Posts Tagged: ‘Patents’

Nintendo Wii Accused Of Willfully Infringing Patent That Was Applied For After Wii Was Introduced

September 14, 2011 Posted by zachary

This post was originally published on Techdirt.

Techcrunch is reporting on yet another patent dispute over the technology found in Nintendo’s Wii video game system. This time the company suing is ThinkOptics, the makers of the Wavit Remote.

The dispute is over the following patents:

  • 7,796,116: Electronic equipment for handheld vision based absolute pointing system
  • 7,852,317: Handheld Device for Handheld Vision Based Absolute Pointing System
  • 7,864,159; Handheld Vision Based Absolute Pointing System.

Notice a trend yet?
(more…)

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Categories: Game Chat, Politics and Law

Did Jim Henson Infringe on a Recently Approved Patent?

September 9, 2011 Posted by zachary

This post was originally published on Techdirt.

Recently on Techdirt, we highlighted a number of ways the US patent system could be fixed. One of the proposals on the list was allowing for input from those who are skilled in the art behind a patent application. Under this system, a person or company working within the industry surrounding a patent application could review it and submit their reasoning behind whether the proposal is obvious and not patentable or original and patentable. This public input would help patent examiners decide on the final patent-ability of an application.

As an example of why such a public input segment would be beneficial, we have a recent patent, found by io9.com, for “A costume suit modeled after a large size animal“(PDF) This patent, which was submitted by Japanese company ON-ART, which specializes in airbrush painting of large balloons, was approved on August 16, 2011. This patent has a total of twelve claims all having to do with the mechanics of the suit, which allows for the operator to create the realistic movements of the animal he portrays. (more…)

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Categories: Politics and Law, Technology

Copying Mechanics is Not Theft, Nor is it Infringement

August 17, 2011 Posted by zachary

I recently wrote this article on Gamasutra in response to a pair of articles which talked about the practice of copying game mechanics. The discussion has been interesting. So here it is for my own records.

I had never heard of Vlambeer or Gamenauts before yesterday. I had never heard of Radical Fishing or Ninja Fishing either. Yet in a single day, both companies and both games came crashing through my browser. Why?

To make a long story short, Vlambeer made a simple little flash game called Radical Fishing. They have a following of supportive and caring fans. They released this and made some money off of it.They decided they wanted to port the game to the iPhone but with improved graphics and gameplay. However they needed money now and made a couple more games browser.

While all this happened, Another game company, Gamenauts, saw a fun game that did not have an iPhone equivalent and decided to bring a game to that market that had those mechanics. This caused an uproar among fans of Vlambeer and their games.

That is the story in a nutshell. (more…)

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Categories: Game Philosophy, Moral Issues