作者：Jon Jordan

专利是个时常引起争议的领域。

无论是诺基亚和高通、诺基亚和苹果、苹果和三星以及HTC，还是近期的Lodsys对阵整个手机游戏行业的其他公司，只有极少数的话题可以引起如此激烈的争论。

Leviathan Entertainment的联合创始人Andrew Van Luchene对专利权有很深的了解，并明白其中的价值。据称Leviathan Entertainment这家公司有着全世界最多的专利权（游戏邦注：截止发稿时共计18项已注册专利），以及尚待认定的社交游戏专利（游戏邦注：共计55项）。

PocketGamer对其进行采访，探究为何他觉得专利如此重要，以及他认为专利能够给将来的社交游戏生态系统带来何种影响。

你何时开始对社交游戏感兴趣？

当我开始制作游戏和研发游戏技术时，大家都在玩的MMORPG是《魔兽世界》（游戏邦注：下文简称WOW），而《第二人生》也呈现出新型的自由虚拟世界。

我在玩WOW时，对暴雪创造出如此成功的新型在线世界感到惊奇，但是也很快就觉得乏味。我觉得如果玩家有新互动方式的话，游戏应该会变得更为有趣，所以我开始构思各种想法来解决这个问题。

与此同时，《第二人生》也是款极具潜力的游戏，但是对多数人来说可接入性较低，因为游戏过于自由化，很难体验到其中的乐趣。我觉得如果开发商更好地利用游戏内的工具来让玩家执行更为高深的互动，那么游戏可能会为更多人所接受。

所以，前数年时间我主要致力于让WOW和《第二人生》更具社交性。

近期显现的游戏对你的想法产生何种影响？

正当我们处理这些游戏想法之时，Facebook迅速崛起，随后Zynga认为Facebook上的用户需要某些与他人互动的方式，于是开始制作游戏。就游戏体验而言，这些游戏比WOW和《第二人生》要简单得多，但是他们给游戏赋予了社交性。这些游戏不仅是为游戏玩家准备的，还适合普通大众。

我觉得可以这么说，社交是让电子游戏触及所有人的元素。社交游戏是改变电子游戏行业的范例。

传统游戏公司本身并没有意识到这一点，这让我感到有些惊奇。

比如，在《战地》和《使命召唤》等成功的专属游戏上，EA和动视在10年之前便有了玩家与玩家在线互动的系统，但是这两家公司并未充分发掘这种玩家互动的本质。他们关注的是其他游戏可玩性方面的创新，所以现在他们在这个领域上落于下风。

你认为社交游戏在未来有何发展？

社交游戏在迅速成长，众人对游戏的认识也逐渐加深并理解了游戏的作用原理，因而玩家需要此类游戏更为复杂，这样他们才能不断体验到其中的乐趣。

在社交游戏领域，你现在可以看到像《魔兽世界》这样的MMORPG正在不断融入社交框架。一旦这种融合完成，我们就可以看到全新的领域，社交将确实成为游戏的一部分。因而现在，游戏如果要保持其吸引力，就必须考虑涉及某些从未涉足的领域。社交化可以让人们远离沙发和赌博机并投入游戏的怀抱，这会使玩游戏的人数增加10倍之多。

由此得到的经验是，玩家分为不同的群体。许多人认为玩家分为硬核玩家和社交游戏玩家两类，但我觉得这个市场还可以划分得更细些。那些认识并迎合各个市场玩家的公司会开发出不仅富有吸引力而且能够产生盈利的游戏。

你认为如何才能制作出更好的社交游戏？

提高社交游戏质量的两个关键元素是：让你可以与他人合作在游戏中取得进展的工具；允许在游戏中融入有效虚拟商业的金融结构。

当你想到人们互动的多种方式，从亲密好友到游戏中的商业交易，你就会意识到游戏中可以潜藏多种互动样式并承载人们间的不同关系。

同样的，当你考虑到人们在现实世界中的不同商业交易样式时，你也会认识到游戏中丰富的内置商业交易不仅可行而且能够为游戏添加大量令人惊奇的新元素。

你如何将这些内容转变成专利？

在我的职业生涯中，我可以称得上是个发明者。大学毕业之后，我在某个智囊团中担任发明者，开发新系统的设计并为其申请专利。我们经过了严格的训练，知道如何构思可申请专利的想法以及具体如何将其转变成专利。

