Topic: Gaming Industry Sued By Graphics Company

[TheYoungerPlumber]

American Video Graphics summons dated patents in an attempt to swipe money from dozens of hardware and software companies.

In what can only be described as exploitation of digital technology’s earlier years, American Video Graphics is suing Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft in addition to major third party publishers and many PC hardware manufacturers.  All together, AVG claims the companies targeted have breached one or more of its 25 relevant patents.

AVG, which has come into possession of Tektronic’s 3D graphics patents (dating back to 1987), is aiming to receive royalties for virtually all 3D graphical techniques, both past and present.  The most significant patent cited is the basic concept of rendering a 3D image on a 2D display.  Perhaps less questionable is its patent on image frame buffers, though this is a commonly used technique as well.

If honored, technology companies of many fields could be fined for what is generally considered fundamental concepts in the modern graphics field.  

[Hostile Creation]

What a bunch of bastards.  This better not fall through, even if they are suing Microsoft and Sony

[Ian Sane]

I feel that someone on the Penny Arcade forum summed this up best.

"This is like patenting using heat to prepare food."

This is just to f*cking generic to be patented.  I don't care if some jerk has the patent it should be thrown out.  Hey I think I'll patent the concept of variables.  Now every programmer in history owes me money.

I believe the patent holder can only complain if they have made an effort to protect their patent which obviously wasn't done considering 3D games have existed for over ten years.  In fact 3D graphic techniques were in place well before 1987.  Look at Tron for example and you could also argue about early vector games like Battlezone.  

[Bill Aurion]

Ugh, I can't stand frivalous lawsuits like this...*sits waiting for Torte Reform bill to be passed*

[KDR_11k]

I say introduce a law that requires a patent holder to act within three months of the violation or lose their patents. Too many people are abusing the system by patenting something, not say anything while the patented stuff is widely picked up as standard and then step out of the shadow and sue everyone because none of them noticed the patent even existed.
Besides, software patents should be illegal, anyway, but as long as the government belongs to companies like Microsoft we're not going to see them disappear.

[KnowsNothing]

As much as I'm pissed at these paltry lawsuits, I can't help but laugh.  Someone succesfully sued McDonald's for not putting three simple letters on their coffee cups;  H-O-T.  That one will live on forever.

Videogame-concerning, I didn't think it'd get worse than someone suing Nintendo for making a game that gave a child a seizure while Nintendo puts ample warning on the box and in the manual.  But this takes the cake.  This is just greed.  I agree with KDR; if the lawsuit doesn't come within a certain amount of time than any legal action the holder takes should be considered null.  

[Ian Sane]

"Someone succesfullysued McDonald's for not putting three simple letters on their coffee cups; H-O-T. That one will live on forever."

Personally I would sue if it was cold because it would, you know, be really crappy coffee otherwise.  This country needs a "that's f*cking stupid" law where some appointed sane person can just take any court case and say "that's f*cking stupid" and the whole thing gets thrown out.  I'm going to nominate myself as that person.

"I didn't think it'd get worse than someone suing Nintendo for making a game that gave a child a seizure while Nintendo puts ample warning on the box and in the manual."

Has anyone else noticed that all of Nintendo's first party games now have a seizure message at the beginning of the game that requires you to push 'A' to continue?  Do they have that in the States?  It's such a pain in the ass because I can't just turn the Cube on while I'm untangling controllers and let the game load on it's own.  

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Yes, it's in the States.

[nitsu niflheim]

I believe that if taken to court, a ruling will be issued in favor of Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and everybody else.  The whoel things strikes me as similar to Aspirin, once upon a time only one company made Aspirin and it was a tradename for Bayer, It was like Kleenex, and Rollerblade, but now it's like water, everybody has a right to it.  I feel that this is like the same thing,

Besides, whatabout public domain?  Why didn't anybody come out about this before now?

Reeks of greed for money.

[joshnickerson]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane

Has anyone else noticed that all of Nintendo's first party games now have a seizure message at the beginning of the game that requires you to push 'A' to continue?  Do they have that in the States?  It's such a pain in the ass because I can't just turn the Cube on while I'm untangling controllers and let the game load on it's own.

