Re: [Algorithms] Collision detection patent

[Tom H. <to...@3d...>]

At 12:25 PM 8/15/2000, you wrote:
>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.

I don't mind patents so much, I mean there has to be some way to protect 
genuine intellectual property. What I hate are bogus patents that are a 
nuisance to the community and stifle development of small developers. 
Threats of the nature this John Nagle make the problems even worse. What 
really inflames me is that even though the patent is obviously bogus to 
those "in the know", the fact remains that the patent exists and if the 
company that owns the patent has money and feels like getting in the news 
they can push it in court with minimal energy. The little guy won't have 
the funds to defend themselves so they're just screwed.

Now, tonight I had a thought that might be quite useful. It seems to me 
that if a non-profit organization was formed with funding from game 
companies that went out and proactively challenged these kinds of patents. 
It would also have a public web page that listed the status of the many 
different patents relevant to the game industry. Patents for which a 
non-aggressive stance had been taken by the owner would be listed, as well 
as ones which were currently in litigation, those that had been deemed 
"bogus" by experts but not by the courts, and those that are in fact valid 
and for which the company is pursuing those who violate their IP. This is 
all rather off the cuff so I don't really even know the feasibility of such 
a thing, but if it is indeed feasible, I can definitely see many game 
development houses being interested in contributing. I'm just a small fry, 
but I know I'd give money, especially if it could some how be considered a 
charitable donation for tax purposes. The way I see it, my taxes paid to 
the US government aren't giving me adequate service in this area, so in 
effect I'd be taking money away from them and giving it to someone else to 
fix their mistakes :)

Also, I don't know if its the same guy or not, but the scenes are almost 
identical so I'm assuming it is. I talked to someone who was working on 
this stuff back around 1995. At that time he was still wrapping up the 
demos and had MPEGs that look to be using the exact same models (untextured 
at the time) as the ones shown on the web page. He was working on making it 
into a plug-in for Softimage, which I'm assuming became Falling Bodies. I 
don't really understand the intricacies of what he's done, or what he's 
patented (I loathe reading patents ... especially after seeing how lawyers 
have taken things I've written and turned into patent submissions that even 
I had trouble following ... don't worry .. they weren't game related), but 
it remains to be seen if what he has is just a good implementation of 
existing methods, or if it is in fact a new twist on old tech that 
constitutes a new invention. I mean, if he's trying to patent collision 
detection and physically based simulation in general then he's cracked 
(unfortunately, patents must be made very general, otherwise they won't be 
approved .. its a very weird process). If he's trying to patent some key 
processes that make the act of physically based simulation better, or at 
least different, than what has been done before, and if he's the first to 
invent those specific processes then I think he has a valid claim and 
something worth protecting. I'll even go out on a limb and say that if the 
scope of his legal actions are limited to other peoples implementations 
that implement the exact same processes that he describes, then I think 
he's within his rights to do so. However, I don't see how it is 
realistically possible to be so selective ... I mean, the only thing you 
can really do is say, "Oh wow .. their stuff looks good, they must be using 
our methods .. better sue them and find out for sure". Its an ugly ugly 
mess that really needs a much better solution than patents.

Tom