Sega Goes Crazy, Sues Fox, EA Over Taxi

Thanks to Reuters for the news that Sega has sued Fox, EA, and developers Radical Entertainment over the similarity between EA's The Simpsons Road Rage and Sega's own Crazy Taxi. The story reveals: "Sega holds a U.S. patent, known as the '138 patent, on 'Crazy Taxi,' in which players take the role of a taxi driver who has to accomplish outrageous driving stunts to pick up passengers and quickly deliver them to their destinations." The patent infringement suit, which asks for the recall of the game and damages for lost profits, claims The Simpsons Road Rage was designed to "deliberately copy and imitate", citing a review "...that characterized 'Road Rage' as a 'shameless incident of design burglary'."

Comments

Crazy?

[semaj]

I don't see why this is crazy... in fact, isn't it quite obviously true?

Grand Theft Auto

[redune45]

I'd think Sega would sue Rockstar first. The taxi driver missions in GTA are a whole lot like Crazy Taxi, all that's lacking is jumping cars and annoying Offspring

Re:Grand Theft Auto

[Babbster]

Indeed. In fact, if Simpsons Road Rage is a ripoff of anything, its gameplay is a blatant ripoff of GTA3.

Actually, you're thinking of Simpsons Hit&Run which is the GTA3/VC ripoff. Simpsons Road Rage was indeed pure Crazy Taxi action.

Software Patents?

[maharito]

IANAL, but last time I checked, games fall under the category of software, which is, under current law, not able to be patented. Perhaps if developers of The Simpsons Road Rage were exposed to source code from Crazy Taxi before they began designing and coding the game, then a case of copyright infringement would be in question here. But "look and feel" and software in general, is not patentable under current law. Furthermore, by some stretch of logic, couldn't the makers of Crazy Taxi also sue Rockstar for including Taxi mini-missions and the insane stunt bonus in their GTA series of games? I think that perhaps game companies should worry more about producing worthwhile games than suing competing game companies for creating games that are in some ways similar, but share no source code. But when it comes to this kind of stuff we should all bow to the almighty dollar rather than customer satisfaction.

Re:Software Patents?

[dtfinch]

Tell that to the United States Patent Office, which grants roughly a dozen software patents a daily basis nowadays. Just check out uspto.gov. It sickens me to think that I could be sued into bankruptcy for failing to examine every one of them to ensure that I don't write something similar based on my own ideas.

Software patents are quite legal. They manage it by calling them computer implemented business methods. Courts have ruled in favor of them, congress hasn't changed the law to prohibit them, and the patent office just does their job.

Re:Software Patents?

[illuminata]

I think that perhaps game companies should worry more about producing worthwhile games than suing competing game companies for creating games that are in some ways similar, but share no source code.

In this particular situation, Sega was the company creating the worthwhile game. Crazy Taxi was quite innovative, so let's give credit where credit is due. And The Simpsons Road Rage was extremely similar to Crazy Taxi, not just similar in some ways.

But when it comes to this kind of stuff we should all bow to the almighty dollar rather than customer satisfaction.

Now, was it really necessary to make a bleeding heart anti-capitalist statement like that? And what the hell does this situation have to do with customer satisfaction? This has to do with patent infringement.

Look, I don't agree with Sega about the lawsuit, mostly due to the higher probability of losing it, but this is an option available to them. Rather than looking like they're doing nothing about having their ideas ripped off, they took action. One of the companies in the suit, EA, is their largest competitor. They probably thought that it was better than sitting around twiddling their thumbs while their investors are watching.

patenting a plot?

[rmm4pi8]

since when can you patent a plot? patents are for technology, algorithms, and business methods. you and i may not agree with software patents, but it at least seemed clear that they applied to the methods used to generate results in software, not the 'plot'/user experience of the software. if driving a videogame taxi can be patented, why not writing a letter?

perhaps an overly similar videogame would be a derived work under copyright law or perhaps a trademark violation, but a _patent_???

next you'll be able to patent the plots of e-books, so that if anyone creates another with a similar plot, you can sue. imagine the proceeds Tolkien would have on fantasy!

