- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@lemmy.zip
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Pocket change when it comes to Valve
Pocket change when it comes to a Rothschild as well. This isn’t going to discourage them, that family is the dictionary definition of old money.
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Fuck software patents. You don’t have to make anything - it’s not a specific mechanism - it’s just claiming an idea.
With real patents, tiny workarounds are treated as completely different. Nintendo’s sturdy and reliable d-pads from the Game & Watch through the N64 used a hollow cross pivoting atop a dome. Some years later, Sega put the dome on the cross and had it pivot on a divot.
That sort of silly bullshit distinction is endemic to mechanical design patents. But I only know one case where it happened in software patents, and it’s why image and video codecs are such a clusterfuck. IBM patented arithmetic coding - assigning short codes to frequent values. JPEG and ZIP software had to dance around this for decades, by using Huffman coding, which does the same god damn thing, but slightly worse. When the patent finally expired and ultranerds were free to improve on arithmetic coding, Google tried doing the same bullshit with their improvements, which is part of why JPEG XL went nowhere.
And that’s for hard math! I had to sit and think about describing what arithmetic coding even does, instead of instinctively explaining how to balance binary trees. Namco infamously patented the idea of minigames during load screens. Any minigame! And then they used it, like, once. Warner patented the idea of hyping any NPC that beats you, so you won’t be allowed to do that until 2033. Nintendo’s trying to patent the parts of Pokemon they copied off Megami Tensei.
Imagine if Nintendo had patented sidescrollers. How many games would not exist, if they decided to own that concept? No iteration, no competition, just a handful of Marios and the worst Zelda. The very first third-party example would be Braid. A whole genre, wiped out, because a piece of paper says going left to right is theft.
zelda 2 was good man
And yet.
What the fuck?
That guy doesnt actually invent anything. He just comes up with ideas and files?
80% of patent work is coming up with ideas and filing them. The remaining 20% is ensuring there’s no prior art, prior patents, etc.
Besides, patent trolling is not completely negative. The silver lining is that the same system that allows this, also allows e.g. Sony to perpeetum own the patent for interactive TV ads that require the user to yell a word at the TV to ensure they’re watching the ad. Sony owns the patent but never implemented it, nor did they license it to others.
Now imagine what would happen if you had to implement your patent into a commercial product or lose the rights to it…
Besides, patent trolling is not completely negative.
The very idea of intellectual property is ludicrous and absurd. The concept of owning ideas is one of the most ridiculous notions that capitalism ever came up with. There are absolutely zero positive benefits to society when it comes to patents. They are the very reason people can’t afford lifesaving medicines and farmers can’t replant their own seeds. Anyone who owns a patent is a leech and should be hanged by the neck until dead.
Patent trolling is completely negative. Patents themselves are mostly negative.
I wish the damages they had to pay were enough to bankrupt them. “Companies” that do this sort of stuff are purely parasitical in nature should be taken down.
I’d even argue that when it is blatant like that law practicing licences should be revoked and the higher management of the company jailed for attempted extortion.
“System and method for storing broadcast content in a cloud-based computing environment”
What a bullshit patent. Twitch and other streaming services have been doing this for longer than this patent have existed most likely.
Patent trolls are absolute scum of the earth.
I’m reminded of that one Silicon Valley episode
Remind me?
Pied Piper was threatened with a lawsuit by a patent/IP troll. When Richard went to talk to him during his “everything can be solved by just talking it out” phase he learned the guy was also the owner of music copyright for an old song that he used to threaten musicians.
His solution was to find an older example of that song (using their software) and threaten the guy with losing his copyright on the song that was his main moneymaker.
So in this one case talking it out face to face did pay off. Unlike talking to Ed Chen
Thanks, I remember now!
Yes, that show is notably fiction, though so firmly rooted in the reality of Silicon Valley that it was at times almost painful to watch while working and living there. Also everyone started calling me Gilfoyle.
I could see an argument that RealPlayer did that 30 years ago.
Yeah, the fact such a nonspecific patent was granted in the first place shows pretty clearly there’s something wrong with the system!
At that point you could just patent breathing.
“Method and apparatus for insufflation of oxygen into a body by means of flexible permeable membrane”
Such poetic justice, though, ain’t it? I guess they must’ve thought Valve was easy, low hanging fruit? But of a mistake, if so. Just a little one, mind you!