在我离开该智囊团时，我已经有了许多改善WOW和《第二人生》的想法。我可以利用在训练中获得的技能将这些难以为外人理解的想法转变成公司愿意购买以提高游戏质量的设计。

构思想法需要做大量的研究和调查，而且并非所有的想法都能够转变成专利和设计，但是这个过程仍然非常有趣。

为何认为虚拟环境中的经济体系相当重要？

如果有数百万人通过网络产生联系，那么他们就有可能通过参与各种不同的金融交易行为而获利。比如，有大量文章表示，Facebook可以借助其社交游戏中的微交易成为世界上最大的银行。

以下两个元素为我们提供了大量的新颖想法：

1、因为虚拟货币有着其现实世界的价值，因而虚拟世界最终会承载所有现实世界中的金融交易，比如购买大小供应商的服务、购买保险，甚至连某些公司的IPO都有可能完全通过游戏进行。

2、因为这些金融交易以游戏为基础，所以玩家可以在交易中享受到别样的趣味性和娱乐。比如，某款游戏的骨灰级玩家可以在游戏中开店并向其他玩家出售自己的服务。

这类玩家还必须有着独到的广告系统，这样他们才能触及那些在游戏中面临大量问题的其他玩家。如果某人连续三次通关失败，你可以询问他们是否愿意支付些许金钱换取资深玩家的帮助，付款后那些提供服务的玩家就会出现帮助他们通过关卡。

再举个例子，某个玩家可以向匿名的其他玩家借出虚拟货币或者特殊武器等游戏内置道具，而这种借贷需通过现实世界的信用卡进行担保。如果玩家不在虚拟世界中付款，他的信用卡就会自动被扣除相应金额，或者让玩家在游戏中的角色长出驴耳朵，直到付款后才消除。

就发明者想法推出保护措施方面，你对美国的专利系统有何看法？

尽管专利系统还有许多需要改进之处，但是你认真研究之后便会发现，该系统对那些有着绝妙想法的小型开发商还是个必不可少之物。

如果没有专利，大公司几乎不会为原创技术支付费用，因为公司无需为没有申请专利的内容付款，他们只需要复制即可。而且，即便有公司想付钱购买未申请专利的技术，他们也知道自己的竞争者会免费地复制这项设计，这样他们也就不愿意付款了。

如果某个初创公司能为某个大公司独家提供想法，而且大公司凭借这个想法获得了盈利，那么那些公司就会愿意为这些盈利而付费购买创意。

专利允许那些最为精明的开发者专注于构思新型技术和游戏功能，然后与那些有着更好的开发、营销和销售能力的公司进行合作。

这两者之间的合作能够更快地为顾客提供创新型产品，而且双方都能从这些绝妙的想法中获利。如果没有专利的话，我根本无法将我的那些想法转变成金钱。

自行募集资金来将这些想法变成现实也是件不太实际的事情，因为风险投资者只有在看到竞争优势之后在愿意为想法进行投资。除了专利之外，小型创新型公司找不到其他可靠且能够不断执行的业务手段来与大公司竞争。

这种系统中是否存在某些问题？

我觉得美国专利系统的最大问题在于，有些人可以用较弱的专利来起诉，而且败诉后无需支付那些无辜公司的法律费用。由此引发的没有任何意义的诉讼行为是整个美国司法系统的弊端，不仅体现在专利上。所有毫无理由的诉讼案件或合同法律事务都是如此。如果专利诉讼中的败诉者需要像英国和许多其他国家那样为胜诉者支付法律费用，那么毫无道理的专利案件就会在一夜之间消失殆尽。

而且，许多技术初创公司和发明者几乎不了解专利发明的运营战略。如果公司对此有所了解，我觉得他们的做法会发生很大改变，我们会看到更多创新型产品的出现。不幸的是，许多人将运营战略和法律战略同等看待，让律师来制定运营战略并且相信他们能够为公司筹划出合适的运营战略。

我觉得运营学校应该教授企业家和技术员更多关于如何让创新体现更多价值的内容，让他们明白如何成功与大型公司进行合作，而不是在开发、营销、销售等方面处处与他们竞争。这样应该有更多企业家做的更好，我们也能够更快地见到更多创新型产品。

