RE: [GD-Consoles] selector patent

[Troy G. <Tr...@cs...>]

And to add to what my fine colleague (from France) had to say...

The art package you're thinking of is Maya, and they were educated by
Clanton on the subject. In fact, there was actually a recent article in Game
Developer on this very subject; I believe it was referring to the interface
in the Sims (an example of its use in a game).

On a more general note, I would place a patent like this in the "evil
patents" pile if it existed, and would happily fight/violate it to the
death... (but I digress!)

Troy
Developer Relations
Criterion Software
www.csl.com


> ----- [relevant parts from thread] -----
> From: Alistair Milne [mailto:kru...@ya...]

> We were doing a similar thing at Dogfish before we went 
> under, which was
> inspired by hearing a guy called Chuck Clanton speaking to us 
> all at Bullfrog
> about pie menus.  Chuck (who hails from Stanford Uni and 
> specialised in GUI
> design for part of his career) gave us the impression that 
> this idea had been
> around for decades, and that it was therefore completely 
> unpatentable.  

> --- Brett Bibby <res...@ga...> wrote:

> > analog controller or dpad without scrolling.  I thought I 
> remember one of
> > the 3D art packages doing this years ago and that they were 
> going to seek a
> > patent, but I have no idea how to search if it is patented