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Sony Patents Matrix-Like Game Technology
howman writes "Reuters is reporting that Sony has been granted 2 patents, both describing 'Method and system for generating sensory data onto the human neural cortex'. These are patents 6,729,337 and 6,536,440. The patents go on to 'describe a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce sensory experiences such as smells, sounds and images'. The story was first broken by New Scientist magazine." Commentary also available via Ars Technica.
I'd keep an eye on Sony if I were you...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
So, any bets as to which pornographer Sony will be suing first? ;-)
Do you like German cars?
Looks like they are already working on the PS9, Hopefully they can reach the launch date of 2019.
I Can't wait to play that wipeout like game they had in the commercial!
moo.
At least with sound they don't have to stick a heavily wired icepick into my brain.
:}
See technology is already passing Sci-Fi up.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
... finally.
.de).
Now let us just hope that we ourselves do not conflict with any (coming) patent so that we can take full advantage.
More seriously (?):
Sony hasn't yet built a device that works based on the ideas presented in the patent, so this is all theoretical. In fact, according to the New Scientist, Sony hasn't even conducted any experiments to see if this works. Nonetheless, most of the reporting on this patent (see the Times Online and the original New Scientist peice) claim that some independent experts have said that the idea is plausible. There's no word yet on whether or not tinfoil will stop the ultrasonic brain rays.
Strange. I bet there are some among the crowd here who have "theoretical ideas" that level up with SONY. IIRC, in ancient times it was necessary to present a working model (at least here in
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
...that Sony can patent something not only which they have not implemented, but which they do not even yet know how to implement?
English is easier said than done.
You mean the first third is good, whilst the rest is shit?
Interesting patent idea.
Can someone enlighten me please.
How detailed, exact and 'can be done with the current technology'a patent claim has to be in order to get granted? I mean they can't implement these patents now, can they?
Can I just take say the teleporter and describe it as a commuting device that works by transforming matter into energy, beaming it and retransforming it back to get a patent for it?
...you're going to shoot what now? At my brain???!
I'll grant you, it's not really doing much else, so it could, in a pinch, substitute for a targetting dummy. However, as I am firmly attached to it, this seems like an idea who's time will never come.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I love how they've patented a method that is as of yet unimplementable. Regardless of who actually goes to the trouble of researching and spending the time prototyping an idea, patent holders usually get to skim off the cream, because, well.. we thought of it first.
Would some slashdotters please hurry up and patent AI, warp drive and/or superhuman genetic mutation please. Wait! better yet, patent methods for processing the new social security system on a computer! Then deny anyone the right to use it. That ought to make all the old trips on Capitol Hill wake up and notice!!
May the Maths Be with you!
'Elizabeth Boukis, spokeswoman for Sony Electronics, says the work is speculative. "There were not any experiments done," she says. "This particular patent was a prophetic invention. It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us." '
Hey - so it basically means that they do NOT have made an invention, but have a patent to get all the profit, when some real inventor makes it real 10 years later ?
This is ridiculous. Patents should be granted for novel implementations, not for ideas that someone might implement in future. The scientists that find a working solution should get the patent, not some lawyer who is just speculating on where technology might go.
The skull is well known for being a barrier almost impenetrable for ultrasound, it is only possible to use US imaging for certain areas accessible through foramen magnum (the big hole at the bottom) or more recently also through the thin bone at the sides.
I wonder how they manage to get it in and focus it.
Sounds very exciting though, I'll be glad to see it put to some sensible use. Focused neurostimulation to treat tremor associated with Parkinson's could be one (done by implanting electrodes today). Or treatment od epilepsy could be also one application.
Remember all the old "smell-o-vision" jokes? Insert your favorite one here.
The thing that scares me is how any new technology is used *badly* for the first three to five years. Force feedback was around for a good long time before anyone did anything sensible with it, and even stereo sound was heinously abused in the early days. I can just imagine the hideous misfeatures that will pop up with this.
And for the conspiracy theorists among us, Drs. Chaffee and Light in the UK supposedly had some limited success controlling the human brain with radio waves in the 30s. If either of those are cited in the patent application, we might want to steer clear of any game using this technology...
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
Because they want to be able to extract rents from whoever does make it possible for the next 20 years.
My only question is why didn't they submarine these suckers.
I can see it now.. walking past a McDonalds advertising sign and suddenly hearing that stupid jingle in my head and smelling and tasking Mickey D's Fries.. gonne be great to be bombarded with advertising like this.
