--> From http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040406/1349225.shtml
Microsoft Patents Saving The Name Of A Game
Contributed by Mike on Tuesday, April 6th, 2004 @ 01:49PM
from the yeah,-that's-non-obvious dept.
theodp writes "As if there weren't enough dodgy patents, here's an
excerpt from one granted to Microsoft Tuesday for a 'Method and
apparatus for displaying information regarding stored data in a gaming
system': 'When saving a game, the saved game data may include a
descriptive name of the saved game, a graphic representation of the
state of the game when the game was saved, a description of the game
state when the game was saved, and a date and time that the game was
saved.'" I'm trying to figure out if there's more to this patent, but
the more I read, the worse it seems. How is this possibly
"non-obvious"?
--> Link to Patent http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,716,102
--> Link to Patent File History (Shows Two Earlier Rejections) http://pair.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/final/...mber=6,716,102
Jul 20 '05
138  6614 
In article <40************ **@prodigy.net> , CJT <ab******@prodi gy.net>
wrote: We used to play games on an IBM mainframe in the 60's -- I guess that
would be prior art.
Did the games prevent other applications from being able to read saved
game files? If not, then it's not prior art for this patent.
Did the saved game files include an image of the game state? If not,
then it's not prior art for this patent.
How long were filenames on the 60's IBM mainframes? I suspect they
weren't even long enough to contain a description of the game state, so
it wasn't prior art for this patent.
Your statement makes me think that you haven't read the patent, except
perhaps for the one paragraph from the summary that the OP excerpted.
--
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <40******@news. peakpeak.com>,
Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org> wrote:
The question must come up, why shouldn't the claims read on
general purpose computers capable of playing games, as they
typically are?
Although this may be possible, I think most current operating systems
would make it difficult to implement some of the claims. In particular,
this excerpt from claim 39: "preventing , other than with the
application, access to data in the first storage area or the second
storage area."
I don't think Windows or Unix can easily implement a mechanism where a
normal user can create a file that can only be accessed when running a
specific game. I suppose on Unix you could do it by making each game
setuid or setgid to an game-specific user/group, but there wouldn't be
anything preventing the administrator from assigning the same user/group
ID to multiple games.
I admit some fault here. I was concentrating on invalidating
some of the claims, in particular, the first couple of independent
claims. But of course, the reason for utilizing dependent claims
is that if the independent claims are invalidated, you may still
have the dependent claims. I agree that there are probably some
of the independent claims that will probably stand, making the
patent still valid, though some of the main claims are invalid.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <40******@news. peakpeak.com>,
Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org> wrote:
The question must come up, why shouldn't the claims read on
general purpose computers capable of playing games, as they
typically are?
Although this may be possible, I think most current operating systems
would make it difficult to implement some of the claims. In particular,
this excerpt from claim 39: "preventing , other than with the
application, access to data in the first storage area or the second
storage area."
I don't think Windows or Unix can easily implement a mechanism where a
normal user can create a file that can only be accessed when running a
specific game. I suppose on Unix you could do it by making each game
setuid or setgid to an game-specific user/group, but there wouldn't be
anything preventing the administrator from assigning the same user/group
ID to multiple games.
I admit some fault here. I was concentrating on invalidating
some of the claims, in particular, the first couple of independent
claims. But of course, the reason for utilizing dependent claims
is that if the independent claims are invalidated, you may still
have the dependent claims. I agree that there are probably some
of the independent claims that will probably stand, making the
patent still valid, though some of the main claims are invalid.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <40************ **@prodigy.net> , CJT <ab******@prodi gy.net>
wrote:
We used to play games on an IBM mainframe in the 60's -- I guess that
would be prior art.
Did the games prevent other applications from being able to read saved
game files? If not, then it's not prior art for this patent.
Did the saved game files include an image of the game state? If not,
then it's not prior art for this patent.
How long were filenames on the 60's IBM mainframes? I suspect they
weren't even long enough to contain a description of the game state, so
it wasn't prior art for this patent.
Your statement makes me think that you haven't read the patent, except
perhaps for the one paragraph from the summary that the OP excerpted.
I would suggest that you are mistaking invalidating, through prior
art, some of the broader claims, versus invalidating some of the
narrower claims. I think that an argument could be made that
the IBM mainframes of the 60's, and probably more likely, some
of the other mainframes of that era (with more sophisticated file
systems) might indeed invalidate some of the broader claims.
For example, claim 1:
1. A game console, comprising:
a processor; and
a non-removable hard disk drive coupled to the processor, the hard disk
drive including a first subdirectory configured to store data associated
with a first application, and the hard disk drive including a second
subdirectory configured to store data associated with a second application.
As I noted before, claim 2 specifies that the first application is
a game, and thus claim 1 must include other types of applications.
You definately had processors and hard drives in that era. The
problem with IBM mainframes of that era was their disk organization -
you tended to have one directory per volume, or multi-volume set.
