OnLive Patents Cloud Gaming

[EvilBoris]

http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/14/rivals-beware-onlive-says-it-has-received-a-fundamental-patent-on-cloud-based-games/

The patent covers a “breakthrough” technology where video games run on remote servers in data centers and users with a broadband-connected device — such as a TV, PC, Mac, or mobile device — can instantly play the highest-performance, new-release games with no discs, no downloads and no hardware upgrades.

U.S. patent No. 7,849,491 listed Perlman himself as the inventor when it was originally filed in December, 2002. That was shortly after he began work on the technology, which finally launched as an online gaming service in June. OnLive also anticipates receiving additional related patents from patent offices around the world. The patent was granted last week, showing just how far behind the patent office is in acknowledging inventions.

This has pretty big ramifications for the future, wonder who will buy them...

[cavalcade]

How on earth can you patent the actual idea? Fair enough, some of the tech and software involved, but the actual idea? Ridiculous.

Good to see the Patent office has the same amount of lag the OnLive service has too.

And I bet you see that joke more than once over the coming few days. I should patent it.

[Rossco]

How on earth can you patent the actual idea? Fair enough, some of the tech and software involved, but the actual idea? Ridiculous.

Good to see the Patent office has the same amount of lag the OnLive service has too.

And I bet you see that joke more than once over the coming few days. I should patent it.

I already patented it, you now owe me $100,000,000,000.

Good score to get for them though, to patent something so broad, which I imagine will be the future of gaming. A TV that comes with a controller and streams games from a server somewhere else.

[JP]

This is fantastic news!

It's just a shame that no one bothered to patent motion control, 3D films and touch screens gaming years ago as we could have all been spared those wonderful experiences too.

Also, anything that gets in the way of this man can only be good news for the rest of us.

[Neon Ignition]

If the patent holds up in the long term in terms of the idea then they might have just secured enough financing to survive as a tech company for quite some time which is pretty savvy for them. As far as literal day to day terms are concerned it'd at least be a long time until big money went their way as despite the wishes of the few, cloud gaming is not going to take over for a couple of decades if ever.

[abigsmurf]

This is fantastic news!

It's just a shame that no one bothered to patent motion control, 3D films and touch screens gaming years ago as we could have all been spared those wonderful experiences too.

Also, anything that gets in the way of this man can only be good news for the rest of us.

There are dozens of patents surrounding the Wiimote.

Apple have scores of patents surrounding multi-touch

I'd be willing to bet that the only reason a lot of 3D tech isn't patented is because the patents have expired. Certainly Parallax Barrier tech is patentable.

As much as I dislike patents, OnLive are the first company to try this sort of setup and prove to everyone it's a lot more viable than everyone thought. Coming up with a working system for this takes just as much design work as, say coming up with a new fuel injection system for engines.

Onlive took the risk, other companies could now easily reap the benefits without giving Onlive a penny without a patent.

[averybluemonkey]

Patents in the tech industry are defensive rather than offensive. Very few companies ever sue over them. MS even patented the for loop.

[Ady]

Patents in the tech industry are defensive rather than offensive. Very few companies ever sue over them. MS even patented the for loop.

WTF? How can MS patent a coding device, particularly one that pre-dates them?

Nintendo patented either Z-targeting or the Z-trigger, I think, too (can't remember which).

[JP]

There are dozens of patents surrounding the Wiimote.

Apple have scores of patents surrounding multi-touch

For some reason when I read that it made me think of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons!

It would be commercially irresponsible of these companies not to register patents when applicable and even at times when they're unsure if it is applicable.

We seem to register them at a surprising rate in work but of course many of those registrations don't ever lead to anything significant. It's always best to be cautious though as the potential of what may seem like a relatively innocuous piece of technology may not be understood until a much later date.

I'm still not altogether convinced by OnLive as much as I'd really love it to work but we've got a few test boxes being distributed in work. We own a small portion of OnLive Inc so anything that helps my share portfolio is something that I'd really like to succeed.

From what I'm aware of the OnLive service carries well over a hundred patents but it's nowhere near the work that I do myself. I do find it difficult to understand how cloud gaming itself could be patented which seems to be what has been suggested here. I could of course be wrong.

Although I'm still unconvinced and I've certainly not used one myself I'll hopefully get a box at home in the next few months to see trial.

[EvilBoris]

one of our members is a patent lawyer, wonder if he could shed any light on this, although I suspect that it's far to complex to even consider the ins and outs of these things on an internet message board.