• patents are too easy to get
• many are trivial and do not pass the non-obvious test;
• the length of patent protection, especially in the context of the Internet and fast changing industries like the video game industry, is too long;
• the cost of defending a patent infringement suit is too high with the result that marginal patents are frequently not tested;
• to determine whether a prospective idea is obvious, and therefor patentable, it should be submitted for peer review as part of the patent prosecution process rather than the current system of testing for obviousness through the costly judicial process after a patent is granted; and
• the length of patent protection should be different for different types of patents.

He cites, for example, three patents covering ideas that were not novel and that should not have been granted:

1. Amazon’s 1-Cilck patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411).
2. Namco’s Mini-Game patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,718,632) protecting the idea of presenting a playable mini-game to the user during the time it takes for a new game level to load.
3. Sega’s ‘Crazy Taxi’ Direction Indicator Patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,200,138) protecting a particular patented driving mechanic:

“… the concept of driving around in a city where virtual people jump out of the way of your car is not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he said that patentable inventions were to be new and useful, and you can forget about non-obvious. I also don’t think he’d be too happy that no one can make a game where you drive a car around a city with virtual people who jump out of the way…FOR TWENTY YEARS. The big picture of protecting the R&D of entrepreneurs is certainly not served by patents like ‘138.”

Source: Gamasutra Feature | Sirlin.net

Ross Dannenberg and Steve Chang of Banner & Witcoff, Ltd have put together this terrific feature article: “The Ten Most Important Video Game Patents” for Gamasutra. In assessing the patents’ importance, they used four criteria:

1. Relativity to Video Games
2. Financial Value
3. Technological Importance
4. The IT-Factor

The winning patents honored/discussed in the piece are:

• Nintendo’s NES – Game Cartridge Lock Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,635)
• Alpex’s Patent Covering RAM-based Screen Mapping (U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,555)
• Immersion’s Force Feed-back Patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,275,213 and 6,424,333)
• Freedom Wave’s Wireless Controller Patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,280,327 and 6,878,006)
• Sega’s ‘Crazy Taxi’ Direction Indicator Patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,200,138)
• Koei’s Grouped Character Battle Method Patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,729,954)
• Interlink’s Motion Sensing (a.k.a. WiiMote) Patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,850,221)
• The Pong Patent (U.S. Patent No. RE28,507)

Check it out, its a good read.

Also, FYI, I have discovered Ross’ Patent Arcade blog where, among other things, he tracks Video Game Lawsuits. For your future reference I have added it to my “Video Game Law Blogs” roll down the right side of my blog (after “Topics”).

Source: Gamasutra

Sources: Next Generation | Next Generation Interview with James Rubin

Source: IP Frontline

Source: GamaSutra Feature

Sources: IGDA’s Ask Jim