Atari Pays Money in Spherical Panning Patent Settlement

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There's that American Video Graphics company which apparently owns the patent for spherical panning, which is a nifty name for displaying 3D objects on a 2D screen, and has sued most of the American game publishers who have used that technology. Here's from Shacknews:

In Atari's latest SEC filing, which recently showed the company in dire straits, a $300,000 settlement was revealed for a patent infringement case launched agaisnt many major publishers, including Atari. American Video Graphics L.P. owns the rights to the "method and apparatus for spherical panning" (US Pat. No. 4,734,690), essentially the means for displaying moving 3D perspectives on a 2D screen. The patent was bought by AVG in the late 90s from tech measurements firm Tektronix, Inc. In 2004, AVG filed suit against just about every company operating in the U.S. that has made games using such techniques (and which has enough money to be worth including). This includes Atari, Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, THQ, Ubisoft, Vivendi Universal Games, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, LucasArts, and Namco Hometek (now Namco Bandai). A similar suit was also filed against Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft for making use of the technology in its gaming consoles.

Perhaps this is the time for some serious discussion of patents in the game industry? In my oh so humble opinion, it's perfectly equitable for inventors and developers of new things to be paid for it, but come on, just because somebody came up first with the idea that someone else would come up with a month or year later doesn't mean he should be given the power to lock that solution out of the market if he so damn well please. Not like AVG is seeking to do that but it actually could if it wanted. Which is ridiculous. What do you think?

Read the rest at Shacknews.

 

This is serious misuse of the patenting process. Somebody needs to take a serious look at what these people are patenting. In BOTH of these cases there is NO OTHER METHOD for solving these problems.
They really need to look at the patenting of algorithmic solutions, it should be disallowed from day dot.

Likely these companies had NO IDEA that somebody had put a patent in for that method, they most likely have come up with identical solutions in isolation. For some problems there is EXTREMELY low number of methodical solutions (especially efficient ones) to a problem.

It's high time computer algorithms/methods were BANNED from being patented. Soon we'll see people patenting sort methods.

The whole patenting process needs to be re-examined. It's like a more amoral case of "cybersquatting" a web address , it's clandestine and vicious. The power of the patenting office has been abused.

It's simply just wrong.. these patents needs to be revoked, and moneys returned to damaged parties (and the patenting money returned to the patent holder).

 

The whole idea of patenting is - IMO - incredibly silly, especially in cases like this. Owning an idea ... what a dumb concept.

 

it is in this occasion, a well education person, i.e. me, who study some amount of rhetoric, greek, roman, chinese, english, malays even, resolved to use a simple cyberage word to describe express my feelings


WTF dude, wtf.

 

Indeed and what if I made a patent of air? All human would be forced to pay me 'cause they breath?

 

If you use someone's technology as in being taught by him or by someone he taught or from his books, then he has a claim. But if you come up with a coding solution on your own that someone came up with you before, that sucks.

Patents should never cover something which you simply come up with first, rather than genuinely create or invent.