在Lodsys等IP持有者起诉多个公司的手机游戏环境下，你觉得要如何强制执行专利系统？

从我们的角度上来看，我们对专利的强迫性无法做出贡献。我们需要做的只是说服游戏公司，如果他们想要在这片领域繁荣发展的话就应该添加些非同寻常的游戏功能。如果竞争者都免费复制他们最为成功的创意，那么每个公司都不想在创新上下功夫。事实上，我觉得这也是为何这些公司引进新游戏功能如此缓慢的原因所在。

专利能够解决这种不情愿创新的问题。公司完全可以冒险执行新型游戏机制，如果他们获得成功，就会强迫他们的竞争者也进行创新，而不是免费复制内容。看到某些良好的专利中潜藏着有价值的原创想法，其他公司自然会付费购买这项专利。

就持有者起诉其他公司以获得授权费用这件事上，你觉得专利交易是否需要双方如此争锋相对？

不一定。多数专利交易并非如此具有对抗性，但是它们都没有公开，而是私下进行的。

你在新闻中会时常看到有关此类的诉讼，但这些并非典型案例。对于每个专利诉讼而言，都需要签署成百上千个授权。而许多专利购买行为并不为众人所知，这只是个私下交易而已，无需大肆宣传。

作为发明者，我希望能够找到某种自己最在行的方式，对专利交易进行改善，即以最小的冲突来获得最大的经济利益。随着想法经济逐渐显现，我希望原创想法能够有个更完善的市场体系。

在所有的商业领域中，存在某些带有冲突性的诉讼是必然的。专利也只是公司可以购买和出售的普通商品而已。这个商品的购买者当然认为付出的金钱越少越好，而专利持有者当然想拿到更多钱，这自然便会引起冲突。

不幸的是，自从专利系统强迫专利转变成那些难以理解的语言之后，经常会出现人们难以读懂专利说明的情况。当你阅读专利诉讼只是，文件很少会准确描述专利，所以除非亲自对专利进行分析，否者很难了解真正的内容。

你觉得哪类公司会有兴趣收购Leviathan以获得公司旗下的那些专利？

理想状况下，像我们这样的发明者和公司可以说服每个游戏公司开始执行令人兴奋的新游戏功能，随后我们就会看到更多玩家在游戏中投入更长的时间，为游戏中的各种新型设置所吸引。

依我看来，像EA、Zynga和迪士尼之类的公司如果不必担心游戏设计的抄袭并改变关于游戏创新的思维模式，他们会显著提高玩家在游戏中获得的乐趣并产生新的盈利。

再者，谷歌、Facebook和苹果等游戏平台供应商也可以通过执行游戏内置交易平台和跨游戏玩家互动等技术来获得利益。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Leviathan’s Van Luchene on why building the biggest library of social gaming patents doesn’t mean it will trigger a legal apocalypse

Jon Jordan

Patents have always been a controversial area of business.

Whether it’s the likes of Nokia and Qualcomm, Nokia and Apple, Apple and Samsung and HTC, or most recently Lodsys versus the rest of the mobile games industry, few subjects manage to generate such fierce discussions over incredible complex topics that most of us know little about.

Someone who does know about patents and their value, however, is Andrew Van Luchene.

An serial entrepreneur, he’s co-founded Leviathan Entertainment, a company that claims to have the largest number of issued (18 to-date) and pending (55) social gaming patents in the world.

We caught up with him to find out why he thinks patents are so important, whether they have to be so confrontational, and more specifically, how he expects them to impact the future social gaming ecosystem.

PocketGamer: When did you first get interested in social gaming?

Andrew Van Luchene: When I started inventing games and game technology, World of Warcraft was the MMORPG everyone was playing and Second Life was a new freeform virtual world.

As I played WoW, I was blown away by how successfully Blizzard had created a new online world, but the play became tedious. I thought the game would be much more enjoyable if players had new ways to interact with one another so I started to develop ideas around solving that problem.

At the same time, Second Life had tremendous potential but it was unapproachable to most because it was just too freeform to be fun. I felt Second Life could be more approachable to more people if the developer made better in-game tools for players to carry out sophisticated interactions with each other.

So, the first few years of inventing were all about making WoW and Second Life more social.

