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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

That patent has expired.

It was also an obviously invalid patent, as prior art existed from 1988:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fast_loader&oldid...>

Anyone can think of it and invent it independently, but you’d have been put in a cage if you acted on your original thought because someone else paid the protection money earlier

You won't be put in a cage if you violate a patent. There are no criminal penalties for patent violations.

The threat is there if you don’t pay the damages. It all comes back to cages. Without the cage there is no damages payment, without the threat of damages payment there is no patent.

Do you actually know of a case where someone went to jail because they failed to pay damages in a patent case? I don't think that is how it works. If you don't pay what you owe then the court will order your wages garnished and your property confiscated. And I guess if you intentionally interfere with either of those things you could end up in jail for violating a court order.

It’s that last bit that’s the kicker. IANAL, but if you blatantly refuse a court order, they can put you in a cage.

> There are no criminal penalties for patent violations.

You might be made permanently destitute and homeless however.

You'd have to prove it in court, which means you'd have to outspend Namco Bandai on lawyers. Water under the bridge now, but still.

Proving prior art is often should be as simple as presenting an obvious proof and have the patent invalidated in the same day as long as the records are not debatable.

What you're talking about almost exists, it's called an inter partes review[0]. The problem is, the records are almost always debatable. The legal system affords scoundrels plenty of opportunities to file paperwork.

As it stands, IPR works enough that patent trolls are angry that it's too easy to get junk patents thrown out. But it still requires you to know in advance what to fight, to spend money on lawyers fighting it, and to delay actually using the invention you think isn't patented until the patent is actually thrown out. Some developer who independently invents loading screen mini-games probably isn't going to even know about the loading screen games patent until either legal tells them to remove the mini-game or they launch and get sued by Namco.

An example of this: do you remember VRML chatrooms? Worlds, Inc was one of them, and they got US8082501B2[1], a patent on having a character in a multiplayer virtual world. They sued Activision[2] over the span of nine years, while also hitting up other game developers for money, including Microsoft[3]. Microsoft actually tried filing an IPR case[4], but the courts acted first to invalidate the patent before the IPR could go through[5].

[0] https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/trials/inter-partes-revie...

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8082501B2

[2] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/activision-blizzard-sued-for-p...

[3] https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western...

[4] https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2021-00277

[5] https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/ptab-filings%2FIPR2021-00...

Don't forget the patents on CONTROLLERS VIBRATING for fucks sake. The reason the original PS3 controller didn't have vibration was because sony wanted to avoid paying the protection racket one time.

As if making something buzz is fucking "non-obvious"

Didnt dildos get there first?

In USA and UK, AIUI, you can submit prior art without being involved (in UK you can do it anonymously; someone is looking at using an AI system to do this automatically!). Importantly there is a limited window of time for such submissions. In USA it's called Third Party Pre-issuance Submissions, 35 USC 122; https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1134.html. In UK it's called Third-Party Observations (Patents Act S.21). IIRC, WIPO and EPO have these too, I imagine it's common to all/most patent systems.

Still didn't prevent us from taking a wide berth around the idea when I was working on my first title in the industry. The studio was aware of the patent and wasn't willing to take on any risk.

It’s only invalid if you the have the cash to fight an expensive court battle.

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