Tencent

The 4 UI/UX patents cover a range of interface challenges in multiplayer and social contexts. Tencent's pre-game loadout system lets Battle Royale players configure personalized loot boxes before a match starts, storing those preferences server-side and activating them only when a player opens a box during gameplay, which cuts down the network overhead of tracking every piece of loot in real time. Another patent tackles MOBA character selection by automatically cross-referencing a candidate hero's attributes against teammates' already-picked characters, surfacing role conflicts or synergies in the UI so players don't accidentally duplicate roles before locking in. A third patent replaces the mini-map with a compass-style guidance indicator that activates when nearby objects cross a distance threshold and continuously adjusts its appearance based on the object's direction and proximity, improving exploration feedback while reducing the GPU load of rendering a full map overlay. The final patent in this category addresses social apps in virtual worlds by automatically moving a user's avatar to a thematically appropriate scene, such as a library or gym, when the user posts a status update, ensuring that the avatar's location matches the declared activity rather than standing idle in an arbitrary spot.

Two cloud gaming patents focus on server efficiency and rendering architecture. The first keeps the entire Graphics pipeline inside the cloud container by associating the frame buffer directly with a physical GPU accessible within that container, eliminating the handoff to an external rendering device that often causes format mismatches and latency spikes. The second adjusts the server's encoding frame rate in real time based on feedback from the client about its actual display needs, rather than encoding at a fixed rate or reacting only to network bandwidth, which helps Tencent allocate GPU resources more effectively across its cloud gaming fleet.

Tencent's single Graphics patent replaces flat 2D fog of war overlays in strategy games with a volumetric 3D system that physically interacts with units and terrain. Instead of toggling opacity masks, the method constructs a density field from the game mesh, carves out space around moving units using signed distance functions, and renders the fog with layered noise and flow-map animation at a lower resolution before reconstructing the final image temporally, delivering a cinematic look without overwhelming the GPU.

The game engine patent addresses map development and rendering overhead by introducing a system that updates each map element at an interval tied to how frequently that element actually changes, rather than refreshing everything on a uniform schedule. Tencent pairs this with a pre-built framework that encapsulates common map functionality, allowing developers to add new map elements through configuration files instead of writing custom code for each one, which decouples the display refresh logic from the underlying implementation of individual elements.