Re: selector patent

Hi Brett

We were doing a similar thing at Dogfish before we went under, which was
inspired by hearing a guy called Chuck Clanton speaking to us all at Bullfrog
about pie menus.  Chuck (who hails from Stanford Uni and specialised in GUI
design for part of his career) gave us the impression that this idea had been
around for decades, and that it was therefore completely unpatentable.  

For us at Dogfish, menu options were grouped into rings of around eight to
twelve which could be pointed at with a highlight using the analogue
controller, and then selected with X (on PS2).  We tried using click-down
select on the analogue stick as well, but it was too awkward trying to click it
down when it was off at an angle, we would forever be moving the stick slightly
and selecting the wrong item.  To scroll through the different rings we'd use
shoulder buttons.

We were doing this for Sony, and had spent 18 months on it before we closed up
shop, and we never heard any word from them that this idea was going to cause a
legal problem with patents.

In the more general case, you could search at Delphion
http://www.delphion.com/simple but it's hard to directly search for your cool
idea X, unless you know exactly how other people would have worded it in their
own patent application.  This is why patent lawyers exist, to hire researchers
who do all that legwork for you.

Alistair Milne
Criterion Software Ltd


 --- Brett Bibby <[email protected]> wrote: 
> I would like to implement a "menu" selector on consoles in such a way that
> the choices appear in a circle so they can be directly selected with an
> analog controller or dpad without scrolling.  I thought I remember one of
> the 3D art packages doing this years ago and that they were going to seek a
> patent, but I have no idea how to search if it is patented or not.  Also,
> for this type of thing, would the patent be on the algorithm to do it, the
> layout or ???  Finally, it got me to wondering if Sony, NOA or MS has
> licensed patents pertaining to these kinds of software patents or not.  If
> so, how does one find out what has been licensed?  I have never seen
> anything other than Dolby or image licenses mentioned in their SDKs.
> 
> I'm asking on this list because this is the best place I can think of where
> somebody may have encountered this before.  If it is inappropriate, please
> email me directly rather than posting as I do not want to perpetuate the
> problem :-)
> 
> Thanks,
> Brett
> [email protected]
> GameBrains
> 
> 
> 
> 
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