games  anime  |  toys
Destructoid is gaming news, community, videos, and sometimes love. Take the tour or jump in with Facebook:

 


Patent parasites sue Microsoft over Xbox Live photo
  share: Twitter Facebook Reddit Digg
filed under: #Utterly pathetic

When it comes to frivolous and greed-driven lawsuits, few disgust me more than those instigated by patent trolls. People who make vague patents and then sue whenever they can claim infringement should really be lined up and shot, but for now, Microsoft is going to have to deal with a group who have repeatedly tried to make money out of online gaming networks.

Peter Hochstein and Jeffrey Tenenbaum (pricks) once patented a method of "communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations" and have been milking their "idea" since 1994. In 2004, they went after both Sony and Microsoft, and in April of this year, scored a settlement with the former over the PS2's online gaming network. Now they want more, and are focusing on Xbox Live.

Rather than settle or fight, Microsoft has tried stalling tactics to keep the case going. Back in February, the case was delayed by MS over a typo in the filing. The company has also thrown 140,000 documents at Hochstein and Tenenbaum without any form of index. Classy move indeed. 

This one is probably going to drag on, but we all know how these things turn out. Microsoft will eventually settle with the leeches out of court at some point, and everything will be fine until the next bone-idle and dick-minded patent troll crawls out from under a rock.

Also, I've just patended a method for using one's legs and feet to manually travel from one location to another. I will sue anybody who uses The Sterling Self-Propulsion Technique.


Continue: More lawsuit stories





prev next

40 comments | showing # 1 to 40

Zantetsuken's Avatar
Zantetsuken at 07/02/2009 09:26
If I were MS, I would make the case drag on as long as possible so they just waste money and bankrupt.
aerofan11's Avatar
aerofan11 at 07/02/2009 09:28
What?
Volomon's Avatar
Volomon at 07/02/2009 09:34
WTF there is 1970s precedent over gaming while communicating from two different locations. That's a bit earlier than 1984. I don't see the legitimacy of even that level of vague patent.
Chronic Logic's Avatar
Chronic Logic at 07/02/2009 09:35
Yea, Microsoft should drag and stall the case as long as possible. No doubt it will piss of those patent parasites.

Also, why wait for 7 years to sue Microsoft?
PMantix's Avatar
PMantix at 07/02/2009 09:36
"few disgust me more than those instigated by patent trolls"

I think I'm more disgusted by huge megacorps throwing their weight around, but hey, that's just me.

That said, these guys do seem to be looking for the first person that will sign them a six figure check.
SyntaxError's Avatar
SyntaxError at 07/02/2009 09:38
Just goes to prove that there's no original ideas anymore. See there kiddies? If you make a multi-million dollar platform for games, someone already beat you to it, and they will want the money that is rightfully theirs. How about rumble feedback that increases immersion in gaming? That's already done too you twat!

While I usually root for the underdog, I'm gonna have to agree with you on this one Jim.
alex1314159's Avatar
alex1314159 at 07/02/2009 09:44
microsoft did it with custom souondtracks in games (pricks)
LukienAkeela's Avatar
LukienAkeela at 07/02/2009 09:48
How these people were able to patent such an idea without specifics is beyond me.
Freefall's Avatar
Freefall at 07/02/2009 09:51
Ah, this nonsense annoys the hell out of me. It would be better if you had to build said patented thing rather than get money from vague paper ideas. If only I could patent my random ideas scrapbook, I'd be rich.
SyntaxError's Avatar
SyntaxError at 07/02/2009 09:58
The thing that infuriates me about this, is that they decided to sue now, instead of suing years ago during the inception of Xbox Live (2003, I think). But hey, where's the potential money in that?
masteraero's Avatar
masteraero at 07/02/2009 09:58
That's it, I'm going to patent taking a shit and wanking. That way, when anybody goes to the bathroom, they have to pay me millions for infringing on my patent!

