No More 3d Games!

JCDenton

Dallas based law firm McKool Smith is suing Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Activision, Atari, THQ, Vivendi, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, LucasArts and Namco Hometek for breaking the "Method and Apparatus for Spherical Planning", patent nr. 4734690" from 1988. This patent covers all 3d-graphics in gaming and therefore all the sued companies have sold 3d-games illegaly.

If McKool Smith wins the american court can claim the income of ALL THE GAMES THE PUBLISHERS HAVE EVER PUBLISHED

They will also claim the right to claim money for EVERY 3d-GAMES IN THE FUTURE

8 of the sued companies are represented by ibson, Dunn & Crutcher, but they wouldn't comment on the case. However an anonymous representative for one of the firms say this :

"Publishers should be very concerned. They seem to have a case. It's not impossible that they might win. There are a lot ov clever people on the case and they take this case very seriously"

If you ask me this will crash the gaming industry. No one will afford to create games in 3d anymore if this comes through. Perhaps people will create the good old 2d games instead... But seriously. This is horrible news.

quarryman

link?

Rabies

quarryman wrote:

link?

link

Publishers such as EA have such huge amounts of money behind them that they can afford the best legal advice. Probably end up in an out of court settlement.

JCDenton

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

quarryman

Rabies wrote:

link

tanks

quarryman

McKool Smith seems highly unlikely to succeed in the action, as similar systems have been in use since well before the patent was granted. Patents issued by the US Patent Office, including one for the wheel, have previously proved to be overridden by prior art.

ha! the wheel. yeah..eh, that was eh.... me who made that.

Canis Lupus

its highly unlikely a decision would be made that could singularly affect and destroy and entire industry and the amount of money behind the big publishers is huge... those mckool guys are just being american and annoying

JohnK

I'd be surprised if this guy won. It seems like the case a while back about how hyperlinks were copyrighted. If i remember correctly, that lost...

amp

I have faith in the fact that there's too much money at stake for the games industry to lose. Money is power.

mr_angry

pam wrote:

I have faith in the fact that there's too much money at stake for the games industry to lose. Money is power.

Not exactly a reassuring position though. Its impossible for McKool Smith to win this, but its alright for Microsoft to try to patent TCP/IP?

monument

"While the companies involved are taking the lawsuit seriously, it seems extremely unlikely that the patent will stand up to scrutiny - since as with many patents issued by the US Patent Office....

(which famously granted a patent describing the wheel), ...

it appears to describe techniques which had previously been in widespread use."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=5267

quarryman

is that not what i just said?

monument

Was reading the thread too fast and thought you were quoting from within the thread.

ObeyGiant

Hopefully this will make people realise that software patents, and patents on ideas in general, are absolutely ridiculous. If they hadn't already had a clue already.

Prior Of Taize

OF COURSE ITS OK FOR MICROSOFT TO PATENT TCP/IP...IM ASSUMING STEVE JOBS HASNT NOTICED IT MISSING YET...

For god sake look at the tobacco companies...they get sued for 500 million and then they add more tar to the cigarettes...I can see EA winning (or settling) and then creating a new division to match their BIG and Sports departments...EA 3D presents: F*CK THE LAW

BTW you cant patent an idea...only an application of that idea...I bet the guy who daydreamed about anything 3d ever is kicking himself

I hope they dont turn the law firm into a game company and develop those bible games

sceptre

JCDenton wrote:

No one will afford to create games in 3d anymore if this comes through

Well, if the patent dates from 1988 (and it does), it's running out in 2005.

TheDuke

jeeesuuuss ..... a wheel... what a fkn brilliant idea..... :eek:

why don't i ever have the good ideas...

airetam_storm

Yeah DUKE just a couple a thousand years too late

For those of us too lazy to read the links what kinda money have those lot to go to court?(the sueing lads)

ambro25

ObeyGiant wrote:

Hopefully this will make people realise that software patents, and patents on ideas in general, are absolutely ridiculous. If they hadn't already had a clue already.

:rolleyes: Penguin-hugger, are we?

sceptre wrote:

Well, if the patent dates from 1988 (and it does), it's running out in 2005.

2008, mind (US patents last 20 years from date of filing)

ObeyGiant

ambro25 wrote:

:rolleyes: Penguin-hugger, are we?

No, but I believe in using the best tool for the job. This is why I've got a Windows machine, a Linux machine and a G5 on my desk (connected via synergy). I am opposed to anything that stands in the way of me getting my job done, especially when it's for no good reason. Greed is not a good reason.

ambro25

ObeyGiant wrote:

This is why I've got a Windows machine, a Linux machine and a G5 on my desk (connected via synergy).

Your point?

