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Mobile esports outfit Skillz has announced that it has been issued two new patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Reported by Esports Insider, the patents are exclusive to Skillz.
U.S. Patent 9,479,602 relates to the technology powering Skillz Arena, the company’s event platform for organising, hosting and broadcasting mobile esports competitions, with support for up to 50,000 competitors. Skillz Arena is designed to foster grassroots competition, but has tools that allow the competitions to be open, invite only or even locked to a specific location.
The second patent, tangentially related, is entitled U.S. Patent 9,630,097 and covers technology for mobile video capture and streaming, which allows mobile esports events to broadcast liev over services like Twitch and YouTube. Skillz are well known for their live streaming tech, which was the first to support real-time over-the-air streaming for mobile games.
Andrew Paradise, CEO and Founder of Skillz commented: “Organized competitions and spectatorship are what make a game into a sport, transforming activities like basketball and soccer into the global sports phenomena they are today.
“We want to make esports more accessible to developers, streamers, viewers and players of every level. These technologies allows us to do that.”
Mobile esports is a growing scene. Hearthstone continues to be popular in its mobile incarnations, while FPS title Critical Ops and Super Evil’s MOBA Vainglory continue to gain popularity.
