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IBM Patents Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Movies
An anonymous reader writes "IBM, whose former patent boss is in charge of the USPTO these days, and which claims to support patent reform, has just been awarded a patent on choose-your-own-adventure style movies, despite plenty of prior art. Whatever happened to fixing the patent system, rather than continuing these mistakes?"
The idea of a branch-menu based book may be old, but the idea of a branch-based movie theater experience is new. Sure, it's easy to join digital video files to run back to back, but to branch to a different film segment without there being a visible gap is quite the work of art. Notice the gaps between the previews/ads that are shown before you get to the ones that are already on the movie's film.
This is a lot more than a film strip you saw at school. This is 24 frames per second and you've got to get the right film for the "choice" up there in fractions of a second. This is a patent on IBM's way of making this work, you could easily come up with another way.
Didn't we used to call those "Video Games"?
I remember a short lived period from the late 90's where "interactive movies" tried to revive the adventure game. Wouldn't this be the same thing but with more footage?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Whatever happened to fixing the patent system, rather than continuing these mistakes?"
What happens is that every time a big company gets hit with patent lawsuits, they learn from it, patent a lot of stuff, and turn around and start making money off the system (IBM, Apple, Sun, Microsoft.....Sun wasn't even the sue-happy type, and they still made a ton off patents). So they don't feel motivated to try and change things anymore. Why should they? Then you have guys like Amazon, and their one-click patent, who pay lip-service to patent reform, but in practice they defend their stupid patent every chance they get.
Qxe4
The simple essence of "Choose your own adventure" is only a small part of the patent.
If you RTFP, you'll find voting mechanisms, pricing models, variable vote weighting based on a pricing model, and a proposed rating system.
I think they deserve the patent.
That other way is called a "video game." Such as Indigo Prophecy, Resident Evil 4, or Heavy Rain. There's not enough to distinguish between a real-time adventure game and this concept. Just because you put it in a theatre doesn't make it patentable. That's just making the screen bigger and adding more participants.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Tender Loving Care, anyone?
Living With a Nerd
They did this in silent steel and Flash Traffic City of Angels.
Isn't the porn industry already doing this? I mean, I HEARD they are already doing this.
I'm on a chair.
As usual, the common mistake is made of claiming that the patent is for "choose-your-own-adventure movies". Like any patent, it's for a particular method of displaying and running a choose-your-own-adventure movies (or rather, a class of similar methods).
I'm curious what examples of prior art there are, and whether they actually fall under the claims made in the patent, or if they're simply similar int hat both are "choose-your-own-adventure"-type presentations.
Linda, you're absolutely fantastic!
(google it)
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
As I posted just above you, Tender Loving Care. Not to mention Phantasmagoria.
Living With a Nerd
...Calculon to race to the laser gun battle in his hover-Ferarri, press 1...
My brief tenure at IBM (circa 8 years ago or so) made me realize the company that once was the great giant of the industry had become a pissing match between MBA's and PHDs as to who could get the most patent applications on their wall.
Same shit, different day. Someone probably is 1 patent closer to winning a bonus.
Although it is equally stupid. It appears to be a patent on voting for the outcome, including stuff like having people charges for a vote.
So, it's essentially a patent for an 'interactive movie', except with a group of voters deciding the outcome. This exact premise has been used in science fiction before, which should be enough to deny it a patent.
In fact, it's actually been done over TV before, even with the 'pay for a vote' aspect. American Idol does a version of it, but it's been done with prerecorded stuff before, which people could call in and influence one way or another. For example. Or a very early live example.
I'm not certain how something that happened in 1982 over television should be patentable simply because it's in a movie theater.
But someone needs to find a scifi story that has people go into a movie theater and picking what story they want to see by voting with buttons on their chair. Hell, early scifi had that stuff all the time, before it was clear that home media consumption would take off. People were always going to movie theaters and whatnot.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
When I see IBM and choose your own adventure movies all I can think of is a new interface for sys admins. Brings a whole new meaning to "adventure."
Sorry but to me all IBM does is mainframes.
I'd say Meet Me in St. Louis was the first choose your own adventure movie. You watch some, then depending on when you fall asleep and wake up, you get a different story (not a different plot, though- there isn't really one).