ObeyGiant wrote:

No, but I believe in using the best tool for the job. (...) I am opposed to anything that stands in the way of me getting my job done, especially when it's for no good reason. Greed is not a good reason.

So tools should be free for you to 'best' get your job done, or just get it done at all?

e.g. not patent-protected, or other form of IPR protection? i.e. exempt of a licensing fee, which you pay when you purchase a piece of software?

I'm not sure I understand your stance, here. If your best argument for opposing software patents is simply that it (in principle) stops you getting your job done, it sounds to me like you're a just a "fashion-victim" member of the anti-software patent camp (EUROLINUX or the like)... It'd certainly be more interesting to hear why software patents prevent you from doing your job?

ObeyGiant

ambro25 wrote:

Your point?

You accused me of being a "penguin hugger" - by highlighting the fact that I have no blind devotion to a particular operating system, I was trying to show that no, I'm not a "penguin hugger".

Why all this hostility?

ambro25 wrote:

So tools should be free for you to 'best' get your job done, or just get it done at all?

Not at all, you're deliberately reading something into what I'm saying that simply isn't there. I have absolutely no problem paying for software -- almost all of the software I use on OSX is cheap shareware, and I gladly pay for it out of my own pocket if I need to use it. Likewise, most software I need on Windows is very expensive, but this gets paid for through my company.

ambro25 wrote:

It'd certainly be more interesting to hear why software patents prevent you from doing your job?

I have no intention of disclosing any more details of my professional life on here than I already have (i.e. - none), so I'll speak very vaguely, and hope that you can get beyond whatever mental block you are currently experiencing and see the "bigger picture" as it relates to software developers.

You seem to be thinking of "Software patents" and "software licensing" as being one and the same. They aren't. In my own particular case - the company I work for came up with an idea of doing something, based on ideas that have been in the public domain for years. Unfortunately, someone else came up with the same idea and patented it a couple of years before us (even though he never suggested a method of how to implement this idea). To save us the cost and hassle of legal procedings, we settled. He got a royalty of every copy of our software that containted that method (which got quickly replaced by another method). Now, we're busy building up a patent portfolio of our own ideas to help protect us from further litigation. We're a small company, and all this is seriously eating into both our cash and our time - both of which are things we have to be very economic about.

This affects both my ability to do my job (as everything I do has to be run past our legal counsel) and my job security -- what if someone else should come to us with another patent on an idea we also came up with and decides not to settle?

I suggest you should not be so quick in dismissing these things as simply "fashionable" and read up on this a bit more as these things do effect people's lives.

ambro25

ObeyGiant wrote:

You accused me of being a "penguin hugger" - by highlighting the fact that I have no blind devotion to a particular operating system, I was trying to show that no, I'm not a "penguin hugger".
Why all this hostility?

1) No accusation, but a question (asked on a comical note, to boot)
2) Not hostile, just interested.

Point taken about multi-OS, fine.

ObeyGiant wrote:

Not at all, you're deliberately reading something into what I'm saying that simply isn't there. (re. paying for tools etc.).

I'm reading, yes - deliberately or not is a different matter entirely. The fact remains that I'm 'reading' (extrapolating? better?) because all I had to comment upon is your remark, which wasn't particularly supported or qualified, initially - no more, no less.

Now that you have (further qualified your stance), your comment makes sense. Nonetheless, insofar as your comment relates to 'greed' and such not

ObeyGiant wrote:

I have no intention of disclosing any more details of my professional life on here than I already have (i.e. - none),

I patent software

ObeyGiant wrote:

so I'll speak very vaguely, and hope that you can get beyond whatever mental block you are currently experiencing and see the "bigger picture" as it relates to software developers.

I'd have thought myself pretty open-minded, maybe at times opinionated (as now I concede), but never to the point of obstination - I must be very delusional

ObeyGiant wrote:

You seem to be thinking of "Software patents" and "software licensing" as being one and the same. They aren't.

There are (business) points to make in regard of the motivation to acquire/develop software patents - but not here/no time therefor. Let me therefore limit my reply to simply state that there's no point in developing/acquiring software patents if you're not going to license software thereunder / include notification of same in the software license.

ObeyGiant wrote:

Now, we're busy building up a patent portfolio of our own ideas to help protect us from further litigation. We're a small company, and all this is seriously eating into both our cash and our time - both of which are things we have to be very economic about.

True, and you're now developing your portfolio to obtain a bargaining position which you didn't have before (in reason of which you got stung the first time) - that's the name of the game, much sorryness, but that's how it's played. Re. cash position, you should have looked us up

ObeyGiant wrote:

This affects both my ability to do my job (as everything I do has to be run past our legal counsel) and my job security - what if someone else should come to us with another patent on an idea we also came up with and decides not to settle?

