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."

Link: www.tomshardware.com/news/MMORPG-PC-Game-Patent-Infringement,8674.html

 Me going to US to get patent now...

Err, I thought the Bethesda thing was about copyright or trademark, or whatever.

I don't get how companies/groups that are obviously put together to bring litigation aren't laughed out of the courts.

Originally posted by neoterrar

Err, I thought the Bethesda thing was about copyright or trademark, or whatever.

 

I don't get how companies/groups that are obviously put together to bring litigation aren't laughed out of the courts.

Lawyers bring the suits, and former lawyers run the courts.

Next question?

Its the sole job of certain people to find loopholes in patents and go after the deepest pockets because its always cheaper to settle then drag out a suit.  TRUE scumbags.  You'll find the lawyers often pay "experts" to seek out these opportunites.  The lawyers haven't a clue about what they're even suing for.  They just know the law and how they can squeeze people.  Toss these people in the ocean I say=)

They may have the upper hand but if they do it has nothing to do with MS having caved in.  Whoever wrote that is showing gross ignorance of how these things work, imo of course.  Someone settling out of court is never a precedent setter.

IIUC, a claim like this depends entirely on how the networking is accomplished, not the end result.  You can patent specific network software or hardware, not networks in general or even gaming networks in general.  Maybe MS code was 'borrowed' and thats why they paid off.  Wouldnt be the first time for MS, would it?

 lol that group might be in for a surprise yes ms didnt bother they got other fish to fry but those gaming company wont give in 

thats for sure by the time they win something they ll be so week financially they ll be for merci 

espacially something like that 

basicly it merans everything on the net from hotmail to gmaim going anything you cant think of everything is linked now a days lol

hell even console like ps3 are linked online lol

k guys call in all assassin from all those game and lets go (lol)

This has always been a mainstay of American culture, I honestly am suprised that lawsuits are not even more prevalent in the MMO industry

Oh boy those are some big names there, they're really going for the homerun. I should patent the method of tying my shoelaces then I can sue everyone else.

Those patents are fucking retarded. WTG Americans to use them the wrong way.

I wonder if people really understand how big of an issue this is and will become.

It's easy to laugh it away saying Lol I will patent Breakfast and all people will owe me!  Which is inevitably what someone brings to the table in these discussions, I read it almost every day on various forums.

What nobody cares to think about is, the sheer amount of code we have operating behind the scenes in every part of our modern "infrastructure".  For every one of the lawsuits, a precedent is being set.  A sort of "gold rush" mentality is being developed where the world of ethereal code is up for grabs as anything and everything can and will be patented and sued for once it's found to be used.

Each time one of these cases goes to court and is settled, the outcome, be it for or against the plaintiff determines precedent for future cases.  This whole subject is one motivated by greed, scandal etc...even a child could see that.  But what is important are the results.

If these guys continue to win, patenting code and suing over it's use just for the sake of suing for money...if they continue to be protected by law then everything from how the elevator in your building works to the way your car starts can be sued over.  Once the door is open, throngs of unscrupulous money seekers will try to get a piece of this sort of thing.

I suspect we will continue to see more and more cases like this in the "news" not just in gaming but in every other sector of life pretty much, any sector that uses computer code...which is now becoming so intertwined with our lives that well let's just say I hope the rule of law can sort itself out soon and put down some hard and fast regulations as to what can and can't be sued over or basically all hell will break loose pretty much.   I'm always interested in these stories, they're more relevant than "I will copyright donuts lololo every cop will owe me one million dollars!!!!!" which is always posted in these articles.  Entertaining, missing the point yes, but entertaining nonetheless.

What a terribly cliche way to use a patent.   Go for a company that you know will settle to get your start up funding, then go for everyone else.   Funnest part is that Microsoft gladly settled knowing they'd incure many times more expesnses on everyone else combined than they did themselves.

Worst part is that the patent just exsists to be a patent.   It's not even being used to protect any "real" technology or anything that actually exsists.

 So does that mean we all can be sued for paying for stolen goods?

Originally posted by Sober_Sean

I wonder if people really understand how big of an issue this is and will become.

 

It's easy to laugh it away saying Lol I will patent Breakfast and all people will owe me!  Which is inevitably what someone brings to the table in these discussions, I read it almost every day on various forums.

 

What nobody cares to think about is, the sheer amount of code we have operating behind the scenes in every part of our modern "infrastructure".  For every one of the lawsuits, a precedent is being set.  A sort of "gold rush" mentality is being developed where the world of ethereal code is up for grabs as anything and everything can and will be patented and sued for once it's found to be used.

