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Unity patents ECS

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Re: Unity patents ECS

#11

Post by gfodor »

badloginagain wrote: post #8

Patenting Entity-Component-System sounds like a hot take. I didn't look close enough to see if what they're patenting is something specifically unique to Unity3d's implementation. It would have to be? From the abstract it sounds like the equivalent of trying to patent Observer/Observable. Maybe there is a history of patenting software architecture that I'm not aware of, I'm not an expert in patenting in software deve…

I haven't read the patent but Unity's long march to ECS included figuring out mapping their previous GameObject + Behavior paradigm to the ECS paradigm. At a glance, part of this appears to be trying to patent that. This isn't a Unity specific problem though, many gaming studios have existing code on the old paradigm and are looking for good ways to migrate or bridge to ECS.

Patenting such technology runs counter to the reality that this track of game engine innovation in particular has been one particularly notable for the open sharing of techniques and technology, in the interest of everyone benefitting from a better approach in core architecture that improves performance and reduces incidental complexity. At some point, it became a cultural norm that people were not going to hold their cards close to their chest on this core part of the game loop. There are a lot of areas where I'd be inclined to accept the idea of IP protections for game engine companies on an ethical basis: this isn't one of them.

Re: Unity patents ECS

#15

Post by adamrezich »

malwrar wrote: post #10

ECS has been around since like 2007 and there's plenty of public prior art on this, but suuuuuuuuuure Epic Games yep you guys totally invented the concept and deserve a monopoly on use of the technology. This might directly affect several projects I have if they choose to use this patent offensively. This further cements my disgust with IP law, honestly I'd rather we just have information anarchy when it comes to abs…

this is Unity not Epic

Re: Unity patents ECS

#17

Post by [deleted] »

gfodor wrote: post #5

Ridiculous, and corrosive. I understand this isn't "patenting ECS" but patenting optimizations to ECS that are heavily inspired from existing work like, for example, JIT javascript runtimes, is shameful behavior. I hope Epic or someone else produces prior art and the requisite shaming. The reason ECS is even a thing is because of the endless amount of sharing and openness from game engine studios at conferences like…

[deleted]

Re: Unity patents ECS

#18

Post by hackthefender »

Patent lawyer here. There is a lot of dubious stuff already in this thread, so be careful with legal opinions from people on the internet.

Some relevant claim language is below. Of course a lot of this stuff has been known for a while, but you have to have everything together--or an evidenced argument that combining things in this way would have been obvious--before you can conclude anything about the validity of the patent. And on unpatentable subject matter (i.e., being an abstract idea), there is a pretty good argument that this improves the functionality of the computer, not just uses a computer to do something known, which recent cases have started using as the de facto dividing line.

1. A system comprising: one or more computer processors; one or more computer memories; a set of instructions incorporated into the one or more computer memories, the set of instructions configuring the one or more computer processors to perform operations for automatically managing a set of memory chunks within the one or more computer memories at runtime for a computer application, the operations comprising: receiving a set of entities from the computer application, each of the set of entities including a set of components, wherein each component of the set of components has one type of a set of types; classifying the set of entities into a set of archetypes, each archetype representing a different count of the set of components or a different combination of types of the set of components relative to other archetypes of the set of archetypes; based on a determination that one of the set of archetypes corresponds to a new archetype, building a new memory chunk, adding the new memory chunk to the set of memory chunks, and populating the new memory chunk, wherein the populating of the new memory chunk includes adding data from the set of components included in one or more entities of the set of entities that are classified under the new archetype, the adding of the data including contiguously adding the data to ends of a set of component data arrays included in the new memory chunk, each of the set of data arrays included in the new memory chunk corresponding to a respective component of the set of components included in the one or more entities that are classified under the new archetype.

Re: Unity patents ECS

#19

Post by stonewareslord »

adamrezich wrote: post #15
malwrar wrote: post #10

ECS has been around since like 2007 and there's plenty of public prior art on this, but suuuuuuuuuure Epic Games yep you guys totally invented the concept and deserve a monopoly on use of the technology. This might directly affect several projects I have if they choose to use this patent offensively. This further cements my disgust with IP law, honestly I'd rather we just have information anarchy when it comes to abs…

this is Unity not Epic

I think OP might have confused Unity (a game engine) with Unreal Engine (game engine owned by Epic Games)

Re: Unity patents ECS

#20

Post by Sanguinaire »

dubcanada wrote: post #2

How does such an abstract idea get approval? Like Figure 4B. It's a diagram that basically says, if something happens and we need a new entity we create one... Figure 4A is literally talking about adding to an array. Figure 1 is just a diagram of a computer? The abstract is just garbage collection...

The patent system is just not fit for purpose. Even for pharmaceuticals and other long-development-cycle products in the real world it has been corrupted beyond reason; I worked on battery materials for a while and even though there was plenty of prior art, a couple of players had basically patented every metal oxide possible under the guise of a cathode material, even though most of them would be utterly useless. Until there is some penalty for such time-wasting chancers, nothing will change. The software world makes it even worse by removing the already low bar for a proof of existence or actual benefit.
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