Publishers face lawsuits in new patents row

A number of the industry's top publishers have been targeted in a lawsuit taken by Texas law firm McKool Smith, which alleges that 3D graphics display techniques used in their products infringe on a 1988 patent.

Electronic Arts, Activison, Take Two, Ubisoft, Atari, THQ, Vivendi Universal, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, Lucasarts and Namco are all named as defendants in the lawsuit, while a number of smaller firms are also being threatened with legal action, according to reports on US website GameDaily.

The patent in question is US Patent No. 4,734,690, which refers to a "method and apparatus for spherical panning" - essentially, a system for moving around an object in 3D space and projecting the results onto a 2D plane.

The patent, originally filed in 1987, describes a system for storing 3D representations of objects in a computer terminal, and then rendering it onto a 2D screen (such as a television or monitor) while allowing the user to move their perspective around the model and zoom in and out from it.

If McKool Smith can enforce this patent against the videogames industry (and presumably against most other firms who manufacture 3D graphics tools and applications), the implications would be immense, as almost every 3D game ever created would require a license for the patent.

While the companies involved are taking the lawsuit seriously, it seems extremely unlikely that the patent will stand up to scrutiny - since as with many patents issued by the US Patent Office (which famously granted a patent describing the wheel), it appears to describe techniques which had previously been in widespread use.

Many games and applications created well before 1987 allowed the user to pan around objects in 3D space in the manner described by the patent, thus opening the patent up to claims of prior art (similar to the legal method used to defeat British Telecom's ludicrous claim to own a patent on internet hyperlinks some years ago).

However, at present it appears likely that the case will go to court, and if McKool Smith's claims are upheld, it's not clear what their demands will be, as the complaint filed against the 12 named publishers does not specify what damages or further actions the firm is seeking.