Jim Sterling, I expect your out of court settlement by the end of the day...
PhazonYoshi's Avatar
PhazonYoshi at 07/02/2009 09:59
If I were MS, I'd just mess with guys who didn't have a hope of winning, too.
Doomsday Forte's Avatar
Doomsday Forte at 07/02/2009 10:09
You'd think there'd be a period of time that you can sue someone over a patent infringement, so you can't, say, sue the three gaming companies for online service when they've been doing it for years. Of course, that'd probably really open the door for patent infringement but...

It seems they're shamelessly out for a quick dollar. Here's to MS just suffocating them like Sony and Nintendo should have. Not to say that the big companies can get away with anything, but when you wait seven years to tackle a problem, you're just making yourself look bad.

I find it funny that iPhone games can't have rumble because of that one company. What the hell.
GoldenGamerXero's Avatar
GoldenGamerXero at 07/02/2009 10:14
To be fair some patent cases are actually made by people who feel genuinely cheated by some big company saying you made it but we made it mainstream therefore it's ours. This on the other hand is a couple guys who made a vague patent and are now trying to sue THE INTERNET!
aaronf's Avatar
aaronf at 07/02/2009 10:43
If you patent an idea, but never do anything with it, and then later on down the road someone else comes up with the same idea and actually makes a product or service out of said idea, tough luck to you. Seriously, tough shit. You should have done something with it rather than try to profit off of someone else's hard work.
whormongr's Avatar
whormongr at 07/02/2009 10:48
#1 140,000 docs really aren't that many - I have done work for companies that have documents in the tens of millions for discovery but as well (and you'd think that you would know this being MS and considering that MS usually has K&L Gates- bill's father's firm in house) current discovery laws prohibit burying opposing counsel in documents- that is that you can't do what you used to do by either printing hundreds of thousands to millions of docs or giving raw electronic docs, opposing counsel has the right to request productions be delivered in a viewable format, which means the documents and DB must be formatted per request or the judge can sanction or find in favor of opposing counsel (usually it is just a big sanction- though the other has happened a few times now). I won't say how I know- but these documents have all had their metadata extracted- have been categorized and have been reviewed so MS has no recourse if they get sanctioned.

For the record I am not for the patent trolls but as usual MS thinks that they can do whatever they want and will until they get smacked down... and then they will cry foul and start saying more stupid crap again like how they are going to move their base of operations from the US because our laws are so unfair.

(in case you don't know I have been working for the last 10 years or so in civil lit)
-PL-'s Avatar
-PL- at 07/02/2009 10:52
I need to start coming up with ideas right now, maybe I can sue somebody who actually followed through on their ideas later.
Bacchus's Avatar
Bacchus at 07/02/2009 10:59
Look out for my flying car and time machine patents.
HiddenAHB's Avatar
HiddenAHB at 07/02/2009 11:00
Why MS don't hire some Hitman's?
It would save them a shitload of problems.
Elsa's Avatar
Elsa at 07/02/2009 11:07
LMAO... The Sterling Self-Propulsion Technique

(... and what aaronf said pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter).
Narishma's Avatar
Narishma at 07/02/2009 11:19
MS should just remove online play from their next console and call it a 'last gen' feature.

Oh wait, wrong company...
silvain's Avatar
silvain at 07/02/2009 11:23
@aaronf

Good luck to all of those start-ups who are working on new IP. I mean, there wouldn't be a long history of large companies stealing their ideas, beating them to market with their bigger resource pool, and then making this argument with massive legal teams to try and deny the patent lawsuits or anything.
GuineaRabbit's Avatar
GuineaRabbit at 07/02/2009 11:28
I agree with Zantetsuken, Microsoft should drag out the case in court just so it wastes these idiots' money.
Necros's Avatar
Necros at 07/02/2009 11:36
It really depends on how they define "communicate." If they mean "people talking while playing a game," then they've got no basis for that - hello there, phones and IRC, which were around back then when they patented this. If they mean "computers talking to each other," then that's actually pretty forward-thinking, and they could have a case. I really can't bother to read through all that legalese, though, so I'll just leave the speculation at that.
Emrah's Avatar
Emrah at 07/02/2009 11:48
I patent communication while masturbating. I will sue all those damn phonelines. And lose, because they have no control over the caller, ok I give up, I am not as "forward thinking" as these bastards, but they are no genious either. How is this different than VoIP? They just added "while gaming". Have you seen any of this company's games? Have you seen any of their products?
Tombstone's Avatar
Tombstone at 07/02/2009 12:07
So guys, I have a patent on a mechanism that allows air to travel to your lungs, well known as breathing.

