Re: [Algorithms] Collision detection patent

[Jeff L. <je...@di...>]

This is my (and my company's) opinion only though I believe that the editorial staff of Game Developer shares my views.

I know John and was quite disappointed with his decision to go this route.  I tried to urge him to compete in the commercial arena.  If he really has some unique ideas that make penalty method simulations so much more stable, he should come up with a licensable system that could compete with MathEngine and Havok or just sell his idea to them.  I have seen his Falling Bodies and as a non-realtime simulator for animation work it seems to work as advertised but that package at least in not ready to compete with the physics engines out there.

His take on his patent is "It's quite broad; it covers most spring/damper ("penalty method") simulations that handle collisions and joints" and he will be watching upcoming games for infringement.  Going after game companies directly is just foolish and biting the hand that he hopes would feed him.  I don't really know how serious he is about this but it sounds like he may be.  Then again it could be just trying to build up IP for VC money or ...?  Game developers that have developed their own physics systems are obviously no happy about this attitude either.

If anyone here either gets a notice from John saying their engine is in violation or is worried about it.  Contact me, I will assist in documenting prior art and providing other contacts for more info.  I disagree with John and believe that plenty of well documented prior art exists.

Also I would currently urge everyone to avoid buying John's Falling Bodies or licensing any technology from him unless he declares a non-aggressive patent policy.  I feel the same way about all such patents and if anyone knows of any other aggressive software enforcements, please let me know.

-Jeff

At 01:46 PM 8/15/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>I have no idea if this is going to start an off-topic patent war, but I'm interested in the reaction here on the following patent.  http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US06067096__ 
>
>I read about it in the latest Game Developer and did a bit of reading through the patent claims since it appears that Mr. Nagle is attempting to patent methods which have not only been written about prior to his application (March, '98) but actually implemented in our, and other people's engines, prior to '98.
>
>According to GDMag, he actually intends to go after game companies which infringe his patent.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>
>- Michael Harrison
>   High Plains Coder, 
>   United Developers / Inertia, LLC
>   Work log @ http://lynx.inertiagames.com
>
>
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