Daniel Saner (3503) on 1/27/2010 9:00 PM · Permalink · Report

Yeah, they seem to be of those kind that are only registered to intimidate the competition. They don't look like they would hold up in an infringement suit. Patents are one of the weirdest abominations of any legislation.

Havoc Crow (29859) on 1/27/2010 10:53 PM · Permalink · Report

Patents are amusing at times in their utter rigamarole.

Check this out, for example: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7497779.html

In the "DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS" section, before they even begin to describe the patent subject itself, they spend 25 paragraphs explaining exactly what a video game is.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of example components of system 50 . The primary components include a main processor (CPU) 110 , a main memory 112 and a graphics and audio processor 114 . In this example, main processor 110 (e.g., an enhanced IBM Power PC 750) receives inputs from hand-held controllers 52 (and/or other input devices) via graphics and audio processor 114 . Main processor 110 interactively responds to user inputs, and executes a video game or other program supplied, for example, by external storage media 62 via a mass storage access device 106 such as an optical disk drive. As one example, in the context of video game play, main processor 110 can perform collision detection and animation processing in addition to a variety of interactive and control functions.

Good Gosh.