EA has made five of its accessibility patents free for any studio to use | Hacker News Reader

EA has made five of its accessibility patents free for any studio to use

videogameschronicle.com

38 pointsbdz22 comments

"It only has one exception: if someone files a lawsuit against EA for infringing a different patent, EA will refuse to share the accessibility patents with them."

How nice of EA.

I'm not a fan of EA and I feel like this restriction probably wasn't a strict requirement by legal (while as the opposite might be very good counsel - refusing access to any patented material while another party is believed to be infringing on other IP of your). But like... it's free so either this has no impact on your life because you choose not to use it over it being a potential landmine legally - or you make use of it.

Either way I think this move is at minimum neutral and probably a net good.

It is free, but with conditions. I dislike EA doing this as a publicity stunt while they’re essentially keeping people at their mercy if they use these patents. I guess I would prefer it if they said “conditionally free”.

It’s a pretty standard clause. Why would EA give up their IP for free. Don’t get me wrong, I get it’s cool to hate EA and I’m definitely down with hating them as much as the next gamer. But this isn’t an example of them being evil.

> Why would EA give up their IP for free.

Why is it even possible for them to patent stuff like this? There should be no IP to own in the first place.

I also hate patent laws as much as the next person, but what you’re now complaining about is a much bigger issue and one that’s not going to change any time soon.

This kind of defensive use of patents I’m actually ok with. Indie firms who can’t afford expensive patent disputes benefits and in the mean time it protects EA against larger firms.

The bigger issue here isn’t the clause, it’s peoples dislike of EA. Sure EA have earned that distrust but this isn’t one of their shitty moves.

Again, not free.

No money is paid. It’s definitely free.

That’s was my point. Why should they give it up for free? EA aren’t a charity.

Plus as I’ve said before, this kind of clause is really quite common. Even FOSS has done it on occasions

This seems like a good thing but it is a bad thing for anyone who chooses to use it. EA can mistreat anyone using this in any way and they have no recourse for fear of pulling a licease.

A free gift with string attached is not a free gift. The patents are not worth the lawsuit and fees. This has negative preditory value.

It is fake source.

This seems entirely reasonable. It would’ve been better if there were no strings attached, but that doesn’t negate the fact that EA is doing something good.

Is this even legally possible? Can you make use of clauses that impede justice?

It’s pretty standard for FRAND and other patent sharing agreements.

You sound like you'd be surprised to discover that similar patent retaliation clauses exist in popular open source licenses like Apache or MPL.

Tesla released their patents for other car manufacturers with a similar clause too.

Does anyone have the patent numbers?

I want to understand the music related patent, but I have nothing to go on other than the one sentence blurb that every news outlet seems to copy verbatim from EA's press release. Google doesn't turn up anything useful for me.

Edit: spoke too soon. Just found this article that links to the patents: https://htxt.co.za/2021/08/ea-to-allow-other-developers-free...

This seems like a good thing. Especially the ping system....Apex's Ping system is miles ahead of any game. It increases the playability for all players by a tremendous amount.

Tons of games have ping systems that are comparable if not much more advanced. Dota 2 has had pinging since 2013 and expanded features like a chat wheel in 2017. Idk how patents work but it’s hard to believe EA gets to claim this as their thing when prior art exists

I think the claim here isn't the fact that you can ping, but that you can do it in context. I haven't played Apex, so I can only go on descriptions that I find online. It seems that the system allows players to convey a lot of information with the type of marker they set from a radial menu. And supposedly you can even even put markers on specific items in dead teammate's inventories to call dibs and stuff.

My interpretation is that the system was specifically developed to convey a significant portion of the information that is usually communicated verbally between teammates when in a match.

I was recently playing battlefield 5 when it came free to ps now users a few months back...

It lacks a ping system and I think it really added to the immersion of the game.

There is some recon tech that will mark players for a little but seeing shots being fired at my squad and having to visually find their origin or communicate their location in comms was a nice chance after modern ping systems showing locations exactly and immediately.

This is a step in the right direction, but no game studio has yet matched the insane generosity of id Software. When they released a GPL-licensed version of the Quake 2 source code, I immediately understood that I wanted to be a developer. I grew up playing the game like sacrament, so seeing such unparalleled benevolence from the devs was highly inspiring for me.

All of it makes me fantasize about a utopia where all game logic is open, and what kind of incredible community that might spawn.

I only see 4 patents?

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