As soon as Rong Mu got back to his own office from Luo Ming’s office, he called Sister Shan right away.
Sister Shan was still in Bingzhou—if you’re going to help someone, help them all the way; how could she just run off halfway through?
At this hour, Sister Shan had just woken up and was washing up when she heard her phone ringing.
She wiped the water off her face and hands and picked up the call. “Hello, Rong Mu, what’s up?”
“Sister Shan, our Plants vs. Zombies is selling really well overseas too—we’ve already sold over 60,000 copies.”
“60,000?” Sister Shan was a bit surprised.
Clearly, this number was much better than she’d expected.
“Not bad! Looks like your game really is top quality—otherwise, how could it be selling so well?
By the way, what’s the refund rate? I remember Steam has an option where you can play for a while and then get a refund, right?”
“You can get a refund after trying it out, but the refund rate isn’t high—currently only around 7%.”
“That’s really good. So, Rong Mu, did you call specifically to share the good news with me?” Sister Shan asked.
“No, no, Sister Shan, I’ve got something else to discuss.”
“I knew it. Go ahead—what kind of trouble are you in now?”
“Well, it’s not exactly trouble. Just now, when Luo Ming and I were talking about work, he told me…”
Rong Mu told Sister Shan everything about the anti-piracy measures for Plants vs. Zombies.
After listening, Sister Shan frowned—she already understood what Rong Mu was worried about.
From what she heard, the so-called Denuvo encryption could indeed guarantee maximum protection against the game being leaked, but at the same time, it brought a series of problems.
For players, the most frustrating issue would definitely be the verification problem. In some cases, Denuvo requires continuous online verification, which could prevent players from playing normally when they don’t have an internet connection or when the servers have issues.
The verification issue also led to the inconvenience of legitimate players not being able to easily switch machines to play the game.
Moreover, this Denuvo technology didn’t perfectly solve the piracy problem either—crackers would eventually find a way around it, it would just take some time. According to Luo Ming, about half a month.
What Rong Mu was worried about was whether Denuvo would make legitimate players unhappy with Plants vs. Zombies, which could actually cause game sales to plummet.
Sister Shan thought for a moment and then said, “Rong Mu, I think you’re worrying too much. 99% of normal players won’t frequently switch machines—unless it happens to them personally, it’s hard for them to empathize.
And for those who frequently switch machines within a day of the game’s release—well, if not 100%, then at least 95% of them are probably involved in piracy. Would they be stupid enough to expose themselves? That’s something that carries legal liability.
I figure under normal circumstances, regular players probably won’t even notice your Denuvo encryption within this month, while pirates will keep quiet—but they’ll definitely step up their efforts to retaliate against you, until they crack your Denuvo.
Of course, it’s also possible that these pirates will hire trolls to stir up public opinion online.
If that really happens, just contact me directly. In my field, I’ve never been afraid of anyone!”
After hearing Sister Shan’s words, the weight on Rong Mu’s heart was finally lifted.
He thanked Sister Shan and was about to hang up when she suddenly called out to him: “Rong Mu, wait a moment. You just said that Luo Ming’s original plan was to have Sony take the heat for the Denuvo encryption, right?”
“Right, Sister Shan, do you have a different idea?”
“Rong Mu, can algorithms be patented?”
Rong Mu was taken aback for a moment, then shook his head. “Sister Shan, I’m afraid not. Algorithms themselves can’t be directly patented in China.
According to domestic patent law, algorithms are considered rules of intellectual activity, not technical inventions or utility models that can be patented.”
“Then how did Alibaba register all those patents for image recognition and facial recognition?”
“Alibaba’s patents should be ones that can be applied to specific technical fields and can implement specific operation methods. For example, Alipay’s scan-to-pay function can use these patents, so they can obtain protection under patent law.”
“Couldn’t Luo Ming’s Denuvo do the same? Game anti-piracy also counts as being applied to a specific technical field and implementing specific operation methods, right?”
“Sister Shan, now that you mention it, it actually seems feasible!”
“If it’s feasible, then why don’t we change our approach? After registering the relevant patents, we could sell patent usage rights to single-player game companies.
At that point, every new game that uses your patent would need to pay a patent fee—that should be another way to make money, right?
Even big companies like Steam and Sony, in order to protect their games, would actively seek cooperation with you.”
“Sister Shan, I think this approach is great. I’ll go discuss it with Luo Ming.”
“Alright, go ahead! If Luo Ming agrees, leave the follow-up matters to me. I know a few lawyers who specialize in copyright law—they should be able to help with patent registration too.”
Hearing this, Rong Mu immediately hung up and rushed to Luo Ming’s office.
At that moment, Luo Ming was talking with Tong Mingwei about ChatGPT.