How have more recent games affected your thinking?

As we developed this portfolio of gaming ideas, Facebook was rapidly scaling and then Zynga figured out that all those people on Facebook needed something to do with each other, so began to provide games. These games were much more basic than WoW and the exact opposite of Second Life in terms of how controlled the experience was, but they brought social to games – not just for gamers, but for the masses.

I think it’s safe to say that social is the element that made video games something for everyone. Social gaming is a paradigm shift in the video game industry.

It’s a little surprising to me that traditional game companies didn’t recognise this themselves.

For example, EA and Activision had the rudiments of online player-to-player interaction almost ten years ago in tremendously successful games such as the Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises, but they never went beyond the basics of player interaction. Instead they focused their innovation efforts on other aspects of gameplay, so now they’re playing catch-up.

How do you think social games will develop in future?

Social games are rapidly evolving as everyone is being taught about games and, as they understand how these games work, they need them to be more sophisticated in order for them to continue to be enjoyable.

What we are seeing now in social gaming is the layering of MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft onto the social framework. Once this layering has been completed, we will be at a new frontier where social has become games and now games need to evolve into places they have never been in order to stay compelling. Social has increased the gamer population at least tenfold by taking people away from soap operas and slot machines and turning them into gamers.

The lesson is that there are many distinct markets of gamers. Many people say there are hard core gamers and social gamers, but I believe there are many, many more distinct markets. The companies that recognise and cater to these distinct markets will be able to offer games that are both compelling and profitable.

What do you think are the ways of enabling better social gaming?

Two key elements we have worked on that enable better social gaming are: 1) tools that allow you to work with others to progress in the game and, 2) financial architecture that allows for efficient virtual commerce in the games.

When you think about the diverse ways that people interact, from intimate friendships to arms-length commercial transactions, you realise games could embody many of those types of interactions and account for the different types of relationships among people.

Similarly, when you think about the different types of commercial transactions that people enter into, you realise that rich categories of in-game commercial interactions are not only inevitable, but will add exciting new element to games.

How do you encapsulate these into patents?

I’ve been an inventor for my entire adult life. Right out of college, I worked as an inventor at a think tank that developed and patented new system designs. We were rigorously trained on how to develop patentable, outside-the-box ideas and how exactly to patent them.

When I left the think tank and had all these ideas about how to make WoW and Second Life better, I was able to use the training to turn intangible ideas into designs that companies would want to pay for so they could have exclusivity.

It takes a lot of research to make sure you keep inventing in original directions, and not all the ideas pan out, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Why do you think finance within a virtual environment is so important?

When you have millions of people connected online, it’s hard to imagine these people wouldn’t benefit from engaging in different types of financial transactions. For example, there’s been a lot of press about how Facebook could become the world’s largest bank due to processing micro-transactions in its social games.

Back when we were developing our portfolio, we saw two exciting elements that we built many ideas out of:

1) Because virtual currency will have a real world value, the virtual world will eventually allow every category of financial transaction done in the real world, such as paying for services from small or large providers, buying insurance against events, even an IPO for a business that’s run entirely within a game.

2) Because these financial transactions will be done from within the game, all sorts of new layers of fun and entertainment can be added to the transaction to empower players. For example, a player who’s an expert at a game should have an infrastructure that lets him set up shop and sell his services to other players.

That player should also have a sophisticated advertising system that lets him reach other players having the most trouble with the game. If someone fails to reach the next level three times in a row, you ask them if they want to pay a dime for help from the expert, and the expert appears by his side to walk the player through the level.

As another example, one player could loan virtual currency, or even an in-game item like a special weapon, to another player he doesn’t even know, and the loan is secured with a real world credit card. If the player does not make his virtual payments, his credit card can be charged a penny, or the player’s avatar could be given donkey ears until he has made a payment.

What are your views about the US patent system in terms of how it protects inventors’ ideas?

The patent system needs a lot of fixes, but once you learn about it, it’s an indispensable asset to the small developer with great ideas.

Without patents, there’s a tremendously smaller chance that the big companies will pay for original technology, because companies don’t have to pay if it’s not patented – they can just copy it. Also, even if a company was inclined to pay for unpatented technology, they’d know that their competitors would freely copy it, and so that dramatically lowers any price the company would be willing to pay.

