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Damn-shouldnt there be a limit on lawsuits per year or something? This company sounds like the equivalent of the lazy scumsucking job hopper who amazingly seems to get injured at the 3 month mark and lives from settlement to settlement
Hopefully this backfires on them, just like that ass that claimed he had the rights to the word "Edge" and tried to make EA pay up for having the title Mirror's Edge.
I freaking hate stuff like this. You know that the reason most loading screens don't have a minigame of some sort is that there's a patent on that?
I'm sure there are dozens of other things which COULD improve gaming as a whole, but they can't be implemented because of patents.
I'm sure there are dozens of other things which COULD improve gaming as a whole, but they can't be implemented because of patents.
the law is the law if they have the patents they have the right to enforce them. if they are bringing frivolous law suits they should be fined and not permitted to sue without review.
video game companies should be just as accountable as any any company in any other industry.
video game companies should be just as accountable as any any company in any other industry.
Lodsys is one guy.
I'm serious; it has one empoyee, it's CEO, and while the company "operates" in East Texas (for reasons that should become obvious), the guy lives in Illinois.
Yep.
I'm serious; it has one empoyee, it's CEO, and while the company "operates" in East Texas (for reasons that should become obvious), the guy lives in Illinois.
Yep.
Are YOU a company with BIG ideas but too lazy to do anything with them? Do you hate other companies taking YOUR ideas that you've been sitting on? Then come on over to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in beautiful Marshall, Texas!
Honestly... I have no idea why this specific court is such a haven for patent lawsuits. Who's paying off who exactly? Why hasn't this court been investigated for shenanigans? If there was a large number of specific kinds of lawsuits coming to one court in particular, you can't help but thing something's up.
Thanks, Texas! As if I needed another reason to *facepalm* whenever I hear something about my oh-so-lovely home state...
Honestly... I have no idea why this specific court is such a haven for patent lawsuits. Who's paying off who exactly? Why hasn't this court been investigated for shenanigans? If there was a large number of specific kinds of lawsuits coming to one court in particular, you can't help but thing something's up.
Thanks, Texas! As if I needed another reason to *facepalm* whenever I hear something about my oh-so-lovely home state...
@meteorscrap; not just improve gaming, but life in general.greed is the root cause of most of the worlds problems.
The patent system is so stupid and senseless. Just look at the Mobile Phone Patent situation: Every company has patents that every other company infringes. It's absolutely silly and broad patents for stuff that's just sensible or unavoidable are just limiting and hurting innovation and smaller newer companies that don't have an arsenal of patents to fight back with.
When I was a kid, I used to come up with ideas for games, then gape in astonishment when sometimes years later, a game would come out with a similar design. I didn't realize I could make a living by suing those developers.
@Locke
It may be the law but if you don't have intent to make it after a year or so I don't think it should hold up. Especially when there are people or companies like this one that make patents for ideas that could happen with the intent of making money by lawsuits later on. Most of the time they're pretty vague on the ideas as well so they can fit it as need be
It may be the law but if you don't have intent to make it after a year or so I don't think it should hold up. Especially when there are people or companies like this one that make patents for ideas that could happen with the intent of making money by lawsuits later on. Most of the time they're pretty vague on the ideas as well so they can fit it as need be
The funny part is, they have no case against the video game developers. They are targeting the apple app store apps and apple is in the patents they have. Apples legal stuff protects the developers using the iOS developer tools.
I need to start patenting every dumbass idea I come up with, I could be making some mad bank with this.
I already came up with Coke & Lime and the soluble dishwashing tablet wrapper before they were invented.
I already came up with Coke & Lime and the soluble dishwashing tablet wrapper before they were invented.
Have they even said what the patent is? 95% of patents I've read are the most absurd shit possible. I remember when that company sued Sony because they had a degree for "six degrees of freedom", and what pray tell is that again?
They're basically suing everyone that implemented in-app purchases, I think. I'm not sure how far down the line from head companies like Apple are they doing this but man, they've got a lot already.
Right now, I'm not even sure how on earth they managed to file that patent (if it does exist), I see no novelty in it.
Right now, I'm not even sure how on earth they managed to file that patent (if it does exist), I see no novelty in it.
A lot of them are in app stuff on apples AppStore. But like I said before apple is lid lisenced to those patents. They even use apple as a way to promote it on their webpage. Therefor under apples legal terms, the app store developers are safe from patent lawsuits using the iOS developer tools. They will have to withdrawal these lawsuits.
@djratchet
Tim Langdell probably made money for a couple of decades claiming that he owned the word "Edge" in regards to videogames. He's even credited for the reason Soul Edge was changed to Soul Blade.
And the main reason he went down when EA challenged him in court wasn't because the law was against him in theory. It was because all his "evidence" was fictional. Things like invoices for sales that didn't exist, baldfaced lies, and disc evidence that he fabricated for the case (but messed up on one of the details, resulting in a disc created under Win95 that supposedly was made years before Win95 was released). I think it was Rock Paper Shotgun that had a good break down of the court case.
If Langdell had real evidence to his claims, the law would probably have been on his side.
And it isn't just Langdell and Lodys that do stuff like this. Sony, Atari, and others do it as well. It doesn't make news because the companies tend to cut deals, either with payoffs or trading access or the like. When money was needed, Nintendo and others were threatened with suit over a whole set of Atari patents, for example. And it seems every time a new controller comes out, some obscure company is waiting in the wings with a patent for something involved in the process.
As for what does get patented (or trademarked), well, there are a lot of tech-related patents awarded that probably never should have been. Some of them are pretty insane. The patent system wasn't designed with the speed of modern tech development in mind, the people awarding patents don't have the knowledge required, and the system relies on the fallback of "It can be challenged in court" to cover its mistakes (which tends to be too risky to actually work properly).
Tim Langdell probably made money for a couple of decades claiming that he owned the word "Edge" in regards to videogames. He's even credited for the reason Soul Edge was changed to Soul Blade.
And the main reason he went down when EA challenged him in court wasn't because the law was against him in theory. It was because all his "evidence" was fictional. Things like invoices for sales that didn't exist, baldfaced lies, and disc evidence that he fabricated for the case (but messed up on one of the details, resulting in a disc created under Win95 that supposedly was made years before Win95 was released). I think it was Rock Paper Shotgun that had a good break down of the court case.
If Langdell had real evidence to his claims, the law would probably have been on his side.
And it isn't just Langdell and Lodys that do stuff like this. Sony, Atari, and others do it as well. It doesn't make news because the companies tend to cut deals, either with payoffs or trading access or the like. When money was needed, Nintendo and others were threatened with suit over a whole set of Atari patents, for example. And it seems every time a new controller comes out, some obscure company is waiting in the wings with a patent for something involved in the process.
As for what does get patented (or trademarked), well, there are a lot of tech-related patents awarded that probably never should have been. Some of them are pretty insane. The patent system wasn't designed with the speed of modern tech development in mind, the people awarding patents don't have the knowledge required, and the system relies on the fallback of "It can be challenged in court" to cover its mistakes (which tends to be too risky to actually work properly).
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