Regardless of the ultimate appearance of having multiple directories
on a volume - which I don't think came with IBM until the 1970's,
the actual storage was typically fairly flat. (
Of course, IBM wasn't the only computer architecture of that era.
Multics, Exec 8, and GCOS all had more sophisticated file system
organizations during that time, and probably at least one of them
could support multiple subdirectories on a given hard drive.
The one proviso though might be that at that time, disk drives
were typically so large physically that they were typically
not integrated in the same box as a processor. But then,
the processors, along with their memories, were quite large
themselves. I can remember seeing our engineers making logic
corrections to processors by soldering wires. The problem is
that one could argue that a game console implies integration
of processor and disk drive in the same box, which really
didn't come until a bit later. But again, this was an engineering
decision, etc., and arguably again, is not significant.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <40************ **@prodigy.net> , CJT <ab******@prodi gy.net>
wrote:
We used to play games on an IBM mainframe in the 60's -- I guess that
would be prior art.
Did the games prevent other applications from being able to read saved
game files? If not, then it's not prior art for this patent.
Did the saved game files include an image of the game state? If not,
then it's not prior art for this patent.
How long were filenames on the 60's IBM mainframes? I suspect they
weren't even long enough to contain a description of the game state, so
it wasn't prior art for this patent.
Your statement makes me think that you haven't read the patent, except
perhaps for the one paragraph from the summary that the OP excerpted.
I would suggest that you are mistaking invalidating, through prior
art, some of the broader claims, versus invalidating some of the
narrower claims. I think that an argument could be made that
the IBM mainframes of the 60's, and probably more likely, some
of the other mainframes of that era (with more sophisticated file
systems) might indeed invalidate some of the broader claims.
For example, claim 1:
1. A game console, comprising:
a processor; and
a non-removable hard disk drive coupled to the processor, the hard disk
drive including a first subdirectory configured to store data associated
with a first application, and the hard disk drive including a second
subdirectory configured to store data associated with a second application.
As I noted before, claim 2 specifies that the first application is
a game, and thus claim 1 must include other types of applications.
You definately had processors and hard drives in that era. The
problem with IBM mainframes of that era was their disk organization -
you tended to have one directory per volume, or multi-volume set.
Regardless of the ultimate appearance of having multiple directories
on a volume - which I don't think came with IBM until the 1970's,
the actual storage was typically fairly flat. (
Of course, IBM wasn't the only computer architecture of that era.
Multics, Exec 8, and GCOS all had more sophisticated file system
organizations during that time, and probably at least one of them
could support multiple subdirectories on a given hard drive.
The one proviso though might be that at that time, disk drives
were typically so large physically that they were typically
not integrated in the same box as a processor. But then,
the processors, along with their memories, were quite large
themselves. I can remember seeing our engineers making logic
corrections to processors by soldering wires. The problem is
that one could argue that a game console implies integration
of processor and disk drive in the same box, which really
didn't come until a bit later. But again, this was an engineering
decision, etc., and arguably again, is not significant.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Barry Margolin wrote: The question must come up, why shouldn't the claims read on
general purpose computers capable of playing games, as they
typically are?
Although this may be possible, I think most current operating systems
would make it difficult to implement some of the claims. In particular,
this excerpt from claim 39: "preventing , other than with the
application, access to data in the first storage area or the second
storage area."
I don't think Windows or Unix can easily implement a mechanism where a
normal user can create a file that can only be accessed when running a
specific game. I suppose on Unix you could do it by making each game
setuid or setgid to an game-specific user/group, but there wouldn't be
anything preventing the administrator from assigning the same user/group
ID to multiple games.
And if you have the professional version of Windows, such
as Windows 2000 that I am running here, you can do something
very similar. You could set up different groups for different
games, and restrict both execution of a given game and storage
into a specified subdirectory to a given group.
But technically speaking, I would suggest that this does differ
from restricting access to specific programs.
But there is verbage in the detailed description that first of all
provides for utilities being able to delete any files, and secondly
for some of the protection being done by utilizing an API to
access settings data - which is really akin to Windows' Registry.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Barry Margolin wrote: The question must come up, why shouldn't the claims read on
general purpose computers capable of playing games, as they
typically are?
Although this may be possible, I think most current operating systems
would make it difficult to implement some of the claims. In particular,
this excerpt from claim 39: "preventing , other than with the
application, access to data in the first storage area or the second
storage area."
I don't think Windows or Unix can easily implement a mechanism where a
normal user can create a file that can only be accessed when running a
specific game. I suppose on Unix you could do it by making each game
setuid or setgid to an game-specific user/group, but there wouldn't be
anything preventing the administrator from assigning the same user/group
ID to multiple games.
And if you have the professional version of Windows, such
as Windows 2000 that I am running here, you can do something
very similar. You could set up different groups for different
games, and restrict both execution of a given game and storage
into a specified subdirectory to a given group.
