VR patent strategies

Someone buy me this

This is part of a continuing series of posts on IP issues surrounding virtual reality and augmented technology. Other posts can be found here.

In the previous post we looked at the design patent potential of VR user interfaces. One of the reasons to obtain design patent protection on the look of a graphical user interface (GUI), as opposed to a utility patent on the actual underlying functioning of system, is that the former will encounter significantly less resistance at the patent office than the latter.

If a young, user-facing, start-up is looking to add some patents to their portfolio, then there is no faster or cheaper way to do so than through a design patent. Unlike utility patents, design patents do not suffer from the recent spate of patent invalidations issued by the US Supreme Court.
Where pure software companies might be stymied by the USPTO's reluctance to grant patents on computer implemented methods, Virtual Reality (VR) based companies have a easier path to patentability.  The reasons for this are varied as their are decent VR concepts floating around but reasons can be summed up in two points.

1. VR software is rooted in computer technology.

The USPTO has determined that one way for software to prove its non-abstract nature is to solve a problem that is rooted in computer technology.  Software for hedging market bets is not rooted in computer technology, nor does it solve a fundamentally issue raised by such. For finance software, the computer is the platform, not the point of the technology. Essentially, there exists a non-computer implemented way of achieving the same result (money!), therefore using a computer to perform the same task does not make the idea abstract.

Virtual Reality, by its definition, has no non-computer implemented analog. VR is fundamentally different from reality and is a completely computerized environment, Thus, any concept regarding VR, including the concepts tied to generating VR environments, are necessarily routed in computer technology.

2. Most VR Patents will be directed to some user experience improvement or implementation.

A key distinction made by the USPTO regarding the patentability of software is the determination of if the software improves the functioning of the technology or not. High frequency trading algorithms make money, but they do not make any improvements to the functioning of the underlying computer.

VR patents will likely be drawn to improving the way that users are immersed in the virtual environment, and hence improve the fundamental aspects of the technology.

As such, while software as a category of patentable subject matter is facing strong headwinds at he USPTO, patents directed to VR technologies should have an easier time achieving allowance.

J Garner
White Plains, NY

VR Hardware and UI/UX: The next big thing in design patents

Google Cardboard - High Tech that melts in the rain. 

The internet teems with articles giving you the "20 next big things in X" or "15 reasons why everyone should know about technology Q." However,  most of these lists are really slim native advertisements for companies hawking all manner of kit and not really instructive on what the next big thing is going to be in any industry.

Luckily, I am here to tell you what the next big thing is going to be in a particular industry. I had the opportunity to go to Maker Faire this past weekend and take in the sights and sounds of what a low pretense, high diversity Burning Man would look like it if was hosted in Queens and had easy subway access. Among the automated pancake makers and drone suppliers, I kept noticing that what really stood out was the prevalence of VR (Virtual Reality Gear). VR gear was everywhere, not only in demo booths, but also strapped to the slack jawed faces of noobs and experts alike, usually through some jury-rigged cardboard contraption (as shown above).

VR Gear itself is a ripe for intellectual property protection. Usable VR gear presents a number of engineering and UX / UI problems that, when solved are like patentable inventions. Furthermore, just as in the Smartphone Wars (TM), the industrial design of one product versus another might spell the difference between a record shattering Iphone and an also ran Nokia. As such comapnies are going to be aggressive in patenting designs for hardware. Companies like Oculus Rift (Facebook acquired) already have pending an issued design patents cover the form of their VR headsets, and their products have not reached consumers yet.  

Occulus Rift Issued Design Patent on VR Gear. 

However, hardware is, well...hard, and designs for VR Gear are likely to be refined within the walls of engineering and design studios with massive budgets and expansive teams.  Neither of these resources are going to be available to the nimble, cash strapped, start-up.

On the other-hand, VR GUIs, i.e. the graphical display of information within the VR helmet, is the same sort of disruptive opportunity that garage tinkers, and lean teams have made fortunes on. Much like the design patents Apple Inc. received on its icon arrangement for the Iphone, VR companies will be looking to find the optimized, and proprietary, ways to display information to a user.

If one were asking me the "next big thing" is design patent law - I would say it is the race to develop and patent the most beautiful and intuitive VR UI this side of The Lawn Mower Man. In this race, the field is wide open.