EA did another actually genuinely great thing here. They've expanded their previous patent pledge for game developers to use without problems.
Their original pledge a few years ago included the open source Fonttik tool along with six accessibility patents for public use, which they then expanded in 2023 to include more patents for developers to use. This has expanded once again to include another 23 patents focused on accessibility that developers are free to use.
From their announcement:
These newly pledged patents cover technologies to improve speech recognition, generate more personalized speech and simplify the use of speech recognition technologies in computing and gaming devices.
Among other things, these patented accessibility technologies could be used to improve the gameplay experience of players who have speech disability or who prefer or need assistance with verbally expressing themselves. They could make it possible for those players’ speech to be more effectively recognized and reflected in-game in a way that is representative of their age, emotion, language and speaking style.
On top of that they've also open sourced their IRIS plugin for Unreal Engine, which allows in-engine use of EA's photosensitivity analysis tech, IRIS, which was previously open sourced.
What does it actually mean? EA allow the use of all the listed patents royalty-free, so they will not go after any game developer that chooses to implement features the patents describe.
It's good to see patents be used in this way. Many companies use patents to go after other companies, so it's quite refreshing to see a publisher as big as EA stock them up to not just protect themselves, but for others too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Linux_Rocks 9 Dec 2024
If the world were sane and software patents were not a thing, none of this would be necessary.
I'll take 20 year patents over life+95 years copyright any day of the week. Also I do think there's at least some level of creativity involved in making software, so I don't think the 'software is discovered, not invented' thing holds water. That said I'll agree that patent trolls and defensive patents are clear signs that the patent system could do with improvement. I just don't know how you would improve it without causing patent offices to need entire legions of employees to be able to do their job properly.
If the world were sane and software patents were not a thing, none of this would be necessary.
I'll take 20 year patents over life+95 years copyright any day of the week. Also I do think there's at least some level of creativity involved in making software, so I don't think the 'software is discovered, not invented' thing holds water. That said I'll agree that patent trolls and defensive patents are clear signs that the patent system could do with improvement. I just don't know how you would improve it without causing patent offices to need entire legions of employees to be able to do their job properly.
The real harm software patents do to innovation and healthy competition is too serious to ignore. Software patents need to go and patent trolls need to find a new grift. FSFE has a decently concise write-up on the subject, although it could be better.
But sure, if someone thinks of a system that makes software patents actually beneficial to society at large, bring them back. Keeping them around until that happens does more harm than good.
Kuduzkehpan 10 Dec 2024
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