MMO Developers Sued for Patent Infringement

[elbert]

Activision I would guess has patents on virtual environment going back to the late 70's. I think Paltalk will find themselves in a patent infringement case where their patent infringes on Activision's. Blizzard could show warcraft 2 or diablo as predating these patents.

 

[fidgewinkle]

As a demonstration of prior art, DikuMud, which Everquest was based upon, easily pre-dates 1998. Thus, any general patents filed by HearMe in the 1998-1999 time frame are rendered "obvious" by "prior art". This is a pure BS lawsuit which an ignorant Texas judge will probably award damages for.

 

[geoffs]

[citation][nom]vladtepes[/nom]"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"-Henry VI - William Shakespeare[/citation]We don't need to kill them all, only about 50%. That will scare the other 50% into behaving and we can use them to help write some sane, understandable laws.

 

[Andraxxus]

If you have something you use it.You don't buy a $5000 PC and keep it in a box for display you game on it or whatever it's the same with patents.
You don't use it you don't own it.

 

[Guest]

Atari has survived for around 20 years on this same model.. Just crap out stuff that sucks, Fail, then Sue and get back in the game. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and company that uses analog joystick technology pays money to Atari for each unit sold. see here http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/10/console-makers-sued-over-analog-joysticks/ But this is old news many of you should remember when this came down, it was more visible than this suit. And another http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53249 .... http://articles.latimes.com/1989-02-01/business/fi-1393_1_video-game-market .... Atari has been the Vampire of the game industry since the early 90's really sueing over ever little thing they can.... So really nothing new here. They wont get some Giant reward, some huge cash dividend, most likley it will be in the form of some small royalty with each unit sold much like Atari Got when it sued MS and Sony of the analog rights... And if you head over to paltalk and have a look, you will see they need cash. lol.. http://register.paltalk.com/reg/landing_pagc128.jsp?advc=105&refc=1105 Crappy looking program, crappy looking site. I bet suits against Team Speak and Ventrillo and the whole lot come next. Maybe one of these companies they sue can drive a stake through this vampires Heart and stop it before it gets to far. As for now, Just boycott them and everything they have their hands into. Help them make even less than they seem to be now...

 

[eyemaster]

Some rules need to be added to the patents.

1: There should be a limit to how long a patent is held when not in use. If you don't use it within x years, you lose it and it becomes public.

2: If too many others are using the patent in ways that are too confusing to discern or are too general, they should become public, again.