Game Patents

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070119/dannenberg_01.shtml

This is a good article ... if you dive in a bit one that really surprises me is Crazy Taxi's pointing arrow ... the thing that points you to the next goal is patented which is ridiculous in my opinion.

As I understand it, Sega's patent application for Crazy Taxi covered the game's design in phenomenal detail as a pre-emptive strike against wholesale clones. A 3D pointing arrow alone I would expect to be too obvious to warrant its own patent and I can't believe there isn't a prior example anyway.

I'm pretty sure there is, too. Just what game/s had it prior to CT escape me at the moment - as do an increasing amount of things, as I get older. :/

Well, patent or no patent - If I like it, then it's mine - MINE, MINE MINE.

Meh, there aren't any patents in Bizarre-o World, anyways. :p

On the plus side, the marching cubes algorithm for metaballs, etc, is now apparently expired.

The algorithm's expired? Oh dear! No need of a patent, then. :P

Doh.

Good to hear, James. A lot of this patent stuff is insanity. I can't believe the audacity of those who attempt to patent such obvious ideas and the stupidity of those who grant them.

Patents aren't really dealt with well. They tend to just give them out and if there is a prior one, it is up to the person who owns it to make a fuss.

Patents don't even need to work... There are plenty of antigravity patents.

Patents really are a nightmare...

'luckily' a great number of them are used for defensive purposes -- kind of a mutually-assured-destruction tactic.
(e.g. 'they won't sue us for infringement because their programs violate a dozen of [i]our[/]i patents as well' It's the small independent developers that have the biggest chance of losing in the ordeal, although you also tend to stay under the radar of the big boys when it comes to places to sue. :-?