Patent concerns

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 14:15 +0200, Johannes wrote:

> >From the top of my head, Moon Buggy. If you haven't seen it, here's a
> quick description: You can see the left side of a (moon) buggy on the
> right side of the screen and a (moon) surface underneath with pits in
> it that moves from left to right. You control the buggy and have to
> jump over the holes (you can't move left or right, you can just jump).
> So: you have "targets" (pits) that move across the screen and you have
> a predetermined point (buggy) where you have to press a button, so a
> fine piece of prior art if you ask me. It's not very old (Version 1 was
> released in 2004), but it has some ancestry: it's based on a 1982 game
> "Moon Patrol" which, based on screenshots, seems to be quite similar.

I don't think that is sufficient. The patent is pretty clear about the
way to score points is for the player to hit a button to match the
linear moving target when it crosses the point in space. "Jumping" or
"Shooting" doesn't count.

~spot