MMO Developers Sued for Patent Infringement

Here we go again.. Let's all cry out loud: The US patent system is clearly broken!

damn, maybe I should see about buying some patents so I can become rich. Forget the lottery, patents are the new wave for free cash.

what do you get when you put together
A broken patent system
B patent trolls who patent ideas for trolling

A + B ==== C?

i say hell for innovation. Im going to patent the wheel. Oh no somebody already patented a circular travel device which touches the road... I guess ill just patent a elliptical one, prove that all circles are elipse but not all ellipse are circle and sue the circle patent holder....
(bangs head)

Gah stop allowing people to patent a general idea. Patents need to be for an idea but with a specific solution.

I have a patent on the design of the eiffel tower I could sell you >_>

so it's taken them 7 years to get on this? obvious troll is obvious.

Oh wow are you kidding me.

ya...a 2002 purchased patent is infringed 3 years earlier by EQ when it was launched in 1999

Valcron said, "Gah, stop allowing people to patent a general idea."

It's really "Patenting a general idea, waiting for someone else to successfully innovate using something vaguely resembling it, then raking in the cash by the boatload off of their hard work."

why do all these nobodies have patents they do nothing with? our patent system is messes up. perhaps a patent on patent trolling will stop all this.

"what do you get when you put together
A broken patent system
B patent trolls who patent ideas for trolling"

As the Gnomes say, "Profit". Gnomes are geniuses at corporations.

(sorry for double post, we need a delete or edit feature) America is a democracy, and all i see on the comments on stories like this is "its broken" lets stop whining about it and write some people in Washington, and that one judge. couldn't hurt.

Well Microsoft caving doesnt help their case at all. The only way you can have a legal precedent is if the court went to decision, not if they 2 parties settle.

When were those patents approved? EverQuest was released in March 1999, prior art might be Sony's defense if those patents were granted later.

There have been synced virtual worlds before everquest as well. Meridian 59 was 1995, the realm was arround 97 ish, i know there are others, likely going back to early 90s. If you dont count graphical mmos, then there have been synced worlds in text form for longer then taht.

Our patent system is just broken.

Well, it did say that they were purchased in 2002. It did not say when it was patented.

Patent this idea "a company that does nothing but suing other companies" and counter sue them..

These companies buy patents like this then sit back and potential infringements accrue and then after enough have built up, they pounce. I think there should be a statute of limitations of say 5 years after which if you did not catch it and sue, you are out of luck.

This actually affects all multiplayer games that have a network connection..?

I see three patents online for this company.
Could it be this one? US7206311 - Efficient transmission of data to multiple network nodes - 04/17/2007

http://www.patents.com/Paltalk-Hol [...] 6/company/

I found this as well:

"The PalTalk complaint summarizes two former HearMe patents: one, filed in 1998, covers a group messaging server that organizes group lists of players. The second patent covers software that aggregates messages from members of a group to more efficiently maintain consistent communication between host computers, according to the complaint."

Source: http://www.masshightech.com/storie [...] -suit.html

This kind of crap, among many other forms of litigious crap, can be fixed by one single rule: loser pays.

The reason Paltalk Holdings is suing Blizzard and friends is because large companies like Blizzard are more likely to settle out of court than to incur ridiculous lawyer fees.

Hehe! See how far your patents are bringing you!

Trying to protect their inventions, patents also seem to destroy their own ideas, and block progress.

Perhaps William Gilbert needs to sue MS, Sony, and ALL the major companies for making use of a device that uses electricity, while not owning a license for that!

Damn, I just found how to get rich! Patent the patenting process! It's the states, should be easy to get!

the patent system is so broken.. you get 12 hours to determine if an idea is patentable and the patent lasts 20 years. 12 hours to understand the idea, search it and then argue against the attorneys

Seriously we should subject these people to a firing squad. I'm so tired of hearing the stupid crap people sue for.

this patient could be huge and doesn't only affect MMO.. on business level, there are virtual meetings, where it is all users can view the same virtual enviroment at the same time..

I'll patent the idea of a country having an armed force.

i think you all should get bacon'd

StumpyStumped,
i think patents have very little effect on the US military or government.

I think the US government has paid people to open US mail looking for patents to steal to help the war efforts (I think it was during WW1 and or WW2)

Duke Nukem 3D would be affected under this broad patent lol.
Duke Nukem 3D came out in January 29, 1996 and although it didnt have a matchmaking
system I did allow everyone to see everything at the same time.

I feel in order to patent this broad ideas you should have an working prototype within 3 years from patent published date. And there should be like a maintaining
mandate or something.

Or ownership of patents shouldn't allow transfer. If your company goes
under your patent rights should as well.

Something is better than what we got now.
This has got to stop. The system needs to be refined and streamlined.