Unlikely scenario (but it depends on the jurisdiction, in regard of the ease with which software can be patented therein). Software patents are regularly invalidated/revoked if litigated, particularly in European countries. They're a business tool, and not so prevalent as a patent on a physical widget when the time comes to test them by a long stretch of the imagination.

ObeyGiant wrote:

I suggest you should not be so quick in dismissing these things as simply "fashionable" and read up on this a bit more as these things do effect people's lives.

Ahem... see above

ObeyGiant

ambro25 wrote:

Now that you have (further qualified your stance), your comment makes sense. Nonetheless, insofar as your comment relates to 'greed' and such not

Well - my comment about "greed" stems from the fact that we got stung by someone just sitting on a patent of an idea. Personally, I can see no other motivation for this other than greed. Perhaps I'm taking a very narrow view of this, but in my mind, this is no better than cyber-squatting.

ambro25 wrote:

I patent software

Ah - that explains a lot.

ambro25 wrote:

True, and you're now developing your portfolio to obtain a bargaining position which you didn't have before (in reason of which you got stung the first time) - that's the name of the game, much sorryness, but that's how it's played.

As a software developer, I don't think that any portion of my time should be spent trying to work out the legalities of the piece of code I just wrote; there's barely enough time in the day to work out all the design problems trying to get our code working in the first place. Perhaps it's the socialist in me, but if you're saying "that's how it's played", then I say the game is broken, and it's time for a re-think.

But let me also make it clear that I don't think we should abolish patents entirely. They're a necessary evil, and as you say, there's definitely a business case to be made (elsewhere) for them. I, and a lot of others, just think that the system needs to be re-thought to cope with 21st century constructs.

ambro25

I hear your (idealistic but laudable) argument in respect of the model, but...

...but 21st century economics (at least for us Westerners) is increasingly based on knowledge and the capacity to profitably apply same, wouldn't you agree?

Therefore how do you retain your competitive edge as a business (and in the process ensure you can pay your employees)? Not (anymore) by providing the best/cheapest/most-featured/etc. product, but by being the best-positioned business in respect of its increasingly-diverse stakeholders.

Put another way: what's the difference, in old-style economics (which are still used by accountants and therefore those who hold the purse strings ) between a software developer (10 bodies, 15 workstations, 10 desks) and a temping agency next door (10 bodies, 15 PCs, 10 desks)? The knowledge you develop which the neighbours don't. How do you permit the afore-mentioned powers-that-be to 'buy' title in that knowledge (which is also called 'investing' and I believe investing is still part of the socialist economical model)? With a patent (for example, but could also be just a trademark or a design registration), for starters.

In a knowledge-based economy, the position you build has to include IP and a goodly bit of it too, else... you fall in the position you were in the first time around when you got stung, and -if you haven't built enough redundancy in the model (which you apparently had, thankfully)- it's curtains.

At least, rest assured that the kind of software patents that provoke most of the ire in the debate (the 'one-click' types, we understand one another)
1) are no better thought of in my profession than in yours (or, well, people of your conviction),
2) are and will remain nigh-on impossible to obtain in European jurisdictions, with or without the Directive, and
3) don't stand a chance of sustaining validity (and therefore enforcement) in a European Court (or Court of a European member), if they were ever granted in the first place.

Oh, and BTW, what'zat s'posed to mean: "Ah - that explains a lot". Who's being hostile now?

SantaHoe

No one will afford to create games in 3d anymore if this comes through.

Why are there so few companies getting sued, I can think of a whole list of popular games companies that would be synonymous with 3D games that aren't mentioned in your post.
If these other companies haven't broken patent, then are they using a different method of producing 3d games? (in which case it wouldn't be an end of 3d games) And if they have broken patent, what makes them so special that they're not also being sued?
Or did they think a few thousand billion dollars from said companies would be enough, and that any more would just be greedy :rolleyes:
Hey, Microsoft have made 3D games... I wonder would they fancy taking on that giant?

po0k

mr_angry wrote:

Not exactly a reassuring position though. Its impossible for McKool Smith to win this, but its alright for Microsoft to try to patent TCP/IP?

TCP/IP (in it's initial incarnation) was created by a bunch of students in MIT.

All the stuff in RFCs can be considered as public domain, as they have been passed around all over the place// "Reffered For Comment".

MS doesn't have a leg to stand on.

ambro25

You could never patent "TCP/IP" these days, more so as there is no such thing as a retroactively-granted (or applied for) patent.

But you sure could patent new and undisclosed improvements (e.g. new processing algorithms) made to TCP/IP as a protocol.

mp3guy

even if they do win, 3d gaming won't stop. They'll just have to invent a new way of representing 3d on pcs.