{"id":65749,"date":"2014-06-16T01:06:45","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T23:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=65749"},"modified":"2014-06-16T01:09:27","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T23:09:27","slug":"video-game-patents-you-may-not-know-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/65749-video-game-patents-you-may-not-know-about","title":{"rendered":"Video game patents you may not know about"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here are some of the\u00a0more unusual video game patents that have been filed and approved.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">EA: The Mass Effect dialogue wheel<\/h3>\n<p>You know that wheel that pops up when you are about to respond to speech in the Mass Effect games? Well, EA loved that wheel so much that they\u00a0patented it, so it will be theirs forever. (Cue evil laugh.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qu_nOc5HgxQ?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">EA: A gaming console with a wireless controller<\/h3>\n<p>EA\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/patft.uspto.gov\/netacgi\/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&amp;Sect2=HITOFF&amp;p=1&amp;u=\/netahtml\/PTO\/search-bool.html&amp;r=1&amp;f=G&amp;l=50&amp;d=PALL&amp;RefSrch=yes&amp;Query=PN\/5806849\" target=\"_blank\">patented the gaming console<\/a>. Yes, that\u2019s right, they decided that any game console that runs off an OS and uses a wireless controller should be under their ownership. EA was quite clear when it came to filing this patent &#8211; luckily the patent expired in the early 90s.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Nintendo: The D-Pad<\/h3>\n<p>The early Xbox controllers were amazing &#8211; the positioning of their dual analogue sticks was every Call of Duty players&#8217; dream. The D-Pad, was another story all together. Nintendo owned the iconic &#8220;plus&#8221; shape and was the only company allowed to use the shape until the patent expired in 2005.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HfKoEWN65Qo?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Activision: Blur\u2019s social networking<\/h3>\n<p>Activision might have over 30 legitimate patents under their belt, but the gaming giant has some pretty weird ones, too. Did you know that <a href=\"http:\/\/patft.uspto.gov\/netacgi\/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&amp;Sect2=HITOFF&amp;p=1&amp;u=\/netahtml\/PTO\/search-bool.html&amp;r=1&amp;f=G&amp;l=50&amp;d=PALL&amp;RefSrch=yes&amp;Query=PN\/8425326\" target=\"_blank\">Blur\u2019s social media aspect is a patent<\/a>? The idea of social media in a game, integrated into the mechanics of the game, is owned by Activision.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Activision: Figurines in games<\/h3>\n<p>It is a no-brainer\u00a0that Activision would patent their world famous Skylanders figurines. The patent is filed as \u201cserver based interactive video game toys\u201d and \u201cthe use of a platform able to identify such toys\u201d. Funny enough, the patent did not interfere with Disney\u2019s money maker, and Disney Infinity launched without any hiccups.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fEwyp4XGBP4?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">EA: Video playing during loading screens<\/h3>\n<p>Basically, EA has applied for the right to play a video while your game loads &#8211; it&#8217;s quite self-explanatory. And not very sporting.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1FC3ve0c8oo?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More gaming news<\/h3>\n<p style=\"color: #6e6e6e;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0066cb;\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/ps4\/65927-bloodborne-the-darkest-and-bloodiest-game-on-ps4.html\">Bloodborne: the darkest and bloodiest game on PS4<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #6e6e6e;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0066cb;\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/65931-gta-5-pc-costs-the-same-as-ps4-xbox-one-version.html\">GTA 5 PC costs the same as PS4, Xbox One version<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #6e6e6e;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0066cb;\" href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/65943-virtual-reality-doesnt-dominate-at-e3.html\">Virtual Reality doesn\u2019t dominate at E3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you want to make sure no one else makes money off your good idea, you better file a patent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":65977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[21,12589],"class_list":["post-65749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-headline","tag-video-game-patents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65975,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65749\/revisions\/65975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}