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I suggest that everyone view this talk regarding patents and open source software. It focuses on how open source developers can maneuver around patents, but also provides a lot of information regarding how patents can be better understood. After viewing this presentation, I've realized how moronic a lot of posts on Slashdot regarding patents truly are.
After watching the video and examining the patent it seems rather trivial to dance around it. It's a completely stupid thing to patent, but it isn't going to impede anyone who develops something similar.
I skimmed through the claims. I've seen and participated in public showings of technology that covers most of this. Some commenters mentioned the Dragon's Lair laserdisc arcade game, which I was never very good at. I've also seen interactive stories (both pre-recorded and realtime rendered) where the audience votes at various points in the story; sometimes it was computer vision based, and sometimes we had devices with voting buttons (including our own cell phones). Students in Carnegie Mellon's ETC have created a number of public demonstrations along these lines. But the important claims in this patent that I haven't seen before are:
- Your individual vote's weighting is based on your ticket price
- The total story arc that the audience voted for is saved for future viewing
- The audience votes on the total story arc, so that future audiences can pick the most popular arc
That's where to start looking for prior art. I don't remember whether prior art has to exist for all claims or just one claim in order to invalidate the patent, but Claim 1 describes the entire setup with all of these parts.
FMV games are now patented? I guess since IBM and the USPTO weren't around in the 80s and 90s, so they wouldn't remember.
Since we've got folks going on about prior art, someone presumably can cite....
You'd think, but because they don't understand that adding a detail like "on the internet" or "on a portable music player" makes a patent less broad and not more broad, you're not going to have an interesting conversation about it.
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anyone remember that game or any of the other 'laserdisc' style games which did the equivalent of emulating a laserdisc remote with arcade buttons?
You are correct, this isn't just 'choose your own adventure movies'.
But it doesn't actually seem deserving of a patent anyway.
someone presumably can cite an extant choose-your-own-adventure movie where (just from looking at the first claim) the storyline is controlled by audience voting (basic), where some votes are automatically discarded "based on voter characteristics", and votes are weighted by a factor "based on voter characteristics, the weighting factor being based on at least ticket pricing" (yeah -- pay twice as much, get twice (or 10x, or 0.5x) as much say in the adventure!)
I give you: Larry the Lobster.
someone presumably can cite an extant choose-your-own-adventure movie
It's a 'motion picture' under the law, so it's a 'movie', even though broadcast on TV. Check.
the storyline is controlled by audience voting (basic)
Check.
where some votes are automatically discarded "based on voter characteristics"
People outside the US can't vote because they can't call 1-900 numbers. Check. (I'm not sure you can patent the ability to not count a vote, anyway.)
the weighting factor being based on at least ticket pricing" (yeah -- pay twice as much, get twice (or 10x, or 0.5x)
You get as much vote as you pay for, although you don't have a 'ticket' per se. Indeed, you can select how much you pay in real time, instead of having to do it in advance under IBM's method.
And that's just one example, the earliest. There's examples using pre-recorded video if that's somehow relevant, and other examples using free voting.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Games like Plumbers Don't Wear Ties was nothing but this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjMAG5IDnek
In answer to your question, what happened was Disney and the corporitization of copyrights and patents beyond their original usage and terms for the profit of others and not society as a whole.
In other words - Disney.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Rozpaky kuchare Svatopluka, TV series, 1985, Czechoslovakia. When the series first aired, the TV viewers could vote for one of two alternatives by turning lights on and off. An engineer from central power control would then announce the result in then-live transmission and the story would continue with the alternative chosen by viewers. If you watch a rerun of this series, you'll find out it actually covers all the claims because the reruns include then-live footage from 1985 (no more voting) and there was live audience in the studio who voted using a voting box whose votes didn't actually count.
Futurama - S02E08 - Raging Bender. The crew go to a movie theatre and vote for what Calculon should do next. The result: Tedious Paperwork
Prior art? Rule of law? What the heil are you talking about?
The point of patent law at this point is to earn CEOs money to pay for their private jets to go to Thailand to pay for their private...
