PalTalk, a Texas firm known to "monger" patents (collecting them and then trying to apply them in lawsuits) has initiated a lawsuit against top MMO producers claiming infringement on a copyright patented in the early 2000s. The patent covers software which lists players into a common chat and allows them to dynamically view content simultaneously. How this patent gives PalTalk rights over software which they never developed is beyond me. Source: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=16280
The hell is wrong with some people? Why dont they go and spend that time doing something constructive like working for monetary gain rather than trying to leech it off others?
Hmm, i'm going to get some popcorn and watch Blizzard's high trained and paid lawyers murder this small team.
You guys smirk, but did you read the article? This same firm took Microsoft to court over a similar patent regarding the Microsoft Office Suite. Eventually Microsoft settled for an undisclosed amount (reportedly in the range of $200 million) plus a licensing fee on future sales. That's a heck of a wad of cash.
True, but Microsoft keeps getting sued for being a monopolist. Their software isn't compatible enough with other software, or can hardly be modified. That's how they get to them each time. I just don't see that happening with a videogame.
This is old news... Anyway they are taking on several big companies (Blizzard, Sony, et al) but since they have a victory over Microsoft, It might be a difficult task to fight off! I don't play MMOs but I do have this to say... DAMN PATENT TROLLS!
wait, if i understood the article correctly they can sue anyone that has a server that sends info to more then one player at a time. Doesn't that mean they can sue them for warcraft 3 on battle.net as well? or pretty much every RTS, FPS, and RPG in existance? if they win this, everyone is pretty much *&^%ed. on a final note, american courts are kinda crazy.
Also, aren't all servers doing this? I mean, they could just as well say that youtube and CNN are able to show dynamic content to lots of people at the same time. Weird. Just wanted to point out that Microsoft gets sued pretty often. Kinda obvious that they just gave them a crapload om money, since bad publicity would be worse. Like there aren't enough people who've switched to open office yet. *sigh* I'm going to patent the wheel.
Yeah, you guys are pretty much spot on. The patent is so vague that they could basically sue anyone for any kind of technology related to content sharing. Although I think it does state that it's interactive content... so it would have to be some kind of video game, etc... One guy suggested it was the same as him patenting "putting ideas on e-paper" and he could therefore sue everyone on the internet.
And even while that would work in theory, no judge would be stupid enough to say "guilty". The scary thing is: it only takes a single case in which they are proven right, and all others will likely fall in line. (if that's the right term) It happens in plenty of situations. For example: downloading music and films. To many lawsuits to count, but look at what happened in France this week. A single person got caught and fined, and all of a sudden a 4 year old law against it is accepted. Still, there's probably nothing that they can do against an entire genre of games. Rockstar has been sued plenty of times. The only thing that happened is that the sales of the GTA series have skyrocketed, without Take 2 having to advertise a lot. (Not sure who owns/publishes Rockstar games now. There have been quite a lot of changes recently. It's almost like European soccer, lol.)
What if the judge has connections with some of Paltalks crews and some conspiracy arises? I never really heard much of paltalk anyways, but if they did manage to win over sony, are they gonna sue the rest of the industry as well? I just hope this would turn out the right way.
