If they're so difficult to enforce, why are the patents issued in the first place? What a broken system.

To my understanding the patent office is here to assert if your patent is not stomping on another patent toes. Then you patent whatever and throw it in the legs of your competitor. You'll ultimately lose but you'll have wasted his time, money and brain space. Modern world, modern solutions.

Patent offices are cash machines. Their sole mission is to establish clear prior art and attribution and to prevent the same patent from being registered several times. That's all they do. They couldn't care less about the content of the patent. There are dozens of patents on perpetual energy machines, devices for communicating with spirits, very simple algorithms that have been documented for decades, and so on.

The "loading screen" patent expired in 2015[0]. I cannot think of any games which have incorporated this feature. Then again, on a PC, loading screens are typically so short I cannot even read the hint text they attempt to display.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/loading-screen-game-pa...

30 years of stifling innovation will do that to you.

The Sims 3 has an item-finding minigame in its loading screens, but (for me at least) it's pretty buggy when it comes to actually recognizing inputs (frequently freezes, and there's very little input feedback so you have no idea if it's just frozen or you clicked the wrong thing).

The Sims 2 also had a memory game to kept you entertained during installation.

Some of the Rayman games will allow you to control a silhouette of the character while loading. You can just run around a bit and attack, nothing major, but it's something to do.

Sometimes you can catch a flying health pickup. Actual gameplay.

Online games can have longer and more unpredictable loading times.Especially when synchronizing several players.

Sonic Frontiers lets you control Sonic and do practice "minigames" while the game loads.

Similarly you could just stuff around on Bayonetta during load times. Useful on 360/Ps3/Wii U but once it came out of PC, SSD speed made that practically pointless.

> The "loading screen" patent expired in 2015[0]. I cannot think of any games which have incorporated this feature.

FIFA/EAFC, one of the highest grossing console games (possibly #1).

EA's football game had that feature since, iirc, the 2010 edition, so clearly they were not too concerned about the patent.

FIFA and Bayonetta got around this because you're actually playing a subset of the main game during loading. Not a separate game.

Bayonetta (2009, 2014, 2023) has loading screens that double as training mode (you can practice your moves while the game is loading).

Rayman Origins and Legends from Ubisoft have loading screens where you can move around, sometimes even catch a powerup.

Assassin's Creed comes to mind

> running a non-intensive game in the foreground while loading the main game in the background was a technical innovation.

#EndSoftwarePatents

I remember Invade-A-Load on the Commodore 64 which allowed you to play a space invaders clone while the actually game was loading from the tape drive.

Actually Ridge Racer on the original PlayStation did similar but with Galaga and decidedly shorter load times!

Yup, Ridge Racer was the game that prompted Namco to file the patent: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/loading-screen-game-pa...

Sometimes I used to stop the tape just so I could play invade-a-load :)

I can't understand how the game-while-loading hot granted. This "invention" was already invented and used long before, for example the "invade-a-load" fastloader on C64.

things can be patented even if there's prior art (patent examiners aren't all knowing). One can try to get the patent invalidated if there's prior art or just violate it somewhat brazenly and dare the patent holder to sue you.

you might decide that its not worth violating as the value you get from it isn't much (i.e. mini game while loading might be cute, but might not move the needle at all for sales), and the patent holder might decide not to sue you as they don't view their prospects of winning to be high.

and then you're left in the middle where the patent might prevent novel new ways of doing things because initial violations wont move the needle, but those initial experimentation could open explorations that could eventually move the needle, but since we don't see any moving the needle up front, never get to that point.

> since we don't see any moving the needle up front, never get to that point.

aka, patents no longer "promote the progress of science and useful arts".

I think it's high time patents are reformed in the digital world. Things like game mechanics patents, design patents etc, ought to all be abolished.

Look at the fashion industry - there are no patents in clothing design. And they haven't collapsed; in fact, i think fashion florished more because of the lack of patents!

> aka, patents no longer "promote the progress of science and useful arts".

Truly innovative things are often not patented at all anymore, and instead kept as closely guarded business secrets. Patents are mainly used for when the company doesn't have a way to keep it secret, and for random things to bolster IP value.

> Look at the fashion industry - there are no patents in clothing design. And they haven't collapsed; in fact, i think fashion florished more because of the lack of patents!

Ah that depends on your viewpoint. Shein and similar outlets are making bank on stealing stuff from designers and rapid-manufacturing absolute dog quality shit [1].

Had fashion something like design protections, designers would at least have some recourse against these exploiters.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/02/details-i-m...

> things can be patented even if there's prior art (patent examiners aren't all knowing).

To be clearer: Patents that are invalid can get issued because the reason for it being invalid is not known, and I'd argue that nowadays this is likely a vast majority of patents. Patents are filed in huge numbers, with many companies just bolstering the number of patents they own as it inflates the value of their intellectual property, rather than caring too much about the value or even validity of each of them.

Figuring out if a patent actually has any value is unfortunately up to those deciding to challenge it.

Here’s a link to a video about loading games on the C64: https://youtu.be/YUigiY53YCs

If you read the patent carefully, item 7 states that cd-rom is an absolute requirement. C64 is not cd-rom, is it?

However, I agree that it is objectionable that it is a patent on a different medium. I doubt if they were able to get all of them for dvd and blu-ray!

https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2742394B2/en

Scott the Woz did a video about loading screens that goes through some examples of playable loading screens if anyone's interested https://youtu.be/odk5l9J0hls?si=pORelt9YJK92rD0E

> Gameplay patents are difficult to enforce.

In Japan, or in other countries?

Maybe that's just an intimidation technique on Nintendo's part.