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EA opens up more patents for increasing Accessibility in gaming

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EA (Electronic Arts) have added a few more patents to their Patent Pledge for Increasing Accessibility to help game developers. The idea is that game developers are free to use ideas they've patented, without fear of EA coming after them.

As EA say: "Through the Pledge, we share our accessibility-centered technology with the wider industry so that together we can meet the needs of our diverse gaming community. It covers some of our most innovative technologies designed to break down barriers for players with disabilities. This includes those with vision, hearing, speaking or cognitive conditions. Better yet, all this IP has been shared royalty-free, which means you won’t need to pay royalties or license fees to use it."

I covered some of what they did with this previously when they also open sourced Fonttik, but now they've added some more patents for devs to use including these:

Auto-detects when a player stops interacting with a game and temporarily converts their player-controlled character to a personalized system-driven character.

Patent No.: US 10,864,446
Country: United States
Title: AUTOMATED PLAYER CONTROL TAKEOVER IN A VIDEO GAME
Date Issued: December 15, 2020
Date added to pledge: December 1, 2023

Provides guidance on performing in-game commands in a way that’s tailored to each player’s skill or play style.

Patent No.: US 10,279,264
Country: United States
Title: ADAPTIVE GAMING TUTORIAL SYSTEM
Date Issued:  May 7, 2019
Date added to pledge: December 1, 2023

Generates navigation routes and displays navigation aid lines directing players through large and complex game worlds.

Patent No.: US 10,406,437
Country: United States
Title: ROUTE NAVIGATION SYSTEM WITHIN A GAME APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT
Date Issued:  September 10, 2019
Date added to pledge: December 1, 2023

Provides players a personalized, animated coach for improving their in-game performance.

Patent No.: US 11,724,201
Country: United States
Title: ANIMATED AND PERSONALIZED COACH FOR VIDEO GAMES
Date Issued:  August 15, 2023
Date added to pledge: December 1, 2023

They also put up IRIS as open source under the BSD license on GitHub, which they say is a "solution created by EA to identify video footage that could potentially cause photosensitive epileptic risks", so it will help developers identify areas they may needs to improve / adjust as it will analyse "video content and checks for flashes and spatial patterns that could be harmful for people with photosensitive epilepsy, or cause discomfort in viewers".

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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12 comments
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Pikolo Dec 4, 2023
The patent office can't find prior art for those? How? They're all issued since 2019! The only one that even seems novel is AUTOMATED PLAYER CONTROL TAKEOVER IN A VIDEO GAME, and I'd assume someone more familiar with MMORPGs can find an example. ROUTE NAVIGATION SYSTEM WITHIN A GAME APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT is bonkers - we've had animated navigation lines for decades!
Mountain Man Dec 4, 2023
None of these things should be patented in the first place since they are neither novel nor non-obvious, but that's a whole different debate. I suppose it's a good thing that EA is allowing other developers to use these ideas without fear of being sued. I would not have expected them to be so magnanimous.
Koopacabras Dec 4, 2023
Thanks Liam, its always interesting reading this type of accessibility articles.


Last edited by Koopacabras on 4 December 2023 at 6:00 pm UTC
BlackBloodRum Dec 4, 2023
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EA doing something to benefit the gaming industry and gamers as a whole?

Can someone go check hell please? I'm concerned that it might have frozen over.
const Dec 4, 2023
Quoting: PikoloThe patent office can't find prior art for those? How? They're all issued since 2019! The only one that even seems novel is AUTOMATED PLAYER CONTROL TAKEOVER IN A VIDEO GAME, and I'd assume someone more familiar with MMORPGs can find an example. ROUTE NAVIGATION SYSTEM WITHIN A GAME APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT is bonkers - we've had animated navigation lines for decades!
Get used to it. The patent system is screwed since countries started to compare their innovation strength by a simple #patent-metric. There is no incentive for patent offices to deny patents and big corporations are the only ones able to navigate the mess to their benefit.
Villian Dec 4, 2023
Quoting: const
Quoting: PikoloThe patent office can't find prior art for those? How? They're all issued since 2019! The only one that even seems novel is AUTOMATED PLAYER CONTROL TAKEOVER IN A VIDEO GAME, and I'd assume someone more familiar with MMORPGs can find an example. ROUTE NAVIGATION SYSTEM WITHIN A GAME APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT is bonkers - we've had animated navigation lines for decades!
Get used to it. The patent system is screwed since countries started to compare their innovation strength by a simple #patent-metric. There is no incentive for patent offices to deny patents and big corporations are the only ones able to navigate the mess to their benefit.
no one compare that, only USA, and it's the most broken one
redman Dec 4, 2023
Quoting: BlackBloodRumEA doing something to benefit the gaming industry and gamers as a whole?

Can someone go check hell please? I'm concerned that it might have frozen over.

On 2020 they made accebility a main thing,news link

The video of Karen was really mind blowing the first time I saw it, and made me think how many people can also play games with all this thing on place.
StoneColdSpider Dec 5, 2023
Quoting: BlackBloodRumEA doing something to benefit the gaming industry and gamers as a whole?

Can someone go check hell please? I'm concerned that it might have frozen over.
Its pretty hot here in Australia right now....... So no...... Hell hasnt frozen over.......
F.Ultra Dec 5, 2023
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Quoting: PikoloThe patent office can't find prior art for those? How? They're all issued since 2019! The only one that even seems novel is AUTOMATED PLAYER CONTROL TAKEOVER IN A VIDEO GAME, and I'd assume someone more familiar with MMORPGs can find an example. ROUTE NAVIGATION SYSTEM WITHIN A GAME APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT is bonkers - we've had animated navigation lines for decades!

USPTO no longer looks for prior art since at least a decade back, the new regime is that they only do very basic checks and then any violations such as prior art is up for a court to decide in a future lawsuit.
Pikolo Dec 13, 2023
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: PikoloThe patent office can't find prior art for those? How? They're all issued since 2019! The only one that even seems novel is AUTOMATED PLAYER CONTROL TAKEOVER IN A VIDEO GAME, and I'd assume someone more familiar with MMORPGs can find an example. ROUTE NAVIGATION SYSTEM WITHIN A GAME APPLICATION ENVIRONMENT is bonkers - we've had animated navigation lines for decades!

USPTO no longer looks for prior art since at least a decade back, the new regime is that they only do very basic checks and then any violations such as prior art is up for a court to decide in a future lawsuit.
That actually explains a lot. Though its very dumb
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