Comment on GTA 6 has patented a new locomotion system to make "highly dynamic and realistic animations"
MooseBoys@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They’ve built a library of small building blocks for character movements. These blocks can be combined in various ways to create a wide range of animations. … Instead of designing separate animations for each of these situations, they use these building blocks to put together the character’s movements naturally.
This sounds like shape keys, which is a technique already widely used in games and animation today. When you get shot in Battlefield, your character model plays a “getting shot” animation. When your character runs, it plays a “running” animation. When your character gets shot by running, these two animations are combined - it’s not a separate “shot while running” animation.
Would love to know if there’s actually some novel aspect to this “invention” but it seems more likely that this is yet another bullshit patent approved by a clueless clerk who did zero searches for prior art.
I work in patents. If it wasn’t novel it wouldn’t be granted, believe me.
My experience with clients has led me to never trust lay people’s judgements on what is or is not novel.
Feel free to actually read the examiner’s comments in this patent application for an actually full understanding of he process
Sir you are too level headed for the internet
It’s a daily curse.
I work in patents. If it wasn’t novel it wouldn’t be granted, believe me.
I work in computer graphics software. My former employer preferred that engineers liberally apply for “defensive” patents because of how often people would get a patent for something we already did and then try to sue us for it. Plus we got a small cash bonus when our patents were approved. Through this process, I was granted six patents for my work there. It would be unwise to put something to text that could be used as evidence to invalidate the patents, so I’ll just say that my opinion on how low the bar is to getting software patents approved is definitely well-informed.
If it was something you already did prior to filing and you could prove it then their case would be extremely flimsy, but I do understand where you come from.
It really depends on jurisdiction, in the UK it’s not possible to even patent software. In Europe it I, but regulations are strict. The US patent law is a little bit wonky in this regard.
If it was something you already did prior to filing and you could prove it then their case would be extremely flimsy
A brief search shows a variety of publications that seem to do what is described by the patent:
…siggraph.org/…/neural-animation-layering-for-syn…
advances.realtimerendering.com/…/index.html
Software patents need to die.
It sounds more like they’re using more fundamental movements than what you’re describing, not running animation+shot animation but more like:
Both reloading a particular weapon and mantling over a walk require you to lift your arms, so the root movement of lifting your arm to reload an LMG is the same one used to grab a ledge overhead, etc.
Basically they’re just categorizing movements based on use case and direction so they can string those individual movements into different and unique patterns for individual actions.
Pressing an elevator button uses the same arm movement as opening a door, which uses the same wrist rotation movement as turning the key in a car, etc. So they just break down individual movements in the same way an LLM breaks down a voice into phonetics to string new words together.
It’s definitely possible they’re doing something novel internally, but the details that would support that interpretation are missing from the filing. One of the requirements for patents is that it “sufficient disclosure of the invention so that it can be reproduced by others”. I would say I qualify as an expert in the domain covered, and I have no idea what they’re actually doing based on the patent alone.
Not shape keys, but something more akin to Unity’s animation layers. This kinda stuff has been in games for a decade or so.
This has been done for decades. Anyone that respect this patent is an idiot.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Their novel discovery: They figured out nobody had patented this yet
PrefersAwkward@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think this would make it tough to enforce the patent if it’s actually commonly used. If I were somehow granted a patent on tap dancing, its common usage by others before me would probably cause my patent to be invalidated if I then tried to sue a tap dancer.
Not a patent lawyer, but IIRC, US patent law had some protections for things that are already common practice.
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Software parents get away with stupid shit like this all the time. Patent trolls claim they invented a software pattern and then sue everyone who uses it.
Mchugho@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They would only be able to get away with this if it had already been determined that they did indeed invent that thing. Many choose not to fight cease and desists when it would be in their best interest to counter claim.
Mchugho@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You can’t grant a patent for something that is already in the public domain at the time of filing, regardless of whether or not that thing is currently patent protected.
Mchugho@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Novelty is assessed against all publicly disclosed prior art, not just the stuff that has been patented.
If I publish content on a webpage that could be used as prior art later on assessing novelty