Slashdot Mirror
Are Video Game Patents Next?
MarcOiL writes "Gamasutra is running an article titled It's Just a Game, Right? Top Mythconceptions on Patent Protection of Video Games where two IP lawyers try to convince the videogame industry of patenting everything in sight: ideas, technical contributions, etc. They show as an example a Microsoft patent on Scoring based upon goals achieved and subjective elements. They also have created a weblog, The Patent Arcade, to promote their business. Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?"
I would imagine any D&D would be prior art in a general games category? MSoft wasn't exactly the first company to get into games. I'm not sure how they can get a pantent on how points are awarded. Any D&D DM has subjective power to award points, and MS didn't exactly put D&D out there.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
You mean until EA starts patenting everything in sight.
Note: I don't agree with software or videogame patents, because I think they screw the consumer in the end by providing a crappy product, at likely a high price. But still, that last sentence made no sense.
Patents are provided to people of the United States (and other countries) to hold a 'temporary monopoly' on a product or idea. They are used to encourage developers to create things without their ideas being stolen. This enhances the level of development in the country as a whole, and is good for our economy and society.
However, video games don't give back the same benefits as say, food, energy and transportation. A fellow programmer once said to me "What if someone had a patent on the First Person Shooter?" Imagine how dead development would be in the video game genre!
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Patents are a bad thing. I fully agree with John Carmack on that and I applaud him for releasing all his engines for free.
Surely there's oodles of prior art back on the old 8-bits?
I fondly remember invaderload on Alpha Centauri!
No, you'll just have one company making 50 incarnations of the same goddamn game, and no motivation to change that.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?
I didn't realize we still had innovation. I thought we had three or four basic games with improving graphics, different controls and the same generic UI. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a lot of the games out there nowadays. But I haven't seen something real innovative in a while.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Who gives a shit about prior art? What if the concept really is original? Do they deserve to sit on it and squeeze everyone else for 20 fucking years for it?
This sort of thing needs to stop NOW. Game companies that take out patents need to be boycotted when the word gets out to gaming fan sites, existing disks need to be returned to them in pieces.
But it won't happen. I guarantee it will never happen. We will bend over and ask for it harder and deeper once they dangle a few more shiny objects in front of us. And it'll be our fault. Fuck it, I think I'll still be allowed to go outside and have fun. But that will probably all be fenced off too.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Since when has a discovery been patentable subject matter?
if they patented the gene sequence, couldn't someone argue that it is not patentable since its a natural phenomena (that the sequence occurs).
i ndex.html#whatpat
at least that is what I'm getting from reading from the uspto site at...
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/
I'm proud that there is "a relative dearth of patent applications for the video game industry, especially considering how technology-dependent the video game industry is, and given its size in terms of annual sales."
Before issuing a condemnation, I try hard to think about it from their point of view -- the laws of the land set the rules of the game, and lawyers are deeply confused at why some of us aren't using all the tools that the game gives us.
Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah.
But in the majority of cases in software, patents effect independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement.
Why should society reward that? What benefit does it bring? It doesn't help bring more, better, or cheaper products to market. Those all come from competition, not arbitrary monopolies. The programmer that filed the patent didn't work any harder because a patent might be available, solving the problem was his job and he had to do it anyway. Getting a patent is uncorrelated to any positive attributes, and just serves to allow either money or wasted effort to be extorted from generally unsuspecting and innocent people or companies.
Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone.
I could waste hours going on about this. I really need to just write a position paper some day that I can cut and paste when this topic comes up.
John Carmack