If you’ve ever played video games, you know the worst part can be waiting for the game to load. Nothing happens. The screen sits immobile, reads “now loading,” or perhaps features a fact or tip about the game. And that is because technology company Namco Bandai has held a patent on mini games within those loading screens since 1995. But on Friday, that patent finally expired, paving the way for other gaming companies to make the video game loading screen a little more interesting. The patent, US 5718632 A, covers “smaller, auxiliary game program code” within the video game “before the main-game program code is loaded.” In the mean-time, the primary gain program code loads. In other words, the patent covers mini games that involve a game program code entirely different from the primary game program code.

Until Friday, other game developers had to pay Namco a licensing fee to implement similar mini games, or they had to find a way around the patent. EA Sports’s FIFA game series, for instance, has a loading screen mini game, but that mini game is made up of code from the primary game program’s code, rather than “auxiliary game program code.” Thus, EA probably did not violate Namco’s patent.

The patent forbade developers from even working on these types of mini games, so they may not appear in games for another several months at least. It might have been a patent granted in a somewhat-bygone era where the USPTO was more willing to grant protection to broad technological innovations. But now, with its expiration, the question of whether it should have been granted becomes solely academic.

Sources: http://kotaku.com/the-patent-on-loading-screen-mini-games-is-about-to-exp-1744705351 http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidHoppe/20150109/233806/2015_The_Year_We_Get_Loading_Screen_MiniGames_Back.php http://www.google.com/patents/US5718632

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