patent issued for vr

#1 It might not affect anything; isn't there something called prior art that prevents patents from being enforced? Or am I not understanding something?

#2 Yeah, but only prior to the Patent being applied for I think.

#3 Somebody has a patent on that? Since when? What date? and for how long?
Can you even patent something that is common knowledge (ok, not common, but you get my point)? just doesn't sound fair. Time I take a patent on warm water or something...
I'm not sure it would affect games, but it would sure affect stuff like this:
http://www.activeworlds.com/
that's basically what's described there (altough its doesn't really work that well)
I wrote a piece on this for my information technology exam.. hope it wasn't my teacher who patented it, lol

#4 That patent would have to pre-date MUDs to be enforcable. It'll be drowned in prior art - so don't worry about it.

#5 Basically another company throwing money at lawyers in hopes of saving themselves through licensing fees because they lack any real skills in development.

The one that'll affect things more then anything else is the company that owns a JPEG patent. I believe it's currently being challenged though.

#6 I think that's held by the guy who sued ID software and the makers of Duke Nukem.. he tried to say he invented the idea of 3d video games or something.

I believe he got laughed out of court.

#7 But the JPEG patent is real: it's a good compression idea and the inventor deserves to make some money.

While drowning in patents like BT's hyperlink one we shouldn't forget that they're a good idea.

#8 I think someone needs to draw the line between serious and stupid patents.

#9 Concerning JPG it depends on what the patent is related to. If it is related to the mathematical parts of it i think it's absurd : why do not create a patent on Pythagor theorem. Really it make me feel sad that people are trying to slow down research by having so peculiar consideration.

#10 I disagree with you Frank. If someone came up with pythagorus today of course they'd have a right to patent it. If someone invents something they have a right to make money from it. But they can't because it was discovered trillions (or somewhere around 2^100 anyway :P ) of years ago by someone who is dead. If pythagorus rose from the dead then we'd be in trouble.

And before I get a deluge of whining GG posts about how the people who are applying for the above patent didn't invent multi-player gaming, I'm not talking about that kind of silly patent. I'm talking about actual inventions/new methods by the people who first came up with them. Pythagorus would have had the right.

#11 I will not go into that debate. I'm from a research & mathematic background and I really feel bad when people try to patent theorem or mathematical idea and the likes to stop other people from using it.
In research, a good thing is to publish an article on your work in order to make the things go ahead and share your knowledge (like the open source project). On the side, i agree that people need to make money but they should just show how clever they are to make better use of a general knowledge.

On the other way, i agree with you that it should be forbidden to patent something you have not created.

#12 This sounds a bit like the life/choice debate: the rights of the "world" versus the rights of an individual, so I'm not going to get into it either.

I will say, however, that I am pro-choice.

#13 Patents were invented to protect the rights of the 'world'. They do so much better than an Academic paper.

The reality is this: Big Corporations spend a lot of money on Research and Development. They would probably spend this money even without being able to protect the results via patent.

The problem is that they would then keep every technique they develop as a Trade secret, so the competition doesn't get the benefit of their R&D dollars. Many important scientific developments would have to be reinvented by acedemia because coporations couldn't afford to discuss the technique with the public.

Enter the Patent Application: Among other things, it (is supposed to, anyway) require a complete description of the technique such that a person of sufficient background could reproduce the invention.

This is huge: Now corporations reveal their scientific results to the public. In return, the public grants them a finite time period of exclusive use of the invention. Both sides benefit.

The pharmaceutical industry is the model of this. Company A develops a drug, and publishes the forumla. They get X number of years to charge an arm and a leg for it, which recoups the R&D cost. After that, Company B markets a generic for 1/10th the cost. Society gets the benefit of open competition, but Company A still gets to recoup is development cost without being undercut by company B (Who can charge less because they don't have to pay Research biochemists.)

Please explain to me how a patent interferes with scientific progress. Especially since you can still develop new techniques based on patented technology... you just can't market those improved techniques commercially without a patent license.

#14 I can't beleive they got a patent for the "idea" of multiplayer persistent world (virtual r

#15 Well it's just as stupid as the patent office accepting a patent clame on the auto-update software idea, I think it was the McAfee anti-virus company who did this.

#16 Ok, it seems that some people just love to blow things out of proportion. I knew that the patent office (unlike some people would like to think) is not full of stupid people and that although they are not perfect, they should have processes that prevent stupid patent from being issued.

I decided to check if this was a hoax. It is not. But just as I thought, the text in the original post of this thread is really incomplete and turns out to be only the introduction to the patent.

If you check the "Claims" part of the the patent (see link below), you will notice that what is actually patented is HOW (THE ACTUAL CODE)they make this happen. WHAT was invented for making the idea true. Look closely for words like "the method for" , "means for", "The computer program", "A system" etc etc and so on and so on. What is being patented is their code and their architecture for achiving a restrictive type of "virtual reality".

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ft00&s1='6421047'.WKU.&OS=PN/6421047&RS=PN/6421047

Now I do not see any problem for a company to patent it's code. I am 100% sure that if you create your own code and architecture for acheiving the same result as the owner of that patent, they would have absolutly no legal recourse against you. Anyhow, the goal of the company is obviously to protect it's code in the first place, and I doubt they will sue if their code is not stolen or copied.

Finally, my ultimate goal was to show that you should not beleive all the "earsay" you come across and judge or take side only when you have all the facts in front of your eyes. Furthermore, have the wisdom to realise that all "facts" are relative and can change under certain circonstances or the way you look at them.

I beleive I rest my case your honor.

My 2 cents
Blacky

"Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
- Gandalf the Grey
Servant of the Secret Fire
Weilder of the flame of Anor.

PS : Sorry for the English spelling errors, English is not my native language.

#17 multiplayer games have been around since the beginning of dawn in one form or another. i remember playing a multiplayer game using an old teletype style terminal spewing out reams of paper. it's common knowlegde and cannot be patented.

#18 let me add... that you can patent a alorithm.