EA has made five of its accessibility patents free for any studio to use

Electronic Arts shares five of its previously protected patents that improve accessibility for gamers.

In a statement posted on EA’s official website, the publisher announced a “patent promise” that allows any other game developer to use five of its patents (with potentially more to follow) without having to. pay money or risk being sued.

“Through our patent promise, we are committed to ensuring that every developer in the industry can use our technology patents focused on royalty-free accessibility,” the statement said.

“Anyone can freely use these patents and implement our accessibility-oriented intellectual property in their own games to make them more inclusive.

“This commitment covers some of our most innovative technologies designed to remove barriers for players with disabilities or medical conditions. This includes those who have vision, hearing, speech, or cognitive problems.

The five patents include the ping system used in Apex Legends, where players can communicate with their teammates without speaking by placing different markers on the map.

According to the pledge, EA “promises not to enforce any party for infringing any of EA’s listed patents,” and says it “may add additional patents to that pledge at a later date.”

There is only one exception: If someone takes legal action against EA for infringing a different patent, EA will refuse to share the accessibility patents with them.

The five patents are:

• Contextual communication system in video games – Ping system that allows players to transmit contextual audio and visual communications generated through mappable controller inputs.
• Systems and methods for automated image processing for images with similar luminosities (two patents) – Image processing that improves color visibility to optimize color vision deficiencies.
• Contrast radio detection and rendering system – Automatically detect contrast ratios in pixel regions of rendered images and update regions with lower contrast ratios to meet contrast ratio standards or thresholds.
• Real-time personalized audio generation based on user’s physiological response – Generate personalized music based on a user’s hearing information and stylistic preferences to best suit that user’s hearing problems.