Is Torque at risk for the law suit

#1 I can't believe 1987 was the first time someone rendered a 3D object on a 2D screen.

Ian

#2 Heh, thats kinda like saying , i invented the wheel now noone can use it unless you make it square.

That patenet would be obsolete the day it was processed, i beleive the law is: once a product is modifyed or made better by 10% it becomes a new product. God/Alien bless america! ( how else could we get so tech. advanced)

#3 Well even if they did have a legal patent to something that stupidly broad, there is a requirement that you have to attempt to enforce your patent or it becomes null and void. Since they havent done anything in 17 years, I'd say they dont meet this requirement

#4 It's sad when people/companies do things like this.

#5 Sounds like laywers trying to find another opportunity to make money. I would bet Tecktronix has little to do with the suit, or would even recieve much money from it.

#6 They are keeping good tabs on this whole issue here too:

http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=8260§ion=feature

Sounds like someone attempting to use an obscure and general patent in order to extort money from companies.

#7 Actually Stellar 7, a game that I was involved with, was rendering 3D to a 2D screen before 1987. We have prior art.

#8 Jet did it on the Hercules and CGA cards back in the day as well. I wonder if they'll attempt to sue GCE for making the Vectrex as well.

#9 I think in another similar topic here, I once lay claim to a sex patent.

Pay up. :p

#10 Someone tried to enforce a patent on hyperlinks as well, nothing came of that, I wouldn't worry about it really!!

Nick

#11 I would like to enforce my fictious patent on smiley's... Now everyboday pay up! ;)

If they're just talking about rendering 3D to a 2D screen, then wouldn't ILM and Pixar have them beat with their special effects work? It's the same thing, just not realtime, or am I missing something?

#12 IMO the courts are going to take the viewpoint....

"Placing a 3d object on a 2d screen is nothing more than proper use of math. And since no one has any claim to a patent on math, this case is dismissed and the plantiff is ordered to pay all court fee's and attorney costs arising from this suit."

#13 Brunelleschi, Da Vinci, many universities before 1987, The Last Starfighter, Tron, Elite.... Prior art. These guys are done for.

#14 Stellar 7! What a classic game...

#15 Dunno where they get the 1987 bit from I had a Start magazine dated 1990 that had Tom Hudson's CAD-3D 1.0 free on the cover disk for the Atari ST. The original program was sold by Antic Publishing in 1986.

Quote:Tom Hudson made a name for himself early on in the Atari community writing articles and type-in programs for ANALOG Computing magazine, and then by creating the digital paint programs DEGAS and DEGAS Elite (published by Batteries Included) for the Atari ST. Back in 1984, Tom had created a type-in Atari 800 BASIC program published in ANALOG called Solid States, with which a user could manually enter a series of three-dimensional coordinates, specify connecting lines, and then render perspective views of the data as a wire frame. Tom's interest in 3D graphics originated from wanting to make display graphics for science fiction film sets. Solid States didn't meet his expectations, but it was a start.

I'm sure Mr Hudson would have secured his rights as he went on to create one of the best 3D programs available today: CAD-3D is literally the grandfather of 3DS Max.

I still have the Cyber Studio programs in their original packages. Just a pity my old ST is broken. :(

#16 I old the licence, I made a rotating 3d object (cube) rendered on a 2d screen back in 1984 using a commodore 64.
Or ??? whas I not playing with Microsoft Flight simulator 1.0 on that same machine even before I did my rotating cube ? is a flight simulator same as rendering a 3d object in 2d screen ?

LOL this law that allow peoples to patent obvious things are so stupid. In my country they will throw you out of the tribunal with a good kick in the butt if you come with such patent, or maybe not they probably thank the guy for "such a good laugh and now please let the grownup work"

#17 If MSFT can't win a stupid patent claim like that, then neither will those idiots trying to sue all the largest game makers.

http://www.theregister.com/2004/09/30/microsoft_fat_patent_rejected/


I can't believe the lawyers are even taking the case since there is little chance of them getting out of the patent appeal process with a patent in their hands.

#18 Well, maybe they hope someone will not be willing to mess around and will settle for couple of bucks.

#19 Actually lawyers will profit anyway. somebody will pay them eventually wheter they loose or win....sad world;)

#20

Quote:Actually lawyers will profit anyway. somebody will pay them eventually wheter they loose or win....sad world;)

In a case such as this, it would be standard practice for the law firm to bear all costs involved in fighting such large corparations. They would generally get paid a fee of 35% of the recovered damages. In this case, the lawyers for the game companies WILL get paid, and the lawyers for the Plaintiff's will be the ones paying the companies they sued to compensate them for their lawyer's costs. Pretty stupid if you ask me.