View Full Version : Software Patents and Neocron
Spooky times we live in. There's still a chance that the EU Council could pass rights to patent code/software within the EU. Now, they say that this will influence small companies, and most of all, the open source field. Now, what kind of an impact will this have on, for instance, reakktor and neocron? I believe (I could be wrong though) that a big portion of the game, has been made by someone else before, so they could seek a patent, and they could start collecting royalties... People WILL try to exploit this, if it happens.
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html
So, what do YOU think? Is this a good idea, or a bad one? I for one, think it sucks... :rolleyes:
hmmmmm make a new neocron graphics engine and sell it to kk
i doubt i could do that
Mighty Max
21-03-05, 22:34
There is no choice i'd vote.
Software patents are bad when it comes to obvious things. I dont think it is ok to get a patent on things like the "Cancel, Previous, Next, Finish"-Button-Shematics.
When it comes to things like MP3-compression, or things that goes deep into the theory - Like an algorythm (that has not yet found) to move the exponential-complex-problems down to linear ones - i can live and strongly recomment the software patents, or else very low companies will invest money on research of such problems.
And if it is really handled this way i dont see why small companies would be treated worse then the bigger ones. Since they are really "brainwork" and not "patent everything asap no matter what it costs"-work which would definately kick out small companies.
Thing is, small companies today, either do the research they need, spend money on that, or they use some known way of getting to their goal. If software patents are allowed, bigger companies can take that money, or the smaller companies can spend it on research. This will have a big effect on software development, since you will have to start with alot more resources.
If costs for developing software go up, retail prices of software will go up. Small companies will go broke, if you accidentally use patented code without permission, you'll end up getting sued... I can't think of anything good that'd come from this :rolleyes:
Mighty Max
21-03-05, 23:38
So now imagine some small company working on a problem and come up with a solution that is genuine and has a big advantage against the non-patentable common method.
Like a database system that works as fast with very many entries simultaneous accesses as current databases with low access at the same hardware
That one technique would provide the user a huge advancement moneywise. Think on Financial-Institute-Databases i.e.
So everyone is gaining advantage of it beside the one guy that came up with it (He is sitting on his research costs where all others just use it). Dont think that is fair.
When it comes to things like MP3-compression, or things that goes deep into the theory - Like an algorythm (that has not yet found) to move the exponential-complex-problems down to linear ones - i can live and strongly recomment the software patents, or else very low companies will invest money on research of such problems.
By the original intent of the patent system, algorithms (which are pure mathematical constructs) are not inventions, but discoveries and not patentable.
When it comes to heavy inventions that take years and billions to develop, like medicines, patents make sense. Patents don't make sense for things that are developed through quick insights. No algorithms ever have been developed through massive investments of money and time.
You have to realize that patents are there for the good of the society, not to make a few people rich. There is no evidence whatsoever that a patent system that promotes software patents increases innovation. There is a lot of evidence of the contrary. Most companies that hold a lot of software patents today do it solely for defensive purposes, they waste sometimes over 20% of their R&D budget on lawyers.
You have to think about one thing. Who is going to benefit from this? At this moment software patents are pushed mainly by three groups. 1. Software giants that are fighting for a monopoly on the market. 2. Lawyers or companies controlled by lawyers. 3. Patent-offices. Group 1 does that to increase their stranglehold over the market by getting legitimate ways of gaining monopolies. Groups 2 and 3 are not the ones protected by the system, so they shouldn't have any say in the matter. Of course lawyers are happy with all changes that makes people sue each other more. Of course patent offices want to have more things to do. Patent offices thrive from issuing bogus and overbroad patents, every time someone files for a patent they get money, every time they issue a patent they get money, every time someone files for reexamination of a patent they get money, every time a patent goes to court they get money. The more chaos the better for them.
Software patents don't make sense except if you want to use them to steal money from people who actually do stuff and give it to lawyers.
Mighty Max
22-03-05, 00:27
No algorithms ever have been developed through massive investments of money and time.
I wonder why the university (where i am studying atm) gives place to 17 Profs and their teams to develop new algorythms in the different disciplines. Hence the millions the "Frauenhofer Institute" is investing in them.
