![](https://lemmy.sdf.org/pictrs/image/9d984620-7afd-4cbc-b97e-43643b1162e1.png)
![](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ca9b0de3-205f-47ca-a620-5fbddb680695.png)
I apologize, I don’t think we’re disagreeing. Fiction can, but often doesn’t, describe something in sufficient detail to be cited as “prior art” during a patent application or dispute. It comes down to how broad the claims are in the patent.
If someone were to try and patent “sliding doors”, a patent examiner could point at Star Trek and say “Sliding doors are already described in published material, your invention is not original”.
If someone were to try and patent “Mechanism X, used for making sliding doors slide”, that might be patentable because Star Trek (and other published material) didn’t describe Mechanism X.
My dad used to disable the motherboard speaker because the noises games made back then were more annoying than fun. We eventually got a soundcard, and that was awesome.