Avatar wearing a clickable link
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The title says it all. You know those folks promoting Virtual Reality (or Metaverse)? Think of all those sites with avatars that move. Right now, it is as though we were back in 1989 when HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and coders were writing their first sites. But unlike 1989, today’s VR sites do not show avatars going from 1 site to another. The problem is the lack of VR compatibility between sites. What we see of VR today is a pale imitation of what it can be.
A VR site might link to another VR site. The link can be on a virtual screen in the first site. Your avatar goes up to it and presses a button on the screen, you go to the second site. If there are other avatars near you, then all might go to the other site. Sound familiar? This is the transporter room scenario in Star Trek.
What’s the problem? Look at the scenario. The screen to jump between sites is at a fixed location in the first site. If you want to jump from a different place in the first site, well you can’t. Not until the first site puts another screen at that place. Maybe the first site removes the screen in the first location. Or it makes another screen at the second place. The point is that the first site controls not just the exits from itself, but also the entrances to other sites.
There is a different and much simpler way, defined by my 25th patent, “Metaverse avatar wearing a clickable link”. The title exactly describes what it offers. There can be 2 avatars, Bill and Tom, in the first site. Tom wears a logo of a nightclub on his jacket. He talks to Bill about the club. He points to his logo. Intrigued, Bill touches Tom’s logo. This sends Bill immediately to the VR site for the club. Tom walks around the first site to find other avatars. He chats to them about the nightclub. This is his job.
The use of Tom can be more focused. It is far easier for Tom to buttonhole interested avatars, especially if they exhibit some interest in the other site.
Now imagine the first site having several virtual buildings. These were sold at high prices to buyers who then set up the buildings to sell items or host events (concerts, talks). But in VR, there no shortage of land and virtual buildings. However the owners of the first site will say otherwise, when trying to persuade people to put down money. Thus the patent triggers competition to lower prices.
I am not saying that my patent will completely replace the scenario of the first figure. There will be times when the latter is the most natural way to do things. But my patent is the logical complement.
Also, once other users are aware of what is possible with my patent, they will spin up new ways to use the mobile, clickable links. Ways I never foresaw.
How can VR site 1 respond? It might scan the outer surfaces of avatars who visit. Looking for evidence of clickable links on them. This can spawn an arms race between the site and such avatars, as the latter try to obfuscate where their links point to. Site 1 can find that Tom’s code likely means a functioning link. It is hard for Tom to prevent this, since his entire source code is accessible to site 1. This is true for any avatar in VR. You (the avatar) are literally an open book to the hosting site that lets you in.
There will be independent sites, just as there are independent web sites. A possibility emerges that groups of sites can coordinate in compiling a list of avatars with links. In much the same way as web sites maintain tables of spammers. A counterpoint is that the avatars with links can form a competing group. The avatar group can say they are not doing anything illegal, and their actions lead to lowering of prices to end users. Which are tantamount to individuals who prefer lower prices. A potential antitrust imbroglio can emerge if sites were to blacklist avatars with links.
The lack of imagination exhibited by designers of VR sites is a compelling demonstration of greed. VR coders and their bosses were dazzled by the hype of Web3 and crypto. They smooshed together the first things they could gin up to quickly make money. Instead of spending time improving the VR experience.
The patent was awarded on the First Office Action. The Office is the US Patent and Trademark Office. Most inventors need least that many Actions, before they get a patent. If you get a patent, then by law, your patent is judged to be unique. But getting a patent on the First Office Action is like a home run in baseball. And of the 20 claims I applied for, I received 15 claims. I was chuffed!
Who might want to own the patent? The Big 5 firms in tech are the logical candidates. Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft. Plus there are storied firms like IBM, Oracle, Cisco. These were once huge. Though in the run up in valuations in recent years, the first 5 firms took the limelight. They may still have dreams of greatness.
One way of discerning interest is to consider firms who invested $millions or $billions in hardware and software to enter Virtual Reality or some related amalgam like Mixed Reality. Meta has perhaps the biggest commitment, in part because Zuckerberg garnered mindshare when he promoted Metaverse and made Facebook’s parent be Meta. Business Insider estimated Meta spent $36 billion since 2019 on the eponymous meta.
Related to this is that my patent can be considered a defensive fee. If a firm spent billions on hardware and software, then it needs to guard against another peer competitor getting my patent and using it as a sword against them.
A second factor is that hardware can be turned into a low value commodity. Look at the makers of optical fiber, like Corning. They spent $millions on perfecting optical fiber to carry light. But in the end, their operating margins are single digit. Firms like Facebook and Google hoovered rich margins via software overlays. Or look at the phone operators, ATT, DT etc who laid that fiber. They do respectable business, but not great.
Another example is in the 1980s when 20 disk drive makers were leapfrogging each other every quarter. But the tech saturated, leaving us with 2 or 3 makers globally. It was a great time to be using disk drives, but not so much making them.
My patent is a fundamental marker of VR activity. Currently, Meta et al are focused on developing the hardware of the headset rigs. As they perhaps should. But by the time they are done, others might have ownership of how the hardware is used for VR.
And remember that second set of firms (IBM, Oracle, …) that I mentioned? Suppose they are feeling left out of the limelight. They want to grow in VR. My patent can be a low cost, low risk way. They avoid betting on a given choice of hardware. They make software layers, starting with this patent.