You've all been infringing on my patent and I suspect you all to pay up soon
harrmonica's Avatar
harrmonica at 07/02/2009 12:14
who gives a toss...ms isn't one of the most despised corps for no reason. i would sue them just because.
Tristero's Avatar
Tristero at 07/02/2009 12:29
Did you read the patent? It's not that vague, and although I'm not a patent lawyer, from what I can make out the patent relates to a combination of hardware and assembly language that converts communication signals into command signals. I don't know enough about how multiplayer programming works to determine if they're case has any validity, but it sounds like they're referring to a very specific innovation.

I definitely recommend reading it before jumping down their throats and calling them pricks.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5292125.html
Professor Pew's Avatar
Professor Pew at 07/02/2009 12:33
Lol US Patent system.
Woverine's Avatar
Woverine at 07/02/2009 12:44
from the patent:
"The video game communicator (100) also converts the command signals into communication signals to be sent over telephone lines to be received by another video game communicator"

who the hell has dial up anymore? patent failed.
brainderailment's Avatar
brainderailment at 07/02/2009 13:24
"PS2's online gaming network"

What now?
Jetsetlemming's Avatar
Jetsetlemming at 07/02/2009 13:52
If Microsoft don't push this to the point of getting their entire patent disqualified and the owners qualified as Vexatious Litigants I will be disappointed. For fuck's sake, "communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations" existed in so many games before 1994, including Doom multiplayer in 1993.
aaronf's Avatar
aaronf at 07/02/2009 14:52
@silvain:

It's one thing to be actively working on bringing the patent to market, and quite another to simply file a patent and just sit on to cash in on other's hard work. Two completely different situations. Far too many current patent lawsuits fall into the latter category.

I predict this case was filed in Texas.
Hopeless Savage's Avatar
Hopeless Savage at 07/02/2009 15:27
Patents are supposed to encourage the development and use of new ideas by guaranteeing some rights and privileges to the people who come up with them. It's a well-intentioned system. When companies are financially liable because taking on new technologies could violate some obscure patent some greedy asshole cobbled together x number of years ago and never bothered to follow through on, that's the opposite of encouraging the development and use of new ideas. It's a greedy corruption of a really wonderful idea.

It's kind of ridiculous that Microsoft, of all things, is the one being victimized, but not for the first time I'm happy to see the upsettingly large legal sway of a Fortune 500 company shit all over a couple of opportunistic douchebags.
BattyAdroit's Avatar
BattyAdroit at 07/03/2009 02:41
Thanks for the insight, whormongr...it's nice to hear from someone who actually has a clue about the industry, rather than just us deskchair quarterbacks. :)
JustLikeBuck's Avatar
JustLikeBuck at 07/03/2009 03:53
PISH POSH!

I do believe your patent is infringing upon Buck's and Sons Binary Alternating Conveyance!
hpv's Avatar
hpv at 07/03/2009 05:29
Microsoft has enough money and lobbyists to do sizable damage to software patent laws if not destroy them entirely. Until they put that to some use I hope these people keep hammering them. Same for everyone company that takes advantage of such patents. It's the only way we'll ever get some sanity in the system.
Hivemind's Avatar
Hivemind at 07/17/2009 17:39
The problem is that patents like this can be made in the first place. The patent system is a complete joke and rewards immoral opportunists rather than innovators.

If I patented my idea of 'projecting a 3D image into 3D space' does that mean I can get lots of dosh if someone invents the holographic projector after a lifetime of research and development. They work for their entire life, I write a single line yet I win?