But technically speaking, I would suggest that this does differ
from restricting access to specific programs.
But there is verbage in the detailed description that first of all
provides for utilities being able to delete any files, and secondly
for some of the protection being done by utilizing an API to
access settings data - which is really akin to Windows' Registry.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 09:07:09 +0000 (UTC), Rahul Dhesi wrote: "Milo T." <fa*********@ma laprop.net> writes:
Microsoft Patents Saving The Name Of A Game ... http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,716,102
As with most patents, the important part is not the abstract.
Try reading the claims and the summary.
The essence of Claim 1 in its entirety is: a game console, a processor;
two hard disks, and on each hard disk, data associated with a program.
Since processors, hard disks, data, and program, are very generic terms,
how much this patent will cover will likely hinge on what 'game console'
means. And, from reading some of the patent, it seems to me that pretty
much any machine that lets you play games is a game console.
Rahul, reading a patent is more difficult than that. Claim 1 is an
independent claim; the following claims further specify the claim. Yes,
claim 1 is very general. That's the way it's supposed to be. In this case,
claims 2 through 9 further specify claim 1. Claim 10 is another independent
claim, which by itself is general, like claim 1. Claims 11 through 13 and
18 through 19 further specify claim 10, and claims 14 through 17 further
specify claim 13, and so on. The idea is to build a case such that the
final dependent claims are relatively independent of each other. That way,
any one of them could be found unenforceable without invalidating the
others.
Let's say you had invented the unicycle. In your first claim, you might
claim that it comprised a frame, a wheel, and a seat. That's hardly new,
but you'd add additional dependent claims to further specify what makes a
unicycle unique. In the end, your independent claim forms the foundation
for your unicycle - but the independent claims are the meat of the patent.
That's not to say the independent claims aren't important. If someone else
comes along and invents a unicycle without a seat, then your first claim is
inapplicable, and all the dependent claims are also inapplicable. At the
same time, making it an overreaching claim isn't good either - sooner or
later you have to get specific, or you'll just be claiming something that
already exists, and your patent will be unenforceable.
So, you're looking at this patent the wrong way, and giving it far too much
scope in the process. The first claim is for a video game that includes a
game console, processor, two hard disks, and data. Other video game
consoles that do not include two hard disks or a console are _not_ covered.
Taken in that light, it's not so overreaching after all.
-- Mike --
On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 09:07:09 +0000 (UTC), Rahul Dhesi wrote: "Milo T." <fa*********@ma laprop.net> writes:
Microsoft Patents Saving The Name Of A Game ... http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,716,102
As with most patents, the important part is not the abstract.
Try reading the claims and the summary.
The essence of Claim 1 in its entirety is: a game console, a processor;
two hard disks, and on each hard disk, data associated with a program.
Since processors, hard disks, data, and program, are very generic terms,
how much this patent will cover will likely hinge on what 'game console'
means. And, from reading some of the patent, it seems to me that pretty
much any machine that lets you play games is a game console.
Rahul, reading a patent is more difficult than that. Claim 1 is an
independent claim; the following claims further specify the claim. Yes,
claim 1 is very general. That's the way it's supposed to be. In this case,
claims 2 through 9 further specify claim 1. Claim 10 is another independent
claim, which by itself is general, like claim 1. Claims 11 through 13 and
18 through 19 further specify claim 10, and claims 14 through 17 further
specify claim 13, and so on. The idea is to build a case such that the
final dependent claims are relatively independent of each other. That way,
any one of them could be found unenforceable without invalidating the
others.
Let's say you had invented the unicycle. In your first claim, you might
claim that it comprised a frame, a wheel, and a seat. That's hardly new,
but you'd add additional dependent claims to further specify what makes a
unicycle unique. In the end, your independent claim forms the foundation
for your unicycle - but the independent claims are the meat of the patent.
That's not to say the independent claims aren't important. If someone else
comes along and invents a unicycle without a seat, then your first claim is
inapplicable, and all the dependent claims are also inapplicable. At the
same time, making it an overreaching claim isn't good either - sooner or
later you have to get specific, or you'll just be claiming something that
already exists, and your patent will be unenforceable.
So, you're looking at this patent the wrong way, and giving it far too much
scope in the process. The first claim is for a video game that includes a
game console, processor, two hard disks, and data. Other video game
consoles that do not include two hard disks or a console are _not_ covered.
Taken in that light, it's not so overreaching after all.
-- Mike --
Mike <mi**@nospam.co m> writes: Rahul, reading a patent is more difficult than that. Claim 1 is an
independent claim; the following claims further specify the claim. Yes,
claim 1 is very general. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Why limit Claim 1 to covering only half the computer systems in
existence? Wouldn't it be better if Claim 1 covered all computer
systems?
--
Rahul This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion. |
