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Are there any patent trollers in the games indestry?
There's been some regular-horrible patents (not troll patents), such as Nintendo's D-pad, or Sega's 3d checkpoint arrow, or Creative's stencil shadow algorithm (AKA "Carmack's reverse").
The last one was close to a patent troll situation, where Carmack independently invented the algorithm in order to create a game, but was forced to comply with Creative's demands because they'd invented it simultaneously but had also filed a patent.
For the most part, I'm incredibly proud that there's so much R&D done in games but so little of it is patented. In such an environment is generally bad PR to patent anything as it'll be seen as an attack on games (and gamers)
In response to the original question: yes, there are. Patent trolling has been part of the game industry since the 1980s.
A lot of stuff in the video games industry is patented. In fact its suprising how much stuff is patented.
Vibration Feedback - Patented
Motion Control - Patented
Showing an image on a loading screen - Patented
Showing an on screen clickable button - Patented
Applying Post Processing effects to a first person scene - Patented
Saved Games - Patented
Any computer physics simulation - Patented
Pong / Breakout bat and ball - Patented
It just depends to what extent somebody will enforce their patent. Most companies in the games industry are not that strict when enforcing patents as everybody realises that nothing would get done. The only really big lawsuits are usually with the hardware companies and not software developers.
Patent trolls are definitely out there.
Some times, the patents they sue you for, isn't even related to games at all.
It doesn't matter how careful you are to not break any patents, chances are you do break some obscure patent somewhere anyhow.
Maybe it was originally filed for use in fax machines, doesn't matter, legally software is software.
They also like to target small companies, because they know these have no time or budget for legal action.
What they want isn't to take it to court, what they want is to settle and sell a licence to you.
Many companies file tons of patents in order to protect themselves from being sued. Kindof tragic, but not really immoral in my opinion, as long as they don't use them to bully around others.
Other companies make legit non-obvious inventions that are publicly announced etc. I consider it fair to enforce those, at least as long as they are not show-stopping for the competitors.
Then there are those who patent stuff just to demand money from others, with no intention of actually using the inventions for anything. I consider those trolls.
Then there are those who patent stuff just to demand money from others, with no intention of actually using the inventions for anything. I consider those trolls.
The trolls usually do not file the patents, they usually have no R&D at all.
What they do is they buy patents, from wherever they can find them, (maybe some bankrupt company) for the sole purpose of using them to extort money from other companies.
Perfectly legal...
