How Do Patents Apply To Me?

I’ve been diligently working on a scene partitioning system which combines an Octree with a Uniform Grid. Basically, the way it works is that you build a loose Octree, which starts 4 levels deep. When each node reaches a critical mass, it subdivides into another level. The max levels you can have (While still being optimal) is 7. So, let’s assume that we have a detailed scene with a 7 level Octree. At the bottom of the Octree, each node is 128th the size of the entire area you are encompassing and it is also uniformly proportional to the entire area. You can build a Uniform Grid out of the bottom most nodes giving you the best of both worlds.

When all this is built, to add and remove items from the grid is a matter of doing simple division of finding out the exact spot in the Uniform Grid where the object belongs. Since pointers are being shared between Octree Nodes and Uniform Grid Nodes, you essentially add an item to the Octree in O(1) time (Adding to a Tree structure usually Takes O(Log n) time). Collision detection with simple objects is O(1) time while with complex objects it is O(Log n) time. What I have done is made the Octree a bit faster in some areas. Good idea, isn’t it?

Here is my problem. While randomly googling on this topic, I found a patent for this idea. The patent is very similar to what I just described. What I want to know (For all you Law junkies out there) is how does this effect me? Can I get sued? Does it matter that my implementation is my own and not copied from the patent? Does it matter that my implementation is Open Source? Are there ways to get around this patent (My implementation is different but algorithmically similar)?

Any suggestions are welcome.

This entry was posted on March 26, 2009 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Radiant, Open Source, 3D Stuff, C/C++, Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.