Ridiculous, and corrosive. I understand this isn't "patenting ECS" but patenting optimizations to ECS that are heavily inspired from existing work like, for example, JIT javascript runtimes, is shameful behavior. I hope Epic or someone else produces prior art and the requisite shaming. The reason ECS is even a thing is because of the endless amount of sharing and openness from game engine studios at conferences like GDC. This runs counter to that openness, and is particularly corrosive given the trend towards game engines becoming more and more aligned with trying to lift all boats (such as the efforts by Epic and more recently Amazon's Open 3D engine.)