I wonder why i have to study approx. 13 semesters (= 6 1/2 years) to get the title Dipl. Inf. (german title, a bit more then the master which is also available over here in 8 semesters)
Software is not only "come we make some proggy". And yes i cant make an patent on how to calc 2*2 fastest, but when i construct a technical environment to do something that is not derived from a simple axiom and gives ppl an advantage they didnt know before, i have the right to earn money from that. Hence it is the inventors work.
Not much different then engeneering. I cant patent the wheel, but i can patent "a wheel that reduces noises while rolling about 50% against normal wheels".
So why should that inventor can patent his work, while the one that invented a algorythm that goes twice the way as the normal one in the same time cant.
As an example of the nonsense to allow the one and disallow the other:
When BTX was invented it was a "hardware only" solution. It got patentet. Anyhow BTX was just a hardwired algorythm. If it had been done as a software running on a chip it wouldnt have been able to be patented. Even if it is basically the same thing. Same working way, same box, just another way to distribute the program.
(since i dont know what BTX is in english a lil explanation: BTX is(was in the 80s) a tv-screen based online system with user verification to do homebanking and -shopping)
In the dim and distant past, a part of the Tekktonic engine was properly licensed from a third-party. The engine we have today bears little resemblence to its roots and even then those roots were acquired legally. Patents don't even come into it unless someone decides to patent a concept such as "A Portal Rendering Engine For 3D Modelling Of Interior Spaces" or some-such and even then they would have to prove that they were the first - there are plenty of people who make it there life's work to find so-called prior art where someone else did it first in which case the patent can be rejected.
N
In the dim and distant past, a part of the Tekktonic engine was properly licensed from a third-party. The engine we have today bears little resemblence to its roots and even then those roots were acquired legally. Patents don't even come into it unless someone decides to patent a concept such as "A Portal Rendering Engine For 3D Modelling Of Interior Spaces" or some-such and even then they would have to prove that they were the first - there are plenty of people who make it there life's work to find so-called prior art where someone else did it first in which case the patent can be rejected.
N
Disregarding the fact that Google can usually find prior art within say half an hour for most patents.
Patents just suck full stop. If companies want to survive they should do it by innovating and moving forward - not by sitting on a stack of patents. A good software company wouldn't bother with patents because by the time their competitiors copied their features they'd be pushing forward with newer and more innovative features.
Athon Solo
In the dim and distant past, a part of the Tekktonic engine was properly licensed from a third-party. The engine we have today bears little resemblence to its roots and even then those roots were acquired legally. Patents don't even come into it unless someone decides to patent a concept such as "A Portal Rendering Engine For 3D Modelling Of Interior Spaces" or some-such and even then they would have to prove that they were the first - there are plenty of people who make it there life's work to find so-called prior art where someone else did it first in which case the patent can be rejected.
N
I bet that if someone dug deep enough he'd find patent violations in the algorithms used in the rendering engine for lightning, shadows, order of rendering, organization of objects, etc. Most of those patents used to be owned by Silicon Graphics for purely defensive purposes, but have been acquired by Microsoft a few years ago and Microsoft are preparing themselves to start fighting an offensive patent battle. Another company that have tons and tons of patents in the rendering area is Creative and they have been using their patents to force game companies to make changes in their games, primarily to use their sound libraries.
Actually, Creative can be used to show why people finding prior art are completly useless in the software patent area. Sometime a few years ago John Carmack (the mastermind behind Doom and Quake and ID software) had a good idea about how to optimize rendering of shadows using shadow valumes. He turned the classic method around, did it completly back-asswards and the result was faster and less error-prone rendering of shadows. The method quickly became known as "Carmack's reverse" and replaced the previous methods of doing shadows with shadow volumes. A year or two later Creative filed and was granted a patent for that exact algorithm, even though they definitely didn't publish it first. The sense of justice and fairness says that Carmack has all rights to that patent and should never be hassled by Creative for it. Unfortunately, that's not the case. A short time before Doom 3 was about to be released, Creatives lawyers came to ID software and threatened with a lawsuit for patent infringiment that Carmack did by using the algorithm he invented. Sure, he would have won in court. But that would delay the release of Doom 3 by a few years, it would bankrupt the company that didn't have money to survive unless Doom 3 was released and definitely didn't have any money to pay for all the lawyers. The result - ID software complied.