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
1) Anyone ever read A.C. Clarke's "The Hammer of G-d" or "3001" - looks like Sony is working to make the "BrainMan" a reality! 2) From the discussion it seems like these patents may be subject to a (very rare) challenge on "usability" grounds. If the idea is only theoretical, how can they be said to have "reduced it to practice" in patent parlance?
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
Seeing goatse and tubgirl are bad enough. But, Smells??!
You'll need to be brainwashed just to feel clean after that.
In short, while Sony may have patented the technology, it will be a long time before we have UT2k4 on a neural link.
...the idea was that if you came up with a brilliant idea, but lacked the funds to invest in R&D, materials, production equipment, distribution model etc. etc., you could patent it and then get investors. Otherwise your "investors" could just run off with your idea and cash in.
That works quite well for items that are "non-intuitive". Where it does not work well are for items that are "intuitive" (yet probably not obvious), the technology is "coming", but there's no implementation yet.
For example, say I went out and patented creating CPUs with nanotechnology. Obviously, if it could be done it would be a hit. You expect the product to appear, so you patent it and wait for someone else to actually do it.
The real question is what part is there that is innovative, the idea or the implementation? Or maybe it is both? Patents have been made to protect ideas. But there's a whole chunk of "innovation" that it doesn't cover, or is directly in opposition to.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What happened to the times when you had to actually invent something before you could patent it?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
No, it was to give them a temporary monopoly since they (theoretically) spent all that time/money developing it - since it should not have been something that is plainly obvious from existing knowledge/technologies.
In fact, originally (in the US, from 1790) a model was required to demonstrate how it functioned, but that requirement was removed in 1870.
I would argue that maybe you don't have to actually build one, but you need to throw down a lot of proof that you know it could work, and if things don't work out that way then you haven't yet patented whatever you've just created, and you need to patent the proper method.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
Maybe I'm stating the obvious here, but this is a perfect example of why the current patent system needs to be reworked, or tightened up at the very least. If SONY's patent on this technology is actually upheld and valid, then this absolutely discourages innovation.
Why should some engineer or company try to actually make the proposed design work? As soon as they do, they lose the invention to SONY, who didn't do anything. By owning a patent on something that doesn't yet exist, they make it unlikely that the thing will ever be invented. Only SONY would have any incentive to develop this technology.
The only possible upshot is that if silly companies patent far-fetched ideas too early, then the patent might be running out exactly at the time when it is becoming technically feasible to build the damn thing. Then again, this would probably prompt court fights for extension of the patent (but your honour, we are only now starting to be able to make money off of the mistake we made years ago...).
Have you read the patent?
Sony hasn't yet built a device that works based on the ideas presented in the patent, so this is all theoretical. In fact, according to the New Scientist, Sony hasn't even conducted any experiments to see if this works.
So, they've got a patent on something that they not only haven't built, but that they have no particular evidence could even work at all?
I'm starting to wonder what you'd have to throw together to get rejected by the patent office at this point. "Um, yeah, I think that, like, maybe you could make someone remember something by, you know, setting up a magnetic field around a specific part of their brain. Sounds like it could work, right? Can I have a patent?"
Obviously I'm wrong but however...
if someone patents an idea he cannot realize but is based on some form of fiction (i.e. Matrix), couldn't that fiction be considered "prior art" and make that patent invalid?
If it works at all, there could be hazards, especially as this is not envisioned as something done for a few minutes as with a diagnostic ultrasound, but for hours on end, day after day. It might be worth the risk to address a medical problem with vision or hearing, but entertainment is another matter.
There are known mechanisms by which excessive neural activity can potentially result in damage.
I'm not going to line up to be the first to try this new technology. The prudent thing to do would be to wait ten or twenty years and see if the early adopters start turning up with dementia or stroke.
By the way, researchers are already achieving interesting effects with transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is much further along, experimentally speaking. Indeed, some scientific equipment companies are selling ready-made devices for this purpose. At least it really does do something, although I haven't seen any practical (as opposed to research) applications.
The typical business modle of the day was:
1. Build untill broke
2. Secure funding (Protected by non-disclosure agreements)
3. Patent
4. Build.
Patents were intended to protect you from having your device stolen AFTER you go into full production.
When your entering into an agreement with individuals a non-disclosure agreement is more binding, more effective and easier to get.
With shrinkwrap liccensing I'm supprised people haven't attempted a shrinkwrap non-disclosure.
I don't actually exist.
You watch -- it'll be used for porn and spam injected directly into your brain -- and I barely have room left for the voices.
