Re: Dylan's Contact for Bringing Legal Issue to Attention

[NovaTerran]

Those in the US: Fix your bloody patent system please.

I think that is probably the least of our worries tbh

[GeoLuz]

Urrgh, software patents. Totally broken system in the US and it's causing far more harm than good to the software industry there.
I don't think they'd go after Audiosurf though. Whilst it's fairly successful, it's not on the levels that patent trolls really work on. There's no way that they'd get back the amount they'd need to spend on lawyers to win the case. Could be wrong, but I can't see them pushing it too hard. Not enough reward.

I have been wondering how long it would take for the US games industry to latch onto patents though. Largely it's remained free of them (thankfully, imagine if id had patented the FPS). It has resulted in nasty clone wars at times but that's a better alternative to the poison that is software patents.
The linked patent would definitely cover Audiosurf, Beat Hazard, Rhythm Zone and Turba from what I can tell, probably most of the others mentioned in the Music Games thread (http://www.audio-surf.com/forum/index.php/topic,6628.0.html). Out of those the only one that's partly safe is Beat Hazard as the dev is UK based and so can just drop all sales in the US if need be. Would probably still be asked for back charges or some such nonsense. Bleh.

Those in the US: Fix your bloody patent system please.

It may not be something to worry about for now. We'll just have to wait and see how the complex legal process plays out.

[Passerby]

dont think beat hazzard would be effected actually, it doesn't pre anylise music, it is more or less directly tieing game variables to the music amplitude in real time, such as your weapons, 0dbu is full weapon power and volume, and anything below 0dbu is less than like -50dbu is prolly somewhere close to half power.

[S.]

So has Dylan been informed yet?

[Mincus]

I think that is probably the least of our worries tbh

Yeah, I mean, it's only the entire US tech industry that software patents cause issues with. Not like it's a major component of the US economy or anything... Oh, wait. 

It may not be something to worry about for now. We'll just have to wait and see how the complex legal process plays out.

For Audiosurf, hopefully not. Will have to see. It should be pointed out that Audiosurf is prior art on this patent though. Audiosurf was released in February 2008 and this patent was filed in April 2009, a full year after Audiosurf's release.
I'd also argue that the patent is invalid on "this is an obvious technology application" grounds, although I may be speaking from my game design shoes in that respect and it might not be as obvious to others.

dont think beat hazzard would be effected actually, it doesn't pre anylise music, it is more or less directly tieing game variables to the music amplitude in real time, such as your weapons, 0dbu is full weapon power and volume, and anything below 0dbu is less than like -50dbu is prolly somewhere close to half power.

It depends how the patent is applied. There's nothing there that says specifies analysing before play or in real-time. That's fairly typical of US software patents though, they're made to be as broad-ranged as possible.
Beat Hazard definitely uses all 4 of the main points (602, 604, 606 and 608) shown in the patent though. It just does it in real-time whereas the other games mentioned analyse the music before hand.
Since it's written in nonsensical legalese, it's hard to tell exactly WTF the small print is on about half the time (it mentions Voodoo 3D cards at some points for instance, weird), but scanning it I can't see any contradiction to it applying to both pre-analysing and real-time. In fact it would seem to lean more towards real-time since user events are mentioned for altering the music as it plays as well.

[blue_h3x]

Frets on Fire would be under threat as well, which pretty much directly matches 'fig. 1'.

So has Dylan been informed yet?

Yeh, though as to if anything will be done, who knows.

AS Mincus said, AS's publication date is pretty conclusive that the idea was not original nor unique and should never have been granted a patent. Although in the bent world of US patents, that probably stands for eff all. Seen as Apple got a patent for unlocking a touch screen by sliding something, the word 'bent' doesn't even give justice to the US patent system.

it mentions Voodoo 3D cards at some points for instance, weird

0023 mentions that and some other really old tech.

0057 As an example assume a music game created by the invention involves three buttons that the game player must press in synchrony with musical events and some salient property of each musical event determines which button the player must press for that event In the case where that musical property is pitch then musical events of generally low pitch may be assigned to a first button those of generally high pitch may be assigned to the third button and those of moderate pitch may assigned to the second button which is between the first button and the second button This configuration can be also be mapped to the iPod clickwheel The clickwheel can be thought of as a clock face The first button can be nine o clock the second button can be twelve o clock and third button can be three o clock.

Audiosurf is fairly none compliant with this bit, same with Beat Hazard.

[hado]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I completely agree with what you are saying.

Plus, the issues of whether Harmonix would act on it against Audiosurf are some of the strategic issues I have in mind. I do not know how the issue would play out if they sent a demand letter or what remedies are available short of all-out litigation. However even if the patent is clearly obvious when AS did it before, AS would still have a legal burden of challenging/showing that later. Which costs money.

I think what to be MORE worried about is the following: Harmonix doesn't touch AS because they know they can't win. But they also know AS won't challenge it (presuming they know about AS but they probably should, it's pretty well-known). But Harmonix grabs a patent on this. Then they come up with some big hit idea based on the concept. Other game companies want to use the same idea. Harmonix charges "licensing fees" for it and they make tons of money off of what was Dylan's idea.

[Laserrobotics]

As to fixing the patent system:  those who are aware of the problem don't have any power to change it, and those who have the power are being paid good money to keep it the way it is.  That's the way democracy works unfortunately :/

[blue_h3x]

Though the alternative system would have you shot, so can't complain too much :/

[Mincus]

As to fixing the patent system:  those who are aware of the problem don't have any power to change it, and those who have the power are being paid good money to keep it the way it is.  That's the way democracy works unfortunately :/

No. a 'pure' Democracy doesn't work like that. The version of democracy that exists in the US (among other places, like the UK) however has lobbyists that skew all issues towards large corporations with only the corporations interests represented. In short, Democracy + Unrestricted (or incorrectly restricted) Capitalism together cause it.

Whether that is good or bad is a separate issue, would cause a massive derail here and isn't relevant. However the point is that with the lobbyists you get from such a system, you get things like the broken patents the US has which allows large corporations to remain in control of entire sectors of industry by sitting as patent trolls and those companies have the money to then keep the laws that way. There are other effects, but again, derail. Don't really want to go off into politics, we'll all disagree and flame each other.

[ViRUS]

I'm not against you guys talking about politics, though you'll have to create a new thread in the Chat forum.

For the time being, I'm closing this thread since it's been derailed enough and I don't think there's much else to discuss regarding the original topic.