Spring RTS Engine

First off, I would like to say that I dont know who wrote the original, its been through quite a few mutations.

But, would it be feasable to apply for a software patent for custom formations? I see simple UI stuff being patented all the time.

I know this is hugely against the open source way of thinking, but imo its one of the greatest innovations of spring.

patenting stuff is expensive. also, i don't see the point.

If atari patents custom formations to nuke spring then we just show the courts the widget that we wrote before Atari invalidating their patent

no, we submit our version as prior art and show them the door.

I was thinking more of licensing the patent to commercial RTS's. And using any money from that to cover server costs, set bounties or advertising.

Who is going to pay the patent advocates?

But tbh, I have seen patents more trivial as this one.

Software patents suck and are harmful (the reason no games have minigames in their loadscreens I believe).

That aside, it was jK who wrote it inititally afaik and additional features have been added by Niobium in the case of customformations2.

Custom formations were created by jK for CA originally.

unnecessary, just look at how few RTS games even have a queuing system as nice as OTA.

queues (and customformation widget, insert command widget, and the combination thereof) are so awesome that i hate playing any RTS without them.

Beherith wrote:But, would it be feasable to apply for a software patent for custom formations? I see simple UI stuff being patented all the time.

Patents are useless without the $$$ to pay an army of lawyer to defend them.

but if someone could hold it you could sell it to other rts developers for cash dollar

It wouldn't wonder me if a company already hold patent on rts command queues.

PS: the step from the engine box formation to custom formations isn't huge, so it was a slow progress.

Isn't custom formations lua? Doesn't that make it linked to engine code? Doesn't that make it GPL then? Doesn't that make your patent worthless?

Engine's still GPL v2.

Doesn't only GPL v3 invalidate patents and stuff?

In EU, you cannot patent already publicly published stuff afaik..

Anythign worthwhile we do is going to be copied and vice versa.

Look at when supreme commander was released, and just happened to have some features only seen in spring? How did we respond? We stole strategic zoom and zoomed out unit icons

AF wrote:Anythign worthwhile we do is going to be copied and vice versa.

Look at when supreme commander was released, and just happened to have some features only seen in spring? How did we respond? We stole strategic zoom and zoomed out unit icons

With patents, we coulda milked that.

milking patents is 1) expensive and 2) against the spirit of open source.