This might sound like an extreme example, but it's not. Same thing happened to Cisco when they were young and didn't have own patents to defend themselves. Autodesk (the guys who make AutoCAD) got an extortion team from IBM just days before going public (a lawsuit from IBM would make the company worthless and ruin their IPO). Novell, Oracle. And thousands of companies that didn't make it.
Yes, searching for prior art makes sense. Except that the process takes years. In the software industry the time from release to obsoletion is often less than a year. Delaying a product by a month is a disaster that often ends with companies going under (been there, done that), waiting for a patent reexamination that can take years is not an option, the only options is to pay the extortion price or die.
The patent offices don't search for prior art. They want you to believe that, but they have no reason to do that. They make more money when a patent is granted than when it's rejected. They make more money when a patent is reexamined. They make more money when a patent is withdrawn. They make more money every time there is a question about any patent. The European Patent Office has granted over 30000 bogus patent in the software area even tough software and algorithms are unpatentable according to the European Patent Convention. There are no consequences for them. They want you to believe that they are doing a good job, because it takes a few years to get a ptent, but they are not doing anything. The most obvious things are rejected, but if you have a good patent lawyer, he can obfuscate the application that it will pass through the system without a problem. There are patents for the wheel, a patent for playing with your cat by shining a laser on the floor, a patent for swinging sideways in a swing.
An average programmer (who's every month doing hundereds of decisions that might potentially infringe on a patent) doesn't stand a chance to understand any patent granted. Let me give you an example, I read through the titles of the 100 latest software patents granted (illegally) by the EPO and chose the ones that might be relevant to Neocron. Tell me which of those KK definitely doesn't infringe:
Updating image frames in a display device comprising a frame buffer (http://swpat.ffii.org/pikta/txt/ep/1217/602/) - funny one. Might be someone who actually patented V-sync.
Segmenting compressed graphics data for parallel decompression and rendering (http://swpat.ffii.org/pikta/txt/ep/1185/958/) - looks like it's some kind of method of storing triangle meshes in memory so that they can be composed of triangle strips instead of separate triangles. Almost everyone does that, the question is: how broad is this patent?
Method to extend application that is to be installed with an installation program with a function and a computer program product (http://swpat.ffii.org/pikta/txt/ep/1271/310/) - something about installtion. No clue, the patent is in german.
User-name switching method on network game (http://swpat.ffii.org/pikta/txt/ep/1253/763/) - "According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a user-name switching method in which a terminal connected to a server switches a user-name when receiving service provided by the server while using any one of a group of user-names stored in the server for each user and while using a character associated with the user-name. The user-name switching method includes switching a character currently in use to another character according to a user instruction and comparing a user-name associated with the switched character with the user-name currently being used to receive the service. The method also includes switching the user-name, which is held by the terminal and is currently used, to the user-name associated with the switched character when the compared user-name is different from the user-name currently in use. The method further includes transmitting information, indicating the user-name associated with the switched character, to the server when the compared user-name is different from the user-name currently in use." I'm not fucking kidding. That's from an actual patent, it's not random gibberish, this stuff will be used against you in a court, understand it or go out of business.
A method of protecting the integrity of a computer program (http://swpat.ffii.org/pikta/txt/ep/1349/033/) - Didn't Neocron check the integrity of its files to prevent people from cheating?
CHARACTER ANIMATION SYSTEM (http://swpat.ffii.org/pikta/txt/ep/1349/033/) - If you ever plan to make the characters appear to speak with their mouth/head, beware.
To repeat, this is just what at the first glance appeared to be possibly relevant of the latest 100 out of 30000 patents. If KK was a diligent business, they'd read every patent application, every granted patent and make sure that you avoid using the methods and algorithms described there or pay the royalties. Of course, noone does that. Everyone just closes their eyes and hopes to grow rich enough to absorb the blow when the lawsuit comes.
Current Patent and Copyright law is hopelessly inappropriate to modern software (and in some cases hardware) design as well as many other fields that have developed in the last half century or so.
Something new is needed, not a strengthening of the existing system. The real problem, as I see it, is that there is an unwillingness to create a new legal framework alongside the old one which still works for the things it was developed for. People either want to use the old laws for new problems they don't fit or apply new general laws that better suit new developments but are worse than existing law when applied to the more traditional situations.
As Nid says though it shouldn't affect NC at all.
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