Can anyone point me to a good explanation of what is actually meant by this requirement for a patent (per wikipedia):
A patent may not be obtained though the invention ... if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. (35 U.S.C. 103 (A))
I would think that many of these questionable patents we see would run afoul of this requirement, regardless of other concerns. They seem to be using a rather low estimate of "ordinary skill" in the art for most things computer - it almost feels more like any idea at or above "ordinary" innovation in an industry is OK. When innovation and new ideas are the norm in an industry, I would hope the bar for non-obvious would be correspondingly higher.
Of course, all the financial and political incentives are geared toward granting more patents and letting the courts sort things out - I doubt many political figures would even consider not-for-profit innovation and development as legitimate or sane activities. I wonder some days if the state of the patent office isn't more a symptom of how our society values (or doesn't value) non-monetary pursuits and motives - if the only legitimate activities involve money, why not grant the patents and let them get sorted out? That way someone always makes money, even if its only the lawyers and the patent system - if they protect the non-commercial not-for-profit intellectual commons, who makes money there? Maybe I'm too cynical, but with even academic institutions diving head first into the "monetizing of knowledge" the ideal of knowledge for its own sake gets kinda hard to find.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Dragon's Lair, mid 1980s? It was a coin operated video game that basically played animated scenes from a laserdisc. Your inputs decides which way things forked at key points.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Lair
It doesn't seem to me to be a contradiction for IBM to support patent reform but be a vigorous player in the patent system as is. In fact, it would be foolish for them to abstain as they will simply be trampled on by others.
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This exact premise has been used in science fiction before, which should be enough to deny it a patent.
There's a concept called "non-enabling prior art".
Sure, science fiction stories have been written describing time travel, cold fusion, AI, teleportation, etc. Go build them - after all, you've got that "prior art". Wait, they don't fully describe everything sufficient to enable someone skilled in the art to build those things? Ah. Then they're "non-enabling" prior art, and are only "prior art" for the few bits they do enable - in other words, the broad concept. You couldn't patent: "A method for time travel comprising (a) traveling through time." because there would be prior art for that, but you could certainly patent a method that went beyond the mere musings of authors.
No, it also must be non-obvious to an expert in the field. If you asked almost any person "how would you implement DVD choose your own adventure to Theaters", how many would say "let people vote and choose the path based on what the majority chose"?
Except maybe for the vote weighting based on ticket pricing, the rest seems pretty obvious.
Also, shouldn't patents define specific implementations, not high level concepts? No actual implementation is specified, it's all abstract.
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Johnny Mnemonic: The Interactive Action Movie was made by sony and was good for it's time!
Sounds to me they don't specify any concrete implementation system. At least I can't see it, and in the end they say:
Which sounds to me like they're patenting the idea and covering all possible implementations.
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The audience-driven video project, Terminal Time combines audience voting (by applause) with video, so it may count as prior art.
No data, no cry
Peep shows.
Have gnu, will travel.
in other words, the broad concept. You couldn't patent: "A method for time travel comprising (a) traveling through time." because there would be prior art for that, but you could certainly patent a method that went beyond the mere musings of authors.
And you sir are not truly familiar with US Patent System.
If the goal of the patent system is to encourage inventors to publish descriptions of their inventions, so that everyone can benefit from their discoveries, why do we need an office to approve them? Why not just allow inventors to publish whatever they want, in a suitably widespread publication, and claim patent protection? We would only need experts to review the worthiness of patents when there is some sort of dispute -- and the civil court system has been set up to handle these sorts of expert-witness-based trials for years. (Granted, this aspect of the civil court system leaves a lot to be desired, but it still sounds like it'd be more effective than the bloated, bureaucratic bottleneck we have today.)
-- 77IM
Student: Is it true that the foundation of the universe is paradox?
Master: Well, yes and no.
in a choose your own adventure, i remember finding a page that was not linked to any other page and had no idea if it was intentionally like that or just a bad pointer.
just remembered that now. thanks slashdot.
Uh, buy them?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Film is another art medium, no self respecting director will trade gimmicks for a chance to tell a real story. It's obvious why so many of your children have ADHD problems, when they are stimulated to have short attention spans.
Milla Jovavich and Ali Larter, saving the world through passionate lesbian sex.
At least it will in my theatre.
There's a concept called "non-enabling prior art".