Yes, I noticed that playing Paper Mario in Best Buy the other day. I was hoping that would only be limited to kiosk discs, but apparently not. Seriously, thanks a lot, frivilous lawsuits. Why the hell doesn't this affect Sony or Microsoft either?

[nitsu niflheim]

probably because they don't care about us like Nintendo cares about us?

[Caillan]

Expect more of this: the patent situation in the USA is ridiculous. Nintendo has issued a patent for online gaming. A company called DE Technologies (as resently reported on slashdot) has patented handling international transactions through computers.

[Bartman3010]

Who the hell are these people? I always hear about these nameless companies when they sue other people.

"What are they memorable for? Oh yeah, they sued Nintendo because their controllers had rumble motors in them."

Edit: Do these patent lawsuits actually favor these idiots? Somebody name one that has...

[KnowsNothing]

Quote
Nintendo has issued a patent for online gaming.

Reeeeeeeaaaaaaaallllyyyyy..........If this is true, we now know what Nintendo's "secret weapon" for next gen might be

I think we should go on a mad patenting spree.  Like seriously, all of us at PGC should think of obvious things that are used everyday and look if they're patented.  If they're not, we can patent them and then sue the living daylights out of major corporations

[Grant10k]

I have a friend who clames he patented the letter 'E', it used to be an ongoing joke but now I'm starting to think it's not sutch a bad idea...

[S-U-P-E-R]

Someone once sued 3D Realms (singled them out for some bizarre reason) around, like, 1996 or sometime around then, because they had violated some fruity patent regarding video playback in software. I bet it was overturned since I never heard about it again.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well Ian the seizure warning screen before a game boots up and everything goes away in about 30 sec to a min and after it goes away the game boots normally.

[Odeix]

Quote
Originally posted by: nitsu niflheim
probably because they don't care about us like Nintendo cares about us?

I think it's because Nintendo wants to go the extra mile to avoid getting sued. Sony or Microsoft probably think they've done enough to avoid any serious lawsuits.

[KDR_11k]

It's not just the US, an Australian guy patented the wheel (was overturned after the patent office found out what all that legalese meant).

nitsu: That's trademark law, a trademark is voided if it's adopted into public speech. If Sega had called the Genesis a 16 bit Nintendo N would probably have lost its trademark. Come to think of it, Ninty could attempt to dilute Sony's trademark and make playstation a word that merey means console...
This doesn't hold true for patents and that's why I'm for adding legislation that makes patents behave in the same way.

But seriously, this lawsuit includes so many large companies that could simply buy the court and get the patents overturned even if one of them was valid.

[Knoxxville]

How conveeeeeeeeeeeeeeinient................

[ChaNoKin]

Quote
Originally posted by: PGC NewsBot
American Video Graphics summons dated patents in an attempt to swipe money from dozens of hardware and software companies.

AVG, which has come into possession of Tektronic’s 3D graphics patents (dating back to 1987), is aiming to receive royalties for virtually all 3D graphical techniques, both past and present.  The most significant patent cited is the basic concept of rendering a 3D image on a 2D display.  Perhaps less questionable is its patent on image frame buffers, though this is a commonly used technique as well.

This kinds of lawsuits are not new, don't you remember when Creative Labs. made Id software use their EAX technology in the Doom III engine or else they would sue them for using the Carmack's reverse algorithm? I mean isn't that just too f**kin stupid?

[nitsu niflheim]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
It's not just the US, an Australian guy patented the wheel (was overturned after the patent office found out what all that legalese meant).

nitsu: That's trademark law, a trademark is voided if it's adopted into public speech. If Sega had called the Genesis a 16 bit Nintendo N would probably have lost its trademark. Come to think of it, Ninty could attempt to dilute Sony's trademark and make playstation a word that merey means console...
This doesn't hold true for patents and that's why I'm for adding legislation that makes patents behave in the same way.

But seriously, this lawsuit includes so many large companies that could simply buy the court and get the patents overturned even if one of them was valid.

Then wouldn't that mean that Nintendo is free domain as well since Nintendo was used to refer to videogames, and still is, to some extent, however, not on the same scale as it once was.  I remember it wasn't "Playing videogames." but "Playing Nintendo."

[KDR_11k]

Nintendo is no longer used in public speech. That was a fad and Ninty still holds its trademark.