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Unity owned ECS patent uses techniques described in 2013 Stack Exchange post (github.com)

submitted 9 months ago by sirdorius@programming.dev to c/gamedev@programming.dev

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The 2013 StackExchange post [^1] describes what is now commonly called an "archetype" based ECS architecture that was implemented as compile time archetypes in the author's open source project in Feb 2018 ^3. A similar ECS model was described later in the June 2018 patent filed by Unity ^2 and active since 2020.

It's useful to bring visibility to the issue for the inevitable patent trolling that will occur in the future.

References: [^1]: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/58693/grouping-entities-of-the-same-component-set-into-linear-memory/

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[–] Mikina@programming.dev 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Wouldn't this, along with the other numerous talks on ECS that were made before Unity copyrighted it, be enough to challenge the copyright and have it revoked? Or is that not how copyright works?

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The patent wouldn't be for any ECS; it would have to be for a specific implementation. The post may match the implementation, and invalidate the patent, but just being an ECS wouldn't be enough.