“Mingwei, the principle behind the chatbot you heard about before is actually quite simple. When it was first created, it was basically a dumb piece of software where you input text and it would randomly spit out nonsense answers.
The answer wouldn’t correspond to the question you asked at all.
Then engineers improved the program based on human speaking habits—basically, they gave it a learning sample and let it form certain memories, until it could try to form a corresponding second half of a sentence based on the first half of the learning sample.
After a long period of learning, it mastered more and more vocabulary and samples, and thus the intelligent chat assistant was born.
As for why it feels like it’s growing during conversations with humans, it’s actually a similar principle. Basically, as you keep talking to it, you reveal your language habits, and it learns them—”
“Bang!” Luo Ming was only halfway through when Rong Mu pushed the door open and barged in.
“Woody? What’s got you in such a rush? Is there some problem with Sister Shan regarding the Denuvo encryption?”
Rong Mu didn’t say anything, but looked over at Tong Mingwei sitting on the couch.
Luo Ming understood immediately. “Mingwei, you can head back for now. Come to the office tomorrow morning to officially start work.”
“Okay, President Luo, I’ll be going then.”
After watching Tong Mingwei leave, Rong Mu asked curiously, “Er Ming, who was that guy? What position is he going to take?”
“His name is Tong Mingwei. He’s the son of the chairman of Huayue Entertainment—the company Wenwen is at. He’s quite talented in programming and AI, and he’s interested in our company’s future development direction, so he wants to work here.”
“The son of Huayue’s chairman? Isn’t that the crown prince of Huayue? Can our company accommodate such a big shot?” Hearing that this person was going to join the company, Rong Mu hesitated before asking.
“Don’t worry! There won’t be any problems. Let’s talk about Sister Shan—what did she just tell you that got you rushing over here like your hair was on fire?”
Hearing Luo Ming ask about this, Rong Mu immediately brought up what Sister Shan had told him about registering Denuvo as a patent.
After hearing it, Luo Ming felt it was indeed a good approach—in his past life, Denuvo’s parent company had operated exactly this way.
If Luo Ming registered the patents related to Denuvo, then before any new and better game anti-piracy programs emerged, he could make money from game companies through Denuvo.
Even platform holders like Steam and Sony would have to come to him for cooperation.
Of course, such big platforms could also work around the parts of Denuvo protected by patent law and rewrite a similar algorithm to avoid infringing on Denuvo’s patent coverage.
As for whether the big platforms would actually do that—it would depend on how much Luo Ming asked for.
With this in mind, Luo Ming had already made up his mind. He said to Rong Mu, “Woody, tell Sister Shan to please help register the relevant patents.”
“Okay.”
“If I remember correctly, generally speaking, after a patent enters the application process, the relevant patent content is also protected at a certain stage, right?” Luo Ming asked.
“I actually don’t know about that. Let’s call Ying Qianlong and ask.”
Ying Qianlong was a lawyer at Huaju Law Firm in Bingzhou. After Rong Mu signed an agency agreement with Huaju, Rong Mu was assigned as Zhuoguang’s dedicated legal counsel.
Previously, when the company negotiated with Steam, Sony, Penguin, and Alibaba, it was always Ying Qianlong and Rong Mu who went together.
Normally, when Zhuoguang didn’t have much work, Ying Qianlong would still work at Huaju. When Zhuoguang had work, Ying Qianlong would handle it immediately.
So after receiving Rong Mu’s call, Ying Qianlong immediately put down the case he was working on and helped answer Rong Mu’s question: “President Rong, from what I know, if the patent application text enters the public disclosure stage and is before the authorization announcement stage, it can be considered a work that has been published, and therefore enjoys protection under patent law.
If it’s before entering the public disclosure stage, since the patent application text hasn’t actually been published, it doesn’t enjoy patent law protection.”
“Okay, I understand. Sorry to trouble you, Lawyer Ying.”
“President Rong, you’re too polite. This is my job—no need to thank me.”
Rong Mu said “Mm” and hung up.
“Er Ming, did you hear that?”
“So that means as long as the Denuvo algorithm’s patent enters the application process, we can negotiate with Steam and Sony, right?”
“Er Ming, what do you want to negotiate?”
“Patent licensing, of course. It wouldn’t be hard for these big platforms to write a similar patent to work around ours, so our best move is to license the patent to them at a relatively low price in exchange for their promotion and support for our game.
That way, the money we make from game sales will definitely be much more than from selling the patent.
Later on, we can continue using the patent to harvest money from game companies, and we won’t have to worry about these two big platforms working around our patent to create new similar patents and cut off our revenue stream.”
Rong Mu’s eyes lit up. “That makes sense. You’re really thorough, Er Ming. Let’s do it!”
