Atari, Others, Settle Game Patent Suit

Atari and other game publishers have come to a settlement with American Video Graphics, a company which claims a patent on (essentially) an in-game camera POV. Atari agreed to pay the company $300,000 for 'irrevocable' rights to the company's patents. From the article: "In a recent IGDA column on the subject, lawyer Jim Charne commented on the danger of this exceptionally wide-ranging patent, noting that: 'Several of these defendants have joined together to mount a common (and very costly) defense', and further commenting: 'The '690 patent litigation is an attack on the industry as a whole. It is indeed something for developers to worry about.'" The other companies mentioned, apparently, came to similar settlements. It's frustrating to me that these companies chose to buy off a pointless suit like this, rather than see the patent nullified.

Comments

why should this patent be nullified?

[Surt]

It was innovative at the time of filing: 1987-04-06

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4734690.html

And people are only now violating it, nearly 19 years later. Give it one more year and it will have expired!

Re:They have learned from the RIM debacle

[Kintar1900]

The problem, though, is that they're setting a precedent in patent cases. This is an absurdly wide-ranging patent, and should never have been upheld, especially as the patent is being enforced on games nearly 20 years after it was granted. I'm no lawyer, but I would have thought the failure of the patent holder to offer due dilligence on any other game in that span (say...Quake? System Shock? Descent?) would have given the companies a much easier time in fending it off.

I'm just scared of where software patents are leading. Speaking as a professional software developer, there's hardly anything I do in day-to-day app design that hasn't been done before, and isn't more specific than this patent.