Ian Ameline
Could somebody patent the act of patenting and put an end to this? Or patent the act of suing people for all possible future patents? I am sure that if things like the one in the story can be patented you should be able to work out a paradox and halt the system.
You seem to have a poor understanding of what prior art is. Don't feel bad; most people do. Prior art is a previously existing technology which has been publicly available at the time that an invention was made (either through published papers or through being sold in the marketplace). Prior art (much like patents) inherently involves a description of how to do something, not just the idea of doing it. The Matrix details nothing about exactly how it works, and the idea is nowhere near original to the Matrix anyway (with plenty of precedent in the sci-fi subgenre known as cyberpunk).
Furthermore, even if it did matter, the version in the Matrix uses direct insertion of a probe into the brain, presumably to directly electrically stimulate it. This method uses sonic pulses (and probably can't actually be made to work with the necessary precision). There is more than enough difference in the design to matter for separate patentability.
Remember the story about Sony losing the lawsuit over the DualShock controller to Immersion? If you read the comments, you might've come across the fact that Nintendo doesn't have to worry about Immersion's patents. While Immersion patented attaching an unbalanced weight to a spinning motor for creating vibration in a controller, Nintendo patented building an unbalanced weight into a spinning motor to create vibration in a controller. This subtle difference is all that was needed to make these separate inventions.
No, if sonic stimulation could ever work, this is a good enough patent to place a land grab on it. It's a novel method of neural stimulation with no precedent that I'm aware, and even if there is, it's unlikely that anyone has tried to use it to enhance a game yet. This sounds pretty solid to me. It does open up the field for other patents about how to actually get sonic neural stimulation to work, but if it ever does, Sony has a claim to using it in a game.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
That's not quite right. The original purpose of patents was for greedy monarchs to enrich themselves by granting monopolies in return for bribes. This was eventually getting out of hand and had a negative impact on economies in Europe. In 1610 King James I of Britain abandoned the system of favourist patents and introduced a new law by which patents were only to be granted for inventions deemed to be in the public interest, only to the first inventor and strictly limited to 14 years. This was the birth of the modern patent system.
The duration was eventually extended to 20 years as it remains today, but there was never any requirement to provide a prototype nor was the idea to aid fund raising for a prototype.
Instead, the patent system is based on the concept of a bargain between the public interest and an inventor. The bargain is for the inventor to receive a time limited monopoly in return for not keeping his invention secret and have it published. In fact, when the patent expires after 20 years, the invention become public domain.
It does not matter whether the invention actually works or not. The public interest is served by the disclosure of the invention. Any such disclosure will enrich the public domain, which is the only reason why a patent is granted in the first place.
If the invention is flawed and doesn't work, in most cases, there is still something to be learned from its disclosure for others to fix the flaw or not make the same mistake and instead come up with a better idea. This is what enrichment of the public domain is all about.
Consequently, it doesn't matter if an invention works or not. If there was any such requirement as to produce a working prototype, it would actually limit the enrichment of the public domain.
What is far more important is that the rules of patentability, ie novelty and non-obviousness are strictly enforced. Too many patent applications for inventions which are not novel or which are obvious get rubberstamped these days. That is where the problem of the patent system lies today.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
It appears Sony is trying to patent sensory input from the nerve while having done zero research into the field.
Yet there is a large amount of existing research into the field. Right now most of the practical application is in the area of receaving signals from the brain but the cochlear implants that restore hearing an the cybernetic eye that restores vision are practical examples of sending sensory data back to the brain.
I'm not sure how far we are on the other sensory inputs but I guess that dosen't matter anymore becouse all research will have to be scraped leaving Sony to start pritty much from scrap to redo the decades of research already done.
All becouse Sony got the patent.
Good luck Sony.. None of the researchers working on this field for over 20 years now will ever speak with you let alone share notes.
To Sony it's just theoretical ideas to many reseachers in the medical industry it's science and to some degree a pratical reality.
This is a grand example of abusing the patent office and an ideal example of a patent that should have never been issued.
I don't actually exist.
Never mind a few fatalities, what about the volume of users going blind from all of the Porn and ummmm resulting activities?
Homer: Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!
The requirements for patentability are simple ...
