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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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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.
I’ll admit I have little understanding of the legal definition of “novel”, but insofar as the intent of the patent system, the current bar is way too low for software patents. Although remedied recently, the plethora of software patents that still exist for “(Something people have done for decades) but do it on a computer” is ridiculous.
A brief search shows a variety of publications that seem to do what is described by the patent:
https://history.siggraph.org/learning/neural-animation-layering-for-synthesizing-martial-arts-movements-by-starke-zhao-zinno-and-komura/
https://advances.realtimerendering.com/destiny/siggraph2014/animation/index.html
https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~neff/papers/correlationMapsEG07.pdf
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AnimationLayers.html
This is basically a description of a game engine that supports movement and animation. Descent (1994) would be the earliest production use of such an engine.
Congratulations, you just described “variables”, a concept at least as old as ENIAC (1945).
Yes, that’s one way to describe “animation”
Variables having a default value is the default behavior of most programming languages and software systems.
Yea, we’re talking about animation here. Default value of animation description = default animation.
Inheritance, a property of most software designs since the 1980s.
Storing configuration in a data file. You’d be hard pressed to find an alternative. Maybe some genius will come along and find some way to represent it in JSON…
This seems to be the main claim of the patent, but seems to have a huge amount of prior art (see links). “Parametric blends” and other terms are just jargon.
Oh my god. Really? Shall we also include “doubles”, “halfs”, or maybe “rationals”?
“Translation table” seems to just be referring to the graph topology of the system. Yes, graphs are the most common way to represent arbitrary N:M relationships.
Node-based editing; standard practice in all 3D modeling.
Yes, you already described what a game engine is and an animation system is. Game engines certainly do have animation systems…
Picking animation keys based on game logic. What else would you base it on exactly?
Yes, default values do be defaultin’.
Yep, software sure does run on computers. Computers are neat. And they have storage.
Are we really going to enumerate all the permutations of engine + animation + defaults claims?
I guess we are…
All the claims except 8 are “obvious” IMO. Claim 8 fails novelty because of the huge amount of prior art on the matter.
Note that I’m using “novelty” and “obvious” according to their english definitions, and the intent of patent protection. If they’re different in practice, that’s a failing of current patent law.
For reference, here’s what I would consider to be a “good” software patent: https://patents.justia.com/patent/6721362
Sir you are too level headed for the internet