Sure, science fiction stories have been written describing time travel, cold fusion, AI, teleportation, etc. Go build them - after all, you've got that "prior art". Wait, they don't fully describe everything sufficient to enable someone skilled in the art to build those things?
I'm pretty sure I could build this from a fictional description of it, and could have done any time in the last 10 years. I'm not even particularly skilled in the art of digital video.
Just to pluck out one thing you said...
This exact premise has been used in science fiction before, which should be enough to deny it a patent.
There's a concept called "non-enabling prior art". Sure, science fiction stories have been written describing time travel, cold fusion, AI, teleportation, etc. Go build them - after all, you've got that "prior art". Wait, they don't fully describe everything sufficient to enable someone skilled in the art to build those things? Ah. Then they're "non-enabling" prior art, and are only "prior art" for the few bits they do enable - in other words, the broad concept. You couldn't patent: "A method for time travel comprising (a) traveling through time." because there would be prior art for that, but you could certainly patent a method that went beyond the mere musings of authors.
That's fine for time-travel, which is admittedly hard. But given a futurama episode where characters vote to pick a movie ending, any bunch of idiots with some basic engineering skills could implement it. Or should I say, anyone "skilled in the art" would be able to come up with a way to implement it. Same goes for pretty much any business method patent; they patent nothing more than a concept, so if that concept is in 1984, that's reason enough it shouldn't be patentable. (did I mention, IANAPLOAOKOL?)
As much as I'd like to see that movie...I don't think I'd want to sit next to you.
Don't take it personal. :)
Well, somebody has got to check this out and tell me what you think. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=6&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=millstein.IN.&OS=IN/millstein&RS=IN/millstein About 4 years ago I came up with a site (socialsaga.com) that was a lot like choose your own adventure. So, being young and stupid, when somebody told me I should try and patent the idea, I tried. Bunch of time and some money later I get a final rejection from the USPTO. Then I see this shit and can't believe my eyes. The one thing that I thought was good about Patents (that it gives small guys the chance to hold on to an idea that a huge company can steal easily) is now dead in my eyes. That sounded a little overly dramatic, but man I put a lot of work into trying to get this patented.
Are the choices made in part due to a weighting factor based on ticket price? I assume you don't have a pluarilty of viewers who paid you money and you took that into consideration when making each "choice" in the movie?
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
The part of what the outcome of the movie is determined by the highest paying costumer is more of a business decision than a invention. Adding a computer program to determine the vote makes this a pure software patent, something that is not a good thing.
So, just so we've got all that straight now... What they've has done is revolutionary. They have changed the game. The patent game that is... Instead of patenting "blah blah blah" ON THE INTERNET, they've gone and patented "blah blah blah" AT THE MOVIES.
So now we need to start the gold-rush of "simple business concept" AT THE MOVIES. Now that "choose your own adventure" will happen in a theater, who will be the first to patent "One-click" AT THE MOVIES?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I don't see anything in the patent that describes how to 'implement' it beyond stuff like 'You'll need to give everyone a keypad or a phone or maybe let them vote in a booth'. (The Futurama story had a keypad, and obviously phones have been used for mass voting on plots forever. I don't think the idea of 'voting in a booth' needs to dignified with a response.)
Or insanely obvious stuff like 'You'll have to hook a computer to the playback device to tally the votes, a computer which people can contact using (insert list of half a dozen ways that people already contact computers)'.
There is no actual engineering in the patent at all. Most of it appears to be describing how votes could be tallied.
Wait, they don't fully describe everything sufficient to enable someone skilled in the art to build those things?
No, but considering that this patent doesn't either, and that people skilled in the art have built exactly this system repeatedly, that's sorta a moot point.
You clearly haven't read the patent. It's essentially 'Hook a computer to a projector, and here's a big list of ways that the computer could decide what to show next. For example, if not enough people vote in time, it could use a regional default.'. No explanation at all on how to do any of this.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
As a kid I went to Expo '67. I think that it was the Czechoslovakian pavilion featured an auditorium where the seats all had voting buttons, and a movie where the audience got to decide what happened next. We had a blast choosing our way through the interesting scenario. IMHO, IBM should have never been able to get this patent.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
I don't see anything in the patent that describes how to 'implement' it beyond stuff like 'You'll need to give everyone a keypad or a phone or maybe let them vote in a booth'...No explanation at all on how to do any of this.