Having an idea is NOT HARD, making it work is.
Korzak's Avatar
Korzak at 07/21/2009 18:56
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.… The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can." - Bill Gates
PJC's Avatar
PJC at 07/21/2009 23:16
I read the patent. I'm not a patent attorney but I am a programmer with experience in communications and multi-player games, from 1988 through 1999 or so. As best I can tell the patent here deals with using a very basic system to echo commands to a remote game and to "play multiplayer" in the same way that people play chess by mail: by having two copies of the game, one in each location, and make the same "moves" on each. I can tell you from experience that this is a risky plan that allows plenty of ways for things to get out of sync, because while chess is "turn based" most videogames aren't. And even a small synch error in the game states == chaos. Also, a temendous amount of this seems directly tied to phoneline-era technology, like using the Call Waiting signal as a pause command.

I have learned, repeatedly, that legal conflicts are not design meetings. Legal stuff is weird. So, could this somehow be a "valid" patent with regard to xbox live? Mmmmmaybe. But from a tech point of view, I'd be very surprised.
prev next

Comment with Facebook





Click connect and comment instantly!

Comment with Dtoid





New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds

Comments policy

Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?

Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!

 
New on Destructoid.TV play all videos

Loading
Loading Destructoid Videos



    Win this!
    We're giving away an Xbox 360, Modern Warfare 2 & more!



    Dtoid Twitter    Got news?   tips@destructoid.com

    Reviews & Previews
    Mahjongg Artifacts 2 (PSP minis) review
    Dragon Age: Origins review
    Lost Winds: The Winter of the Melodias review
    Osmos review
    Space Invaders Extreme 2 review
    Half-Minute Hero review
    JU-ON: The Grudge review
    Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble review
    Thexder Neo review
    Domino Rally review
    more reviews
    Being a face in the crowd with the PS3's 256-player MAG
    Rooms The Main Building
    Skate 3
    Hudson's bringing back the Bonk
    James Cameron's Avatar
    Bomberman Battlefest
    Hudson bringing Japanese horror to the Wii with Calling
    Bad Company 2's multiplayer
    Partying like it's 1959 in BioShock 2's multiplayer
    BioShock 2 through the eyes of Big Daddy
    more previews


    - The Dtoid Army is 49448 strong -

    Showing Cblogs with 3+ faps   show all

    Call for entries: do the wrong thing
    New to Dtoid? Read the survival guide




     Originals
    Jim Sterling: Attention, everyone buying L4D2: I have dibs on Coach





















    More Destructoid Originals



     Popular now more
























    Destructoid's editorial lovefest is:
    Nick Chester
    Editor-in-Chief    		 Jim Sterling
    Reviews Editor
    Dale North
    News Editor    		 Hamza Aziz
    Community Manager
    Anthony Burch
    Features Editor    		 Rey Gutierrez
    Video editor & director
    Niero
    Founder, publisher
    Letters to the editors
    tips@destructoid.com
    Associate Editors
    Ashley Davis Jonathan Holmes
    Brad Nicholson Jonathan Ross
    Brad Rice Jordan Devore
    Chad Concelmo Matthew Razak
    Colette Bennett Tom Fronczak
    Conrad Zimmerman Topher Cantler
    Dyson Samit Sarkar
    Contributors
    Adam Dork
    Ben Perlee
    Daniel Lingen
    Joseph Leray    		 Joe Burling
    Mikey
    Will Maddock
    Stella Wong





     

     
      get involved

    register or login
    post a blog
    post a forum
    enter a contest
    contribute a news tip
    suggest a feature
    be a guest editor
    		 support

    new member's guide
    login assistance
    tech support
    report abuse
    email our editors
    read our dev blog
    nuclear crisis?
    		 keep in touch

    RSS feed
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Myspace
    Flickr
    Game nights
    Meetup+play online     		seriously

    about Destructoid
    advertising
    terms of use
    privacy policy
    jobs at MM
    buy our crap     		our network

    Tomopop
    Japanator
    Despingation?



    Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press
    living the dream since March 16, 2006