When a start-up can give exclusivity to a large company, that large company receives real business value, and companies are always willing to pay for real value.

Patents allow the smartest developers to specialise in generating great new technology such as game features, and then partner with the established companies that are much better at production, marketing and distribution.

Together their collective expertise brings innovative products to customers more rapidly than if they weren’t partnered, and they share in the profits of great ideas. I would have no way of turning all the ideas I have into transferable assets without patents.

Raising money to build out these ideas would also be impossible; venture capitalists always want to see a barrier to entry or a sustainable competitive advantage before they are willing to invest in the idea. There is no other reliable and repeatable business tool that allows a smaller, innovative companies to compete and thrive in the fields dominated by bigger companies.

Are there any issues with the system?

I think one of the biggest problem with patents in the US is that someone can sue using a weak patent and when they lose they don’t have to pay the innocent company’s legal fees. This reward for unproductive and frivolous behaviour is a criticism of the US legal system, not patents specifically. Every groundless slip-and-fall case or groundless breach of contract lawsuit is the same kind of thing. If the loser in a patent battle had to pay the winner’s legal fees, as they do in the UK and many other countries, frivolous patent lawsuits would disappear practically overnight.

Also, the most significant point for technology start-ups and other inventors is that they are almost never knowledgeable about any business strategies for patented inventions. If companies were educated about the proper business (not legal) strategies, I think companies would behave very differently, and we’d see many more new and innovative products being produced. Unfortunately many people equate business strategy with legal strategy and let a lawyer pick a business strategy and trust they’ll execute the right business strategy for your assets.

I think business schools should be teaching entrepreneurs and technologists how they could make it more worthwhile to innovate, and how to successfully partner with large incumbents, rather than having to fight head-to-head in every other area like manufacturing, marketing, sales, etc. That would even the playing field for more entrepreneurs and we’d all get more innovative products more quickly.

How do you hope to enforce your patents in the light of the current situation in mobile gaming with IP holders such as Lodsys suing multiple companies?

In our situation, it has little to do with enforcing patents; we need to convince game companies that they should implement very different game features if they want to flourish in this space. Every company is reluctant to innovate when its competitors can just copy its most successful innovations for free. In fact, I think that’s why you see such slow progress in companies introducing new game features.

Patents overcomes that reluctance. A company can take the risks in deploying new game features and if they’re successful, can force competitors to come up with their own innovations rather than copy for free. A company that sees valuable, original ideas embodied in good patents will naturally pay to be the only one offering those features.

Do you think patents have to be confrontational in terms of a holder suing other companies in order to gain licensing revenue?

Not at all. Most patent transactions are completely non-confrontational, but they’re not publicised and are often confidential.

You read about the worst offenders, litigation or threatened litigation, in the news but those are not typical. For every patent litigation there’s hundreds and hundreds of licenses signed and patents purchased that nobody will ever read about because it’s an uninteresting private transaction.

As an inventor, I am looking for a way to contribute with what I am best at doing – improving things in a way that drives the most financial reward with the least amount of confrontation. As the idea economy emerges, I hope that the marketplace creates a more efficient market for original ideas.

Some amount of confrontational litigation is the norm in every area of commerce, and in many other areas of activity too. Patents are just another asset that companies can buy and sell. Buyers of assets always want to pay as little as possible and sellers of patents always want to get as much as possible. Sometimes one or both are unreasonable and litigation results.

Unfortunately, since the patent system practically forces patents to be written in arcane language, it’s too common that a patent is unintelligible to most readers. When you read about a patent lawsuit, the article rarely gives an accurate description of the patent, so you never know the real story unless you conduct your own analysis of the patent.

What sort of companies do you think would be interested in acquiring Leviathan for its patent library?

Ideally, we’d be able to convince every game company to start implementing exciting new game features, and then we’d see more players playing for longer periods and engaging in diverse types of new activities.

In my opinion, companies such as EA, Zynga and Disney could significantly increase player enjoyment and add new revenue streams if they stopped worrying about copying and adopted a different mindset about game innovation.

In addition, game infrastructure providers such as Google, Facebook, or Apple, could benefit from implementing some of our technology such as in-game transaction infrastructure and cross-game player interactions. (Source: Pocket Gamer)