Patent Arcade

There not only is money in making video games, but as is quickly becoming more evident, there is also money in PLAYING video games. The two most popular methods are item farming in MMOGs, and professional video game tournaments.

For those who thought anyone who just played video games would never amount to anythiny, talk to Jonathan Wendel, aka Fatal1ty. On November 23, 2005, Jon won the Cyberathlete Professional League World Tour Grand Finals and the $150,000 payday that goes with it. Being that the Xbox 360 just launched a few days ago, I will keep this short, as I have practicing to do...

Read CNN news story.

Labels: News

Today marks the launch of Microsoft's new Xbox360 game console and upgraded Xbox Live online gaming service. Interesting is the inclusion of Gotham TV on Project Gotham Racing 3, where anyone can spectate live races. Unlike previous games that allow spectating, you don't have to be in the game session to watch it. That means anyone can watch it, not just the 8 or 16 people in the game. I would hesitate to call these "public" broadcasts, since you have to pay to play, but there is undoubtably IP in these broadcasts. What steps are being taken to protect it? It raises some interesting new questions on which I suspect people will start commentary very shortly.

Labels: News

Is the price of virtual property getting out of hand? Jon Jacobs, a Miami resident, has bought a virtual space station in the game Project Entropia for $100,000 and wants to turn it into a cross between Jurassic Park and a disco. Mr. Jacobs plans to hire famous DJs to entertain visitors one a week or so at the "resort" space station (which he calls Club Neverdie), and thinks he can net $20,000/month (real money) from the "hunting tax and other income."

Read CNN article here.

In an interesting twist, Mr. Jacobs bought the space station from the game developer itself, MindArk PE AB. This raises some interesting legal implications regarding the developer's ability to shut the game down. If the game goes under tomorrow, does Mr. Jacobs get his money back. I sure hope he didn't mortgage his house for that purchase... oh wait, he did! The deal was brokered by IGE, a broker of game property.

Labels: News

In a major video game IP licensing deal, Atari has licensed the Unreal 3 game engine and related development tools from Epic Games to develop games for next-generation platforms. With the Unreal and Doom engines being the only two FPS engine families out there, licensing of source code and development tools can be a tidy little income stream for Epic Games and id Software.

Read more here.

Labels: News

Forterra Systems, Inc. on November 3, 2005, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the Avatar Factory for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,784,901, entitled "Method, System and Computer Program Product for the Delivery of a Chat Message in a 3D Multi-User Environment." Claim 1 of the '901 patent reads as follows:

1. A system for delivering a message between a sender and a recipient in a three-dimensional multi-user environment, wherein said three-dimensional multi-user environment maintains respective digital representations of the sender and the recipient, comprising:
a sender interface; and
a recipient interface, including a recipient viewport;
wherein said recipient interface receives the message from said sender interface, maps the message to a texture to generate a textured message, and renders said textured message at locations along a path in the three-dimensional multi-user environment, whereby the recipient can visually ascertain at least portions of the path of the textured message through said recipient viewport.

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California, and is docketed as case no. 5:05-cv-04472-PVT. We will add this case to our tracking list and update of any significant developments.

Labels: News