1) the invention has to be novel
2) the invention must not be ovious, there has to be an inventive step
3) the specification has to be detailed enough for persons skilled in the art to carry out the invention, that is to say, build the apparatus
These requirements are perfectly sufficient if they are properly enforced.
requirement 1 means, no patent is to be granted if there is prior art
requirement 2 means, no patent is to be granted for something that is obvious
requirement 3 means, no patent is to be granted for concepts or ideas, nor for applications that are too fuzzy to be pinned down to an actual implementation
The problem with the patent system today is that the patent offices are hopelessly understaffed to ensure that these requirements are actually enforced and consequently there are too many patents which are not novel, obvious or fuzzy or any combination thereof.
If a requirement to produce a working prototype was introduced, it would make things even worse because the already overworked patent examiners would now also have to examine the prototype and there would likely follow a tendency to grant any application as long as the prototype appears to do what the specification says it does. The result would be even more non-novel and obvious patents.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
1 file the last document,
2 get the patent, and
3 profit!
This workked so well because until that last document was filed, the patent number wasn't issued, making submarine patents all but impossible to look up.
Now the patent lifespan is 3 years longer, but the clock and the visibility of the patent starts as soon as the first document is filed.
I am a Neuroscientist.
There is no way in God's Green Earth that you can transnsmit a meaningful signal to the brain wirelessly through the skull. They even say it themselves in the article that you can't even target *groups* of neurons.
It's about the laws of physics. The fields just spread too much to allow you to target neurons.
Maybe with vast (!!!!) improvements in technology, we could selectively activate a region of the brain, making someone feel a particular way (happy, sad, horny, religious), but it would be sloppy, dangerous and need to be tuned to a particular individual.
Under NO conceivable circumstances within the universe that we currently live could you uninvasively transmit any detailed information, through the skull as the article (and presumably the patent) implies.
The Matrix stories didn't "steal" ideas any more than other Arthurian and messiah stories past or present.
What the Wachowski brothers did well is the depth and detail of the story. Why the name "Thomas Anderson" (Neo's pod name) for instance? It was not just picked. "Anderson" is from the Greek andreas, meaning man. Put it together and you have "son of Man" (an name given to Jesus Christ)--an allusion to Neo's messianic destiny. "Thomas" is an allusion to "doubting Thomas", a disciple that would not believe Jesus' return until he saw and touched Christ's wounds himself--just as a doubting Neo touched his own wounds from the shots from Smith in "Matrix" before he "died" and returned with full awareness as the One.
Treat a movie like a burger and all you'll get is a burger. Seek a story and you'll usually find one. (OK, except "Battlefield Earth", which stank on ice.) Try out some depth, just for fun.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
1) the invention has to be novel ...
2) the invention must not be ovious, there has to be an inventive step
3) the specification has to be detailed enough for persons skilled in the art to carry out the invention, that is to say, build the apparatus
The problem with the patent system today is that the patent offices are hopelessly understaffed...
I don't think that failing to notice that 1/3 of the required elements is entirely missing can be brushed off as understaffing. Not finding some obscure prior art -- okay, it happens, though I don't think they're really trying all that hard. Questions of the invention being inobvious are often open to argument, especially after you've already seen the invention and had a chance to say "oh, yeah, I coulda done that." But failing to notice that there's not anything that even pretends to be an actual physical apparatus or any idea how to design one? Sorry -- that's incompetence.
Which is very sweet and all, but I am finding it hard to accept that the patent office didn't tell them to go away and come back with a little more than a hunch.
I work with ultrasound imaging systems. There is a reason the brain is currently one of the organs that is not typically imaged with ultrasound. Bone significantly attenuates ultrasound and messes with the phase relationship between elements in the transducer array, so a) its tough to get enough signal in and out of the brain (while still staying withing FDA limits of what's acceptable), and b) its difficult to focus the beam to the area of the brain we are interested in. There are several research efforts to image the brain with ultrasound, and the approach taken is usually through the temple because the bone is thin there but the above problems still limit imaging ability. There are no easy fixes to these problems.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but any invention can only be patented once.
We should set up a charity to patent these sorts of "prophetic" inventions, so that when the day comes that they can actually be implemented the patents will have expired and the technology will be free of any restrictive licensing.
I suggest these as starters:
Cold Fusion
Teleporters
Personal laser weapons
Warp drives
Jump gates
Nanobot based immune systems
This sounds more like the S.C.U.I.D. device from Strange Days than from anything from The Matrix
imdb linkage: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/
I've seen this before many times on TV where it's actually been done in a lab. So they've patented experiments other people have already done?
The History Channel had a show on UFOs where they used techniques excatly like this to show that various magnetic fields on the brain can induce strange hallucinations.