 

Each time one of these cases goes to court and is settled, the outcome, be it for or against the plaintiff determines precedent for future cases.  This whole subject is one motivated by greed, scandal etc...even a child could see that.  But what is important are the results.

If these guys continue to win, patenting code and suing over it's use just for the sake of suing for money...if they continue to be protected by law then everything from how the elevator in your building works to the way your car starts can be sued over.  Once the door is open, throngs of unscrupulous money seekers will try to get a piece of this sort of thing.

 

I suspect we will continue to see more and more cases like this in the "news" not just in gaming but in every other sector of life pretty much, any sector that uses computer code...which is now becoming so intertwined with our lives that well let's just say I hope the rule of law can sort itself out soon and put down some hard and fast regulations as to what can and can't be sued over or basically all hell will break loose pretty much.   I'm always interested in these stories, they're more relevant than "I will copyright donuts lololo every cop will owe me one million dollars!!!!!" which is always posted in these articles.  Entertaining, missing the point yes, but entertaining nonetheless.

I'm getting a deja vu of posters such as yourself making a big deal out of nothing about the recent Blizzard vs Glider lawsuit, claiming how it will become a big issue for some reasons I couldn't care less about nor should they. Hell if you care so much I'm sure you heard about the lawsuit between Worlds.com and NCSoft over their patent that allows users to “interact with other users in a virtual space” through a server, with an avatar representing each user. Yeah I'm sure that went well.

Oh and just to add, what's even more funny is you pretend as this is something new and saying things like "I suspect we will continue to see more and more cases like this in the "news" not just in gaming but in every other sector of life pretty much, any sector that uses computer code". I mean seriously do you think suing or being sued for every single little thing that can hook a lawyer for a chance to score some cash is just NOW becoming a problem? Really?

This reminds me of when British Telecom tried to claim they owned the patent on hyperlinks

Its complete rubbish and will come to absolutely nothing, just some idiots trying to squeeze cash out of rich companies.

Originally posted by bani789

Originally posted by Sober_Sean

I wonder if people really understand how big of an issue this is and will become.

 

It's easy to laugh it away saying Lol I will patent Breakfast and all people will owe me!  Which is inevitably what someone brings to the table in these discussions, I read it almost every day on various forums.

 

What nobody cares to think about is, the sheer amount of code we have operating behind the scenes in every part of our modern "infrastructure".  For every one of the lawsuits, a precedent is being set.  A sort of "gold rush" mentality is being developed where the world of ethereal code is up for grabs as anything and everything can and will be patented and sued for once it's found to be used.

 

Each time one of these cases goes to court and is settled, the outcome, be it for or against the plaintiff determines precedent for future cases.  This whole subject is one motivated by greed, scandal etc...even a child could see that.  But what is important are the results.

If these guys continue to win, patenting code and suing over it's use just for the sake of suing for money...if they continue to be protected by law then everything from how the elevator in your building works to the way your car starts can be sued over.  Once the door is open, throngs of unscrupulous money seekers will try to get a piece of this sort of thing.

 

I suspect we will continue to see more and more cases like this in the "news" not just in gaming but in every other sector of life pretty much, any sector that uses computer code...which is now becoming so intertwined with our lives that well let's just say I hope the rule of law can sort itself out soon and put down some hard and fast regulations as to what can and can't be sued over or basically all hell will break loose pretty much.   I'm always interested in these stories, they're more relevant than "I will copyright donuts lololo every cop will owe me one million dollars!!!!!" which is always posted in these articles.  Entertaining, missing the point yes, but entertaining nonetheless.

 

I'm getting a deja vu of posters such as yourself making a big deal out of nothing about the recent Blizzard vs Glider lawsuit, claiming how it will become a big issue for some reasons I couldn't care less about nor should they. Hell if you care so much I'm sure you heard about the lawsuit between Worlds.com and NCSoft over their patent that allows users to “interact with other users in a virtual space” through a server, with an avatar representing each user. Yeah I'm sure that went well.

Oh and just to add, what's even more funny is you pretend as this is something new and saying things like "I suspect we will continue to see more and more cases like this in the "news" not just in gaming but in every other sector of life pretty much, any sector that uses computer code". I mean seriously do you think suing or being sued for every single little thing that can hook a lawyer for a chance to score some cash is just NOW becoming a problem? Really?

hell no ,in the past they were probably sueing for sillier stuff lol

there are ton of law in those law book that dont or cant be appplied

hell if cops tried there would be a riot .theres a site for all thos frivolous law that are still in the book but tolerated like those mayor say