass it on to anyone that it might help.--MarkusQ
P.S. One further thing I recall, the laywer asked them something like "could you please specify what your patent covers--it obviously can't be the mathematics, and it can't be the technique san math, so...?"
Looking at the patent, it was filed in 1987 and granted in 1988.
Obviously, my patent on "deriving patent age by subtracting current year from patent year" is preventing people from realizing that this patent is expired. Sorry guys.
29 Mar 1988 + 17 years = 29 Mar 2005
The patent expires on Tuesday.
The dog ate my
o great what's next? Someone saying he owns the rights of the word 3D?
$8.95/mo web hosting
... to find a connection from AVG to Microsoft! They probably want to hurt Sony to ensure the success of Xbox 2.
Flight Simulator for the Apple II and TRS-80 came out in 1980.
http://fshistory.simflightcom/fsh/index.htm (pops).
Battlezone was in the arcades in 1980.
m.mmm..myyy