Hi,
Does Creative’s patent on Carmak’s reverse mean that we wont be able to use it in jME?
DP
Pretty much.
but aren’t patents only a USA thing? Im in the UK, does the patent still concern me?
DP
Patent law is pretty complicated, and I am not a lawyer. I’d say you’re probably ok to play with it in your own stuff, as long as you don’t make money off of it. Not sure how the international thing would work, if you did something to threaten Creative, I’m sure they’d find a way to stomp you down. Basically, if I were you I wouldn’t worry about it, but it won’t go into jME or something like that.
"DarkProphet" wrote:
Hi,
Does Creative's patent on Carmak's reverse mean that we wont be able to use it in jME?
DP
Does Creative's patent on Carmak's reverse mean that we wont be able to use it in jME?
DP
What is "Creative's patent on Carmak's reverse" ??
DarkProphet,
Normally a patent wouldn’t cross borders (such as a Canadian Patent), but the US patent is a more universal patent and DOES cross borders.
This means that most of the time a patent that was purchased in the United States of America will apply to most of the other countries in the world.
No not really. The patents are filed per teritory/region or country. This means that if you want to cover an international teritory then you have to apply for that patent in all the teritories you plan to defend your patent in and this is usually a very expensive business.
tomcat
US Patents are usually classified as International Status Patents.
Not sure if this is true as for a patent to take effect in a certain country it need to be lodged with the patent office in that country to make sure that there isnt already a patent which is in effect in there covering the same invention.
I havent heard of a universal patent that you can file in one country and it will take effect in the rest of the world. I like to know more about this and how it works. (!)
tomcat
Has to do with internation trade laws and some such. I don’t know any of the details, all I know is it can happen.
Shadow buffers are the next option. Mojo said that UT3 utilises them. So its gotta be good.
Anyhow, this whole creative thing really really sucks! I mean it is called “Carmak’s reverse”. So its carmak’s. Not Creatives!!!
Oh well, DP
"DarkProphet" wrote:
Shadow buffers are the next option. Mojo said that UT3 utilises them. So its gotta be good.
Maybe if you have UT3 target GPU... Something in range of 512MB of video memory :)
Please check out
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=266373
for Carmack opinion on shadow maps. In short, he thinks that they are the next big thing, but there are still many technical issues to be solved and they will require very powerful machines in any case.