Wheres my "Woman in the red dress"???
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
As far as feeding my neural cortex with sensory information, my body parts do a good job of that.
I'll volunteer my sexual organs as prior art.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
You are absolutely correct. This concept is called "constructive reduction to practice". There are several ways of satisfying this concept, most preferably being a US patent application that complies with 35 U.S.C. 112. Other examples that would typically be accepted as constructive reduction to practice would be blue prints for a machine, source code for a software related invention, or the lab procedure to make a chemical compound.
Many people who don't work around patents get caught up in whether or not "a person of ordinary skill in the art" actually could make and use the invention as disclosed in a patent application. Unfortunately for their arguments, this is an almost trivial condition to meet. If a person of ordinary skill in the art swears in an affidavit that he could reasonably make and use the invention, that's pretty much where this inquiry ends. Neither the courts nor the USPTO are interested in "Nuh-uh, Uh-huh" arguments about whether or not the patent application is fubared.
The patent holder, on the other hand, does. If you try to litigate with a patent for insanity, the defense will tear you apart. You might be able to GET a patent with a silly affidavit, but you won't be able to ENFORCE it very well.
In this case, it appears that Sony has disclosed an apparatus and claimed the method of using it. NOWHERE is it guaranteed to work well, which is one of the safest patents to issue. If it doesn't work well, the chances are REALLY slim that anybody is going to infringe it. This isn't legal analysis, but it looks to me like Sony has paid the USPTO to provide them with some really expensive wallpaper.
Because it is no longer feasible to do so. Patent applications are published within 18 months of filing as Pre-Grant Publications, a policy adopted as part of international patent harmonization in compliance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
It is possible to request nonpublication for a US national stage patent application, however this request must be rescinded if you intend to pursue patent protection in another country. In this age of global economies, very few companies in the electronics field consider it sensible to achieve patent protection in one country, therefore they cannot reasonably prevent their patent applications from being published.
In summary, it is no longer possible to submarine a patent application unless you restrict the patent protection to a single PCT participating country. I would consider this relatively well known and required knowledge to have a meaningful discussion about the US patent system. No personal offense intended, but I would have moderated your post as overrated had I the points today.
[sung, of course, to the Brady Bunch theme]
Microsoft today acquired a patent on time travel. Commenting on this development, Steve Balmer had this to say: "We don't know how to do it, but I'll be damned if I let someone else get credit when they figure it out. We had the idea first." Also, a patent for the flying car has been issued to General Motors. Company officials obtained the patent amid concerns that someone else might be able to develop the technology first, and then how would GM make money on it?
Seriously, this is just another example of why the patent office should be eliminated in favor of private licensing agreements, contracts, and NDAs. Let the company worry about enforcing their IP rights, which has the added benefit of preventing them from "protecting" IP they don't have.
Indeed.
In my opinion, US congress is overstepping their authority by extending the duration of those copyrights over and over again because the US constitution clearly says "for limited times". Extending that limit everytime it is about to expire constitutes for all practical purposes a perpetual copyright and thus goes against the spirit of the US constitution.
Not only that, but extending anything retroactively is pretty much without any parallel in legal matters.
If any of us was trying to be such a smart ass in court, no judge would go along with that. In fact, the chance is we would be held in contempt of the court for even trying.
In terms of copyright we are basically still in a period the patent system was in the 16th century when the issuing of perpetual letters of patent got so much out of hand that King James I replaced it for a strictly 14 years only system.
The duration did eventually get extended to 20 years and 25 years for pharmaceutical patents (because of the long time it takes to get approval for drugs) but it seems everybody has learned the lesson history teaches us.
I believe that at some point the same will happen to copyrights. It will become so ridiculous that a modern King James I will step in eventually and make a clean sweep where copyrights will strictly be limited to -say- 20 or 25 years without any possibility to extend. Not sure whether this will happen in our lifetime though.
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Scarrrrey...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Iam SO thinking of putting in an application for a patent for a device (shaped like a beanie and uses lots of tinfoil) that nullifies ultrasonic waves directed to the brain. Base it on noise cancelling technology or something similar.
Hey it *must* be plausible because there's a patent for soney's device right??
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
but now im a little suspicious
i always wondered what that expansion brain slot was for...
this sig has been discontinued.
There is no patent...
If you are allowed to patent pure speculation, doesn't that mean science fiction novels may constitute prior art? In that case, there is abundant prior art, I would say.
Really, the US patent system is ridiculous. Please let us Europeans be spared this nonsense.