Ah, but that's a different rejection. That's under 35 USC 112, which requires a patent application to have sufficient written description. A failure there doesn't mean that the application is anticipated by prior art, though.
that is what happened. nothing else. all the 'but but but but ...'s are bullshit derivatives and excuses and 'but maybe we can' kind of self-fooling.
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Larry the Lobster didn't do multiplying using the computing device
Your theory is that calls to the 1-900 number were tallied by hand?
Or that telephone systems don't connect people using computers?
Or that telephone systems don't bill people using computers?
It did not use the computing device to exclude votes
Yes, it did. Or do you think that the telephone system operates by mechanical bull?
There are computers that stop people from other countries from connecting to 1-900 numbers. In 1982, they'd be rather dumb computers, but they were, in fact, computers. Even 'general purpose computers', although I will point out the patent office doesn't make that distinction.
I'm confused as to where you think 'the computing device' didn't show up in those. Or are you trying to argue it was more that one device?
That isn't really that relevant. The computer that sells people a ticket is hardly going to be the same computer that selects the movie, either. You can neither get around patents or exclude prior art on the idea 'they were two computer hooked together instead of one computer'.
Although the idea you can is sorta funny and renders this entire patent moot. 'No, no, I don't have the media version matrix on the computing device, I have it on this other computing device which is networked to 'the' computer device mentioned prior. Hence I'm not infringing.'. That actually renders a lot of patents moot.
the computing device did not generate the media version matrix
I do not think you know what a matrix is. A 'matrix' is just another way to say 'array'. Having two pre-recorded endings is a 'matrix', it's a two-cell one-dimensional matrix. Any 'Press 1 or 2 to see a branch of a movie' is using a matrix. They're just allowing for having branches where any combination of multiple things can happen, like 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, or 2-2, but even one dimension is a matrix.
Granted, in this example, it was for a live show, and hence there was no matrix, as there was no content beforehand.
But, as I said, there's been plenty of other versions of this, like 'Accidental Lovers', which did use prerecorded video, in a 'matrix'. In fact, 'Accidental Lovers' used a two-dimensional ones. You could vote if X would fall in love with Y, if Y with X, or if both with both. That's a two dimensional matrix.(1) It even has a plotline missing (neither in love with neither), which the patent explicitly mentions as possible and having to find the nearest valid option.
1) You can also list those choices using a one-dimensional matrix, but all finite matrixes, no matter the dimensions, can be easily 'flattened' to one-dimensional matrixes. You just enumerate them. (And, strictly speaking, so can infinite ones, but that's more complicated and not relevant here.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Ah yes. I should have realized that Futurama would parody early sci-fi. That episode even has a black and white newsreel at the start of the movie!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Am I the only person who thinks non-owned interactive movies will just make the audience angry?
The entire point of this, according to the patent summary, is to up the 'replay' value? It's like an RPG, where you play again using a different class. Makes sense.
That makes sense for individuals, but it seems it would really piss people off if they went to see the movie, saw one plotline, went back to see another...and were outvoted, and saw the same damn thing.
Also, it seems the entire thing falls apart before that, when you expect people to pay full movie price to see a movie that they've already seem 2/3rds of. Even if they do get to see a new 1/3rd and don't get outvoted.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Well you know it is going to happen.
Personally, this will be the best one!
The "choices" I am waiting for are:
"Shoot Greedo" or "Don't shoot Greedo"
and
"Force Choke Jar-Jar" or "Space Jar-Jar out an airlock"
That and anything to do with either Leia or Natalie Portman in the "Unrated Version".
and just for Slashdot (even thought I don't really get the meme)
"Grits" or "no grits"
I believe it was called "Survive the Outbreak." Original site is down, but youtube has a copy. It is also one of the only two legitimate, non-obnoxious uses of youtube annotations I have seen.
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"Movie" have made smooth and seamless transitions for a long time. Three or more projectors permits a branched presentation based on whatever.... TV news has been doing this for a while. A sequence of still photos counts because it is the degenerate case of a movie. Polarized projection establishes one method for a user to select A or B as a point of view... Deep down in the "method" they might have a hook but one or more clean room methods could trample the novel, and not obvious bits.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.