Keep in mind that the reason some big companies don't sue is because it cents and dollars don't add up.

Rest assured that their retainer lawyers would be quick to slap you down if you had anything worth taking.

Recently Atari sued biosocia for reproducing a tetris like game. Even though they had chosen not to sue many people over the years. Biosocia lost, atari had an award and biosocia redesigned their game completely.

Yeah, gotta wait for the fruit to grow and ripen before you pick it ;)

For the record I never said I took slashdot forums for a lawyer advice, I was reporting advices FROM PATENT LAWYERS on slashdot forums.
Now feel free to do anything looking for patent first. You will realise that everything has been patented in such broad terms you cannot work if you do that.
It will be easier to prove you are willingfully infringe patent this way, instead of having your opponent struggle with the fact he indeed cannot prove you looked at his patent since you never did.
And there is a broad difference in reproducing tetris, and using a 'combat system'. In one case you copy the pieces forms and the rules of the game, when in the other you just show a character information that any rpg games has in a certain way. Sure Atari can sue any game that makes some pieces disappear when some are aligned in a certain way…..but you are stopped by that, goto point 1: you do nothing to be safe.
I am pretty sure someone patented the fact to roll dice to inflict damage, then roll one to check against some 'saves' to see if damage is reduced…welcome in patent land.

start here:http://www.google.com/patents/

Well, from people who say they're patent lawyers. Unless you have reason to believe that they truly are patent lawyers, I'd take things with a grain of salt.

After all, I'm a patent lawyer, and know what I'm talking about. :thinking:


That's not really true. You can be pretty sure that "everything" would be the subject of a lawsuit if that were the case.


He doesn't have to prove that you didn't find the patent; that's your problem, not his. You're infringing upon it, whether or not you know about it.


You're being very specific in the tetris case and very broad in the combat system case, but if you actually read the patent, as I linked to and discussed earlier, you will see that the combat system patent is also quite precise.

I think you're somewhat exaggerating the direness of the situation here because you don't like software patents. I don't like them much either, but the world is not as bad as you're saying, fortunately for us all. :smile:

This entire discussion was predicated on knowingly cloning well defined patented systems. This isn't so different from using tetris mechanics. Note that biosocia only used tetris like mechanics. The game was quite different. Biosocia even had law advice telling them they were clear. The new york based social network company fought atari and the courts disagreed.

Indeed, if were talking about cloning patented intellectual property of square (like a combat system) you may be wringing your hands in disgust as 'evil corporate america' protects their patents.

That is true, the only reason there is not even more lawsuits is:
-Nothing to gain.
-The other has patents you also infringe so in the end, your patent portfolio is more of a :dont annoy me or you will be annoyed as well. (let see what happens between Google and Oracle)
-You know your patent is totally stupid, you just patented it so noone do it first and annoy you with it.

And btw there is a difference between 'willingfully infringe' and 'I do infinge this patent but I never though patent office was stupid enough to patent 2+2 = 4 !, and I contest it now!'
If as a patent lawyer, you do not see the difference….
But only the original poster know what exactly he wants to use. If it is an exact copy he sure is in trouble, If it is more like 'hey I wait the fact that to show a timer to have player know when he will be able to act…he is pretty safe…

But just be sure no one is safe from patent anyway. Even Microsoft can be bullied by stupid patents. Too many obvious patents and stupid jury out there.

I don't think you should be trusting your legal matters to slashdot. :)
If you really want some unofficial legal opinions on this, you could try asking over at groklaw.

I would suggest the SquareSoft mechanism is novel and unique, which is why they patented it. And why some want to mimic it. Since there's a bazillion hack and slash RPGs out there with combat systems that don't infringe on this mechanism, I would suggest the argument that this is unfair or too broad, just doesn't hold water.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_in...

Looking at this it was an exact fucking clone (even tetrinet is, just adding some fun with it, but those are all blatant clones)

<No need for swearing…>

Never believe someone who qualifies things with iaal.

At the risk of "mini-modding", Rarva, unless you yourself are a patent lawyer, the condescending tone is uncalled for. If you are not yourself a patent lawyer then you don't really have any high ground to claim in the matter. No armchair laywer is better than another :)

(Except me, Im obviously awesome)

Maya/Rudha

With that logic, you could say a champion does not need a coach since HE is the champion….I will not keep arguing anyway, there is no point.


I would suggest they just did not want anyone to copy it while it is a basic turn base game….with the possibility to lose your turn if you do not act….WOW ORIGINAL…


Square made lot of money with FF… whatever the system used , original or not,people would have wanted to copy it,.

And yet nobody had done it exactly that way before them, so clearly it was at least slightly original…

I'm not entirely sure if you're arguing pragmatics or ideology here. As I said, I can sympathize with the anti-patent sentiment in some cases, but you do not seem to be arguing based on rational factors and logic but just on the fact that you think the whole thing is stupid.

For example, if you're going to dismiss the originality of Square's turn-based combat system, you need to provide some evidence that people had done that before. Note that they did not patent turn-based combat! They patented a very specific implementation.

I am given the impression that at this point we're arguing neither pragmatics or idealogy, but rather arguing for the sake of arguing. Yeah I think it's time to unsubscribe again :P

If there's something meaningful to be added, then by all means do so, but repeating yourself - and ourselves - doesn't really help anything.

Maya/Rudha

Shame there isn't a lock thread option for original posts :wink:. I got what I needed out of this thread on pages 1-2 :lol:.

Why are you the only person who gets to decide what information they want to get out of a thread? This is a public forum, not a personal consulting service. :wink:

Because I'm special :lol:.

$90/hr USD will be invoiced.

The people at SquareSoft obviously work pretty hard on creating games, if people like them. Those people who want to copy or mimic shouldn't act like greedy bastards. Rather, they should pony up some of their own cash to license it, instead of acting like maggot infested hippie parasites expecting free handouts. >:->