On February 17, 1998, a patent by Namco Ltd was approved by the United States Trademark and Patent Office (#5718632) . This patent was a page 12 document outlining the technological process of a smaller game being loaded and played while the larger game was being loaded... otherwise known as the preloader game. This helps prevent "wastage of time", on the behalf of the user and the system.
What this means is that if you put a game in your preloader, Namco reserves the right to seek monetary compensation in the court of law. Seems silly right?
A patent allows a technological process to be protected from other's monetary or personal gain. In return, a public record of the technological process is made which can help stem new ideas, technologies, etc. So basically, if you discover a process or technology that is unique, you can patent it so that if anyone else wants to use the process, they have to get permission from you... you basically own the right to let people use your work legally.
I'm not saying that Namco is going to sue you... granted, a lot of indie game developers are really under the radar of such an attack, especially one of this nature... but it is always interesting to see how protective people can get over processes, even ones that are so simple and occur often in games.
But given that they are specific processes... doesn't this mean you can patent specific gameplay elements as well? By US Patent standards, yes you can, and it has been done before. We'll just have to see how this all plays out in the future... especially because most of these patents last 20 years.
Read the Patent
Gamasutra Patent Article
Kotaku Article
Rudy
Simply ridiculous. :/