MMO Developers Sued for Patent Infringement
Paltalk Holdings is tackling Activision Blizzard, Sony, and other MMORPG developers, crying "patent infringement, patent infringement!"
The latest trend as of late seems to be suing other companies--especially high-profile corporations such as Apple and Microsoft--for alleged patent infringement. In the gaming arena, Bethesda is currently threatening to sue Interplay for such a violation, and now a Jericho, New York company is suing Turbine, Sony, Activision Blizzard, NCSoft, and Jagex, trying to attempt a lawsuit against the MMORPG developers as well.
Paltalk Holdings Inc. filed its lawsuit in the infamous US district Court in Marshall, Texas, home of the patent lawsuit frenzy. According to the company, it purchased two patents from HearMe back in 2002 to cover technologies for sharing data across a network of computers so that all users can view the same virtual environment in real time. Obviously games such as EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and other MMORPGs feature this type of gameplay, and Paltalk claims that these games violate the patents it purchased.
The Boston Globe is reporting that Paltalk already defended these patents against Microsoft, claiming that the multiplayer features of the Halo franchise violated the patents. Microsoft eventually chickened out and settled with the company out of court by paying an undisclosed wad of cash to license the Paltalk patents. At the time of this writing, Turbine, Sony and the other developers have not commented on the lawsuit, however it's believed that PalTalk may have the upper hand thanks to Microsoft caving in and a plaintiff-friendly courtroom.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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Jazzmain 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.Reply -
andrewcutter what do you get when you put togetherReply
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) -
valcron Gah stop allowing people to patent a general idea. Patents need to be for an idea but with a specific solution.Reply -
sheath ya...a 2002 purchased patent is infringed 3 years earlier by EQ when it was launched in 1999Reply -
Valcron said, "Gah, stop allowing people to patent a general idea."Reply
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." -
zachary k 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.Reply