Interactive video display system (the Krueger patent)
"The Kinect from 1986": controller-free, camera-based full-body tracking, patented by artist and researcher Myron Krueger a quarter-century before Microsoft shipped one in a box.
US4843568 · Myron Krueger · Lapsed for nonpayment around 2006
Myron Krueger built VIDEOPLACE, an interactive art installation that tracked a participant's silhouette on camera and let them interact with projected graphics using nothing but their body — no controller, no markers. US4843568, filed in the mid-1980s and granted in 1989, covers the underlying interactive video display system.
Two decades before Microsoft's Kinect made 'wave your arms at the screen, no controller' a mainstream living-room pitch, Krueger had already built and patented the concept. The patent lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees around 2006 — a few years before Kinect shipped in 2010.
By the time the world got its consumer version of controller-free body tracking, the original patent on the idea had already quietly expired.
Frequently asked questions
Are these game-mechanic patents part of the trading corpus?
No. The gaming wing sits outside the 13,862-patent trading corpus the rest of the site is built on. These facts are tracked by hand from public patent and news sources, not pulled from our database.
Does a patent on a game mechanic stop others from making similar games?
A patent covers the specific system its claims describe, not a whole genre. Mechanics that predate the patent or differ from the claims may be fine; whether a specific design infringes is a fact-specific legal question. This isn't legal advice.
Can I use the expired ones freely?
Once a patent's term ends or it lapses, the claimed mechanic generally becomes free to implement without a license. Other rights may still apply to a specific game, and this is general information only.