Posts Tagged: "games"

Darrow became the first millionaire game inventor, thanks to royalty payments. The irony, however, is that Darrow may not have invented the game at all, but rather he may have taken a locally popular game and made only a few changes. By the time Parker Brothers realized that Darrow may not have been the true inventor the game was already a huge success. In order to protect the game and its investment the decision was made to buy up all patents and copyrights on any related game, thereby ensuring the monopoly on Monopoly®. Thus, the story of Monopoly® provides inspiration to inventors who at first are told no, and for companies who acquire intellectual property rights.

Several years ago we profiled the Top 10 Iconic (and Patented) Toys in our Christmas Eve edition. This year we decided to profile the most iconic and patented games, many of which are still likely to be found waiting for good little girls and boys under the Christmas tree. Profiled are Monopoly®, Rubik’s Cube, Battleship, and Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Twister and Simon.

Gamevice is asserting a single patent in this case: U.S. Patent No. 9126119, titled Combination Computing Device and Game Controller with Flexible Bridge Section. Issued in September 2015, it claims a combination device having a computing device with sides disposed between an electronic display screen and the device’s back, a communication port interacting with the computing device and having a pair of structures confining the computing device, an input device in communication with the communication port and having a pair of control modules providing input module apertures securing an instructional input device.

Bahr explained a number of things, including the reason the USPTO has not updated patent eligibility guidance to address the pro-patent decision of the Federal Circuit in BASCOM v. AT&T. Many in the industry have been critical of the fact that the USPTO, which has been otherwise quick to provide guidance with respect to important precedential decisions, did not provide examiners with guidance in this case which found the software claims at issue patent eligible. Bahr explained that the USPTO did not think the case changed anything they had previously told patent examiners, which is why no further guidance had been issued.

One particularly disconcerting and largely unpredictable aspect of Alice is how it has been used to render games patent ineligible. This type of Alice-creep is particularly disconcerting because it ignores the primary concern of the Supreme Court in Mayo. Much of the 101 patent eligibility mischief we now experience can be traced back directly to Mayo v. Prometheus, where the Supreme Court ruled that conventional steps are not enough to transform a law of nature into a patent eligible process… Given that the Alice framework is really the Mayo framework applied to abstract ideas instead of laws of nature, why should Alice ever be used to deal with a process that a patent examiner acknowledges is new, non-obvious and appropriately described? It would seem that Alice simply has no relevance in such a circumstance.

This year’s edition of the consumer trade show featured many companies which had placed a firm focus on the development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. Modern-day virtual reality technologies can perhaps be traced back to American computer scientist Ivan Sutherland who created the world’s earliest stereoscopic headset, the Sword of Damocles, in the late 1960s. With the long-awaited Oculus Rift virtual reality headset about to hit consumer markets in 2016, this year’s CES became a large opportunity for rival firms to stake their claim before the consumer market for virtual reality technologies begins to mature.

This year’s E3 conference heralded the coming of some highly anticipated titles as well as some interesting technological trends that may change the course of the industry in the near future. Since the earliest days of the video gaming, the business model has largely been predicated upon a model in which consumers own a hardware console and buy additional game cartridges or discs. Video game developers create hardware with exacting technical specifications which are able to execute ever more complex game software. With the rise of cloud-based app gaming, however, a very basic aspect of video game retailing might be set to undergo a massive change.

Over the past week the world lost a major name in video game technology, the man who originally developed the entire concept of playing games through a television screen display. Ralph Baer, a 2010 inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, passed away on Saturday, December 6th at the age of 92. From his mind sprang a wide array…