New Patent Law Shifts Gaming Landscape

Game companies are departure to start filing a letters patent for everything.

The United States Patent Office (USPTO) once championed the teensy-weensy guy, encouraging individuals to create new products and drive innovation through and through a "first-to-forge" system which awarded rights to the creator heedless of when he or she made that invention better-known to the public. That system prevented abuse by corporations to "steal" an inventor's ideas and apply for a patent to receive all the benefits that entails. With the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, the U.S. switches to the system held by most of the rest of the world, awarding a patent to the first entity to file in an application with the USPTO. S. Gregory Boyd from the lawfirm Davis & Cass Gilbert LLP deals with the gaming industry oftentimes and he believes we will see a glut of applications from gaming hardware manufacturers like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft after the AIA goes into outcome in March 2013. But, interestingly, the act May actually foster more innovation with special concessions to little indie companies.

"Independent developers execute score a pretty braggy win with the new micro-entity status that makes patent fees Thomas More cheap for very teeny companies," Boyd said. "Also, making provisional applications more useful gross in a first-to-filing system is helpful for independent developers. Those provisional applications are cheaper to file away than full applications on the whole."

A micro-entity is defined A someone who makes to a lesser degree 3 times the median annual income in The States surgery is related to with a university. These micro-entities can file a patent with 75 percent of the fees that big corporations essential pay.

The problem with "get-go-to-file" is that corporations with the resources will bug out filing for a patent for every half-baked melodic theme or conception in their R&D pipeline, further clogging astir the USPTO with "vitality sensors" and useless peripherals. "The US patent federal agency will plausibly continue to do a pretty poor caper at handling those applications in a seasonably manner. The wait time is often more than three years and some applications are pending every bit long as seven Beaver State much years," Boyd aforementioned. "I suspect the wait time at the USPTO will be fixed right after the line at the DMV is fixed."

One solution is to force inventors to submit a working prototype as was required with a patent application in the 1800s. Boyd doesn't recollect that is feasible and may actually hurt fencesitter innovators and bet on developers. "If we require a working image then the large tech companies of the world will almost always win," Boyd said. "Working prototypes require more money. If obvious law requires just 'really healthful' plans, that really helps the little guy in well-nig cases. Generally speaking, it would work for the benefit of small companies in games as well."

S. Gregory Boyd loves acting games in add-on to working with game companies happening sound issues, but atomic number 2 prefers escapism sort o than games that embellish courtrooms like the Phoenix Frank Lloyd Wright series. "It rear end constitute fun if a trial is part of a quest in an RPG and I have seen that done well, but I think a game based on drafting contracts would be torturing," he said before admitting most of his job is rather dull.

"There is a reason you have to pay people to potation contracts – because it is very difficult and non very fun," Boyd said. "I'm like everyone else in my demographic on my prison term off. When I get home to encounter games, I ilk to fles empires, slay orcs, and bodge stuff up.

"Speaking of slaying orcs, my true calling in life is Orcs Must Die."

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/new-patent-law-shifts-gaming-landscape/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/new-patent-law-shifts-gaming-landscape/

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