[MUD-Dev] DNA Game Patent [was Randy's Resume]

[Kevin Littlejohn]

"Travis Nixon" wrote
> From: "F. Randall Farmer" <randy.farmer at pobox.com>
 
>> My non-lawyer, non-patentese interpretation of the limitations of
>> the first claim:
 
>>   Two or more _different_ networked (multiuser) games (which MUST
>>   include client software) that can use the same objects in
>>   similar, but differing ways.
 
>>   Bard's Tale isn't covered. 100% text MUDs aren't covered. There
>>   is only a handful of Client-Server games that even existed
>>   then. :-)
 
> I can't speak for prior art, and I haven't seen or tried to
> comprehend the entire patent, but doesn't this seem like a fairly
> obvious progression to you?

> Multiplayer games that interconnect?

More than an obvious progression, it's 1) been discussed lots and
lots by various people in the mud community, for, um, well, as long
as I can remember - people want to port characters from mud to mud,
it's hardly a unique idea, and 2) already in existence in products
like NWN, surely?  Even Id Software discussed the idea of portals
from one game to another once upon a time - sure, the mapping
function is _usually_ trivial from one game to another, but there's
always a mapping function of some sort there, even if it's very
close to the identity function.

I don't understand, if that's the patent, how it can be claimed to
belong to them as an idea.  But then, I'm patent-unknowledgable.

KJL
--
Internet techie                    Obsidian Consulting Group
Specialising in proxy servers and traffic measuring/billing.
http://www.obsidian.com.au/           darius at obsidian.com.au


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev