Too Much Free Time

Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick




More Video Game Patents On The Way

from the just-what-we-needed dept

One thing we've known for a while is that IP lawyers love patents. While the patent system has been shown not to do much for innovation lately, it sure does enrich patent lawyers, and how better to enrich patent lawyers than to find an "untapped" area for patents? According to Slashdot, a pair of patent lawyers are pushing to get more game developers to patent everything they can think of within games. In other words, independent game development is about to get more expensive and less innovative. Of course, maybe the market wouldn't be overflowing with first person shooters if id had patented the concept years ago... Why can't we just let game developers compete in the market place? Build a better game, do a better job with marketing and distribution, and what do you need patents for?

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jun 1st, 2005 @ 11:06am
  • What about Patents for Terrorism?

    by dorpus

    A group of three schoolgirls aged 8-10 put rocks on the train track, because they had heard of the Osaka derailment that killed 108 people and wanted to "see what happens". They placed 6 rocks on the track, which a train passed over a few minutes later and smashed to pieces. One of the rocks brushed a nearby pedestrian.

    The next day, one of the girls saw the policemen gathered around the train crossing where they had put the stones, and also saw the incident mentioned in the newspaper. Her mother noticed the girl was acting funny, so she asked the girl (probably digging fingernails into her arms), and the girl confessed to the crime. The mother (stupidly) discussed the problem with the school, who of course had the girls arrested.

    http://www.sanspo.com/sokuho/0601sokuho066.html

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Jun 1st, 2005 @ 11:47am
  • Why should they?

    EA already owns all video games anyway so why should they bother patenting?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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