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Microsoft files patent for "Saved Games"

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hm_murdock:
hear! hear!

but cahult is right, patents, especially in the U.S. are a crock of shit. They just exist to cheat people.

savet:
I'm not an expert on patents, but I believe patents aren't supposed to be issued when it's either prior art, or a natural advancement of an existing product/idea.

In this case, the latter would apply.  With consoles over the last 5+ years having external storage media, it is a natural advancement for the game system to contain the storage media.

Perhaps if the internal storage media were something new and revolutionary....this wouldn't be such a stupid patent.  But the fact that there is nothing innovative about including a hard drive in a game console (which are simply special purpose computers) means that this patent probably won't stand up well under the legal pressure Sony is likely to bring.  Both Resident Evil and Final Fantasy already use the hard drive for storing game data...and to my knowledge, one game cannot access the other game's data.  So this is either prior art, or patent infringement.

One could even argue that a gaming computer represents prior art.  It's essentially a game system with an internal hard drive, that allows a user to save game data, and other games cannot access the data from games other than itself.

mobrien_12:

quote:Originally posted by Sauron: GenSTEP Fanboy:
um, it's a patent on a console with a built-in HDD for holding said save-games.

show me prior art of that (with a hard drive in particular)


--- End quote ---


Look at the way the patent defines Console.  A windows PC could fit that definiton.  

quote:
A game console, comprising:

a processor; and

a non-removable hard disk drive coupled to the processor, the hard disk drive including a first subdirectory configured to store data associated with a first application, and the hard disk drive including a second subdirectory configured to store data associated with a second application.

--- End quote ---


You really want the prior art for saving game data on a hard disk?

Sage_Of_Sloth:
Hey, the famicom disk system had a hard drive which you could save games on, but it wasn't released in the US NES system (gamefaqs). The N64 in japan also had a hard drive which is why zelda masterquest was released on the gamecube here.

I'm not sure what the international patent laws are, but these would void the patent.

[ April 18, 2004: Message edited by: Sage_Of_Sloth ]

mobrien_12:
It doesn't matter what you call something (console, computer, xbox, breadbox) it's the description in the claims that counts.  

Trust me on this.  I once had a patent rejected because one of our claims was written so badly that the examiner determined that it might infringe on a CDROM patent.

This patent had nothing to do with CDROMs, mass storage, music, movies, data, or anything remotely computer related.  We were suprised.  

We had to rewrite the claim and a few others to make it abundantly clear that our invention was nothing like the CDROM.  We were then awarded the patent.  That's how the patent system is supposed to work.

The USPTO should not have awarded this patent to MS.  

As Sage points out, they shouldn't even have awarded the patent if MS had specified exactly what a "console" was.

[ April 19, 2004: Message edited by: M. O'Brien ]

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