The key is "temporarily" though. Even in the 18th century and prior when technology evolved at the pace of a snail on sedatives that meant 5, maybe 10, at most 15 years.

Then in the 90s the world's international cartel of IP rights got together and decided they should make it 20 years everywhere, just so corporations can monopolize anything they make for the entire the duration of its usefulness. With the speed of progress today I'd be surprised if most aren't obsolete before they become available to the general public. 3D printing is only a thing now because Stratasys was hoarding the FDM patent since the fucking 90s.

Shit needs to go back down to 5 years again.

The Namco one ran out in 2015, right on time for SSDs. Though I guess we could still use them for shader compilation 😴

The biggest annoyance is that patents doesn't prevent usage... Just require permission... they could ask anything or nothing, it just would need to be acceptable. And well here we are.

The GPS arrow is patented?

It was Namco, and the patent expired in 2015.

Didnt knew any besides that one before found this article.

For those who do not want to click:

• Nemesis mechanic by WB (expire 2036)
• Mini-games during loading screen by Namco (expired in 2015)
• Ping system - like pinging on the map so your team mates can see or pay attention to it. EA (expires 2039) FUCK EA
• Dialogue wheel like in Mass Effect - fuck EA (s 2029)
• Direction arrow - racing games, Crazy Taxi style - Sega (expired in 2018 but doubt it will be ever used again)
• Pokemon's fight and catch for later fighting mechanic - fuck Nintendo and Game Freak
• Active Time Battle - not sure, I dont play JRPGs but this one was introduced in FFIV - Square Enix (expired 2012)
• Guitar as a controller for Rocksmith - Ubisoft (2029)
• Mouse controlled flight for aircraft games - Gaijin (expires 2033)
• Plastic musical instruments - Harmonix that was fighting with Konami for the rights (expires 2032)

Nemesis system is probably the most notable because it was a great mechanic that everyone liked. And it is only been used in 2 games and never again.

Edit: Ubisoft and Rocksmith instead of Guitar Hero.

yep, minigames on loading screens.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/loading-screen-game-patent-finally-expires

pointless in the age of direct storage and high SSD speeds.

if you've lived before that: corporate thanks you for patiently waiting while counting their unrealized gains and lost potential on spreadsheets and ppts

When games had long load times, there was a company that patented putting short and quick to load mini games on screen instead of loading screens you just stared at.