Video Game Developers Defeat Patent Suit Over Facial Animations

A group of video game makers, including Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, Activision Publishing Inc., Disney Interactive Studios Inc., and Square Enix Inc., didn’t infringe a patent covering creating facial animations, the Federal Circuit affirmed Wednesday.

McRO Inc. sued the developers for allegedly infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,611,278, related to a method for automatically generating 3D animations of lip movements and facial expressions. McRO said the developers’ use of the software applications FaceFX and Annosoft to model facial animations infringed the patent.

A California district court held that the relevant parts of the patent were invalid and ...