Gamasutra Feature: The Trouble with Patents

In this interesting Gamasutra feature, The Trouble with Patents, David Sirlin, a Bay area video game developer, discusses some of the problems with video game industry patents and argues that:

• 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

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