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Law of the Game on Joystiq: Patently Complicated
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq, a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: Patents seem to be the intellectual property du jour for conflict in the video game world. After all, it was only a matter of time before the conflicts that have engulfed technology at large would spread to our little corner of the electronic world. However, patent law is not exactly a simple area of the law, and it's one that, like most of the other intellectual properties, is generally not well understood. Because of the complexity, someone mentioned it would be a good idea to give an overview of patent law and patent infringement. I should mention before I begin that I am not a patent attorney, meaning I haven't taken the patent bar, and so I wouldn't consider myself an expert on the subject. More importantly, this commentary applies to 'utility patents,' which is what most people mean when they simply say 'patent.'To start from the most basic level, a patent is a type of intellectual property, like a copyright or a trademark. Patents, generally, protect ideas for a limited time (20 years in the US). The theory behind a patent is that someone who invents something should be able to profit from that product for some period of time before anyone can produce the item. So, for example, when a new pain reliever is patented, only the patent holder and those who have a license from the patent holder can produce the product until the patent expires. Once the patent has expired, then anyone can produce that product. In fact, this is the big catch with patenting: you have to expose the "formula" for the product, in detail, in the patent application, which becomes public record. Many companies opt to not patent items for this reason, keeping them as "trade secrets" instead. A well known example is the formula for Coca-Cola. While this overview may sound simple, there is much more to a patent.
Joystiq interview: Patrick Goschy talks about Midway, tells us he 'made the Wii'
A few days ago, former Midway employee Patrick Goschy released a video he made in 1999 depicting a motion-based controller of his own design, with the intention of highlighting what he believed to be a direct inspiration for the Nintendo Wii remote. The Chicago-based Fox affiliate ran the story* and our sister site Engadget later managed to obtain pictures of the prototype. We had a chance to speak with Goschy over the phone to learn some new details about the creation of not one but two prototypes, as well as the circumstances surrounding the patent ownership.(* Note: About one third of the way through the Fox news footage, you can glimpse someone's hands playing the Wii. The shirt is unmistakably Joystiq, and the hands ... wow, that's Chris Grant from a CNN video dated December 2006! Congratulations Chris, you've become archived footage! You're immortal!)
Former Midway employee created Wii back in 1990, apparently [update]
Nintendo doesn't seem to be able to shake these lawsuits lately. Or, maybe the Wii is just an unlucky system to put product on? Well, what's a lawsuit here and there when the console is earning so much cash, right?And, meet the latest. It's a former Midway employee by the name of Pat Goschy. What's his beef? He says Nintendo is breaking a patent he has held on to for 8 years, which involves, you guessed it, motion controls. And Goschy apparently has proof, in the form of the embedded video above.Update: Turns out we may have jumped the gun on this one. Goschy isn't suing ... yet.[Via Joystiq]
