OnLive Awarded Patent For Cloud-Based Gaming

donniebaseball23 writes "Cloud gaming provider OnLive has secured a patent for an 'apparatus and method for wireless video gaming.' The patent gives substantial leverage for OnLive over competing brands in the cloud-based gaming market. 'Hundreds of people have worked incredibly hard for more than eight years to bring OnLive technology from the lab to the mass market, not just overcoming technical and business challenges, but overcoming immense skepticism,' said OnLive CEO Steve Perlman. 'It is gratifying to not only see people throughout the world enjoying OnLive technology in the wake of so many doubters, but also receive recognition for such a key invention.'"

Comments

This seems to be a very strange patent

[Chrisq]

It is very general in some ways but contains odd specifics:

comprising: a unit that includes a processor operable to execute at least one high twitch-action video game, video game video being produced therefrom; a compression unit for compressing the video game video with a latency of less than approximately 80 ms, but greater than about 5 ms;

So the patent wouldn't cover latencies outside this range?

The set-top box of claim 10 wherein the wireless transceiver operates in the 5 GHz band.

Why this band only?

Ignoring these oddities I can't see much that isn't obvious - a box connecting by Wifi to a router connected to the internet for playing games.

Re:This seems to be a very strange patent

[udippel]

a compression unit for compressing the video game video with a latency of less than approximately 80 ms, but greater than about 5 ms;

which is the only part in here, I agree, that is not really off the shelf, so to say. I mean, it has probably to make with the latencies between the players.
But what does it make a patent? Where are the technicalities in here??

So the patent wouldn't cover latencies outside this range?

No. But I guess, that about all 'high twitch-action' would fall into that range. And I secretly assume that's what the attorney put on the table as argument: chances are these numbers are not 'anticipated' in the list of cited documents.

Why this band only?

Not 'only'. It is a dependent claim, so the patent is valid in any frequency range, and specifically so in the range of 5 GHz.

The best thing altogether is the list of documents cited against this application: I stopped counting when I reached 100. Actually, having been patent examiner, I never ever before saw such a long list. How can the examiner seriously find the relevant elements comprised of aspects and features from more than 100 documents??
Just look at the claims, there are only 25; and many in principle repeatedly covering the wireless and wired connection. Plus on RAID array.
Maybe the examiner and his assistant try to compete for the 'most ridiculous number of Cited References in any US patent ever'?

Good nite USPTO, you best are leveled and restarted from scratch!

Re:This seems to be a very strange patent

[Theaetetus]

The best thing altogether is the list of documents cited against this application: I stopped counting when I reached 100. Actually, having been patent examiner, I never ever before saw such a long list. How can the examiner seriously find the relevant elements comprised of aspects and features from more than 100 documents?? Just look at the claims, there are only 25; and many in principle repeatedly covering the wireless and wired connection. Plus on RAID array. Maybe the examiner and his assistant try to compete for the 'most ridiculous number of Cited References in any US patent ever'?

Good nite USPTO, you best are leveled and restarted from scratch!

... says the lazy former Examiner. I'm a patent prosecutor, and most of my pending applications and recently issued patents have well over two hundred references. The inequitable conduct doctrine requires us to cite every reference we or the client knows about that may be material to patentability, and you're required to read and considered them. Don't complain that by us doing our jobs, it makes your job tougher... just do your job.

Plus, the vast majority of the references are US patent publications or foreign patent publications, which means they're all OCR'd and you can search them for relevant terms. So, really, after that, you're only reading a dozen non-patent literature references at most.

Maybe this is why you're a former Examiner.

X forwarding

[KiloByte]

Oh so many years ago, I played Quake 1 over remote X on four IRIX boxes connecting to a single beefy Linux server. It required a pretty small window to be playable, but beside that, it worked surprisingly well. The server was two network hops away, in the same building, next to some big-ass clusters.

Except for using a wired network rather than wifi -- which is immaterial to the issue at hand -- tell me, how exactly did that differ from this cherished patent?

Re:X forwarding

[Anonymous Coward]

Grandpa! Grandpa! Tell us again about the time you played Quake 1 over remote X on four IRIX boxes connecting to a single beefy Linux server!