Re:patenting a plot?

[Babbster]

They're not claiming to have patented a plot (a good thing since "plot" and "Crazy Taxi" aren't really appropriate for use in the same sentence). Sega is claiming that they patented specific game mechanics used in Simpsons Road Rage. From what little I understand of the patent, those mechanics at least include characters diving away from oncoming vehicles instead of going "splat" and a big floating arrow pointing the player toward a destination.

I obviously can't comment on the validity of their claim, but I can say that Road Rage was intended from the ground up to be a ripoff of Crazy Taxi. I suspect that if Sega can demonstrate damages - specifically that Road Rage took sales away from Crazy Taxi and its sequels - they can probably win their case...of course, there's every possibility that EA, et. al. will settle out of court with Sega since a) they have incredibly deep pockets and b) I don't know that anyone in the video game industry, including Sega, would benefit from this kind of precedent.

Taxi Mode in GTA3?

[Numeric]

"take the role of a taxi driver who has to accomplish outrageous driving stunts to pick up passengers and quickly deliver them to their destinations.""

I have done that in GTA3.

1. Pick up passenger
2. Drive down the wrong side of the road , over people, down grass inclines, etc.. (does that qualify as "outrageous"?)
3. Dropped off passenger

Of course, I'll add a few extra steps:
4. Beat down exiting passenger with the baseball bat and steal their bling-bling.
5. Enter cheat code to get unlimited ammo
6. Enter cheat code to get infinite health
7. Enter cheat code for tank.
8. DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!

Oh come on..

[DJayC]

All of the new Simpsons games are rip-offs. Simpsons Skateboarding... Road Rage... Simpsons Wrestling.. Simpsons Hit and Run.

I can't believe that Sega would do this. I thought that the Crazy Taxi series was doing well.

There are plenty of games that imitate other ones. Successfull game concepts will always come up again and again.

This is more crazy talk than Crazy Taxi . . .

[dgrgich]

From the patent description in question . . .
"Another object of the present invention is to provide a moving direction indication method which can make direction indications which are easy to be understood by operators freely moved in the virtual space, such as a city or others, and a game apparatus.

Further another object of the present invention is to provide a game display method and a game apparatus which can make displays which are easily understandable for an operator who gets, in a virtual space, such as a city or others, a specific object and carries the object to a destination.

Further another object of the present invention is to provide a drive simulation method which can provide real driving feeling. "

Oh dear lord, am I glad I'm not a patent attorney!

Re:This is more crazy talk than Crazy Taxi . . .

[FinestLittleSpace]

So, um, basically, noone can put directional arrows guiding the player to their destination/goals then? Impressive patent....

I love Sega and all, but seriously..

[Inoshiro]

The time for this lawsuit was over a year ago. You know, before the game went Greatest Hits on PS2 and Platinum Hits on Xbox. Before the sequel came out!

It reminds me of Sega being sued by a lady who claims that Sega used her likeness (instead of Apollo Smile, who did the voice work on the NA releases) in Space Channel 5. There's no reason for this frivolous lawsuit.

This is US Patent # 6200138

[dgrgich]

I don't understand . . . there can be three movies in one year about killer asteroids hitting the earth or three movies in one year about volcano eruptions but Fox can't grab a game "idea" and reframe it with slightly different graphics or play mechanics? Granted - 'Road Rage' is a DIRECT ripoff of 'Crazy Taxi' but can this really be something that causes Sega harm? I thought expressions of ideas couldn't be patented or copyrighted???

Patent 6,200,138

[pkaminsk]

I'm guessing that Sega is referring to patent 6,200,138. From a quick scan, the patent seems to claim 1) an algorithm to get pedestrians to leap out of the way of the player's car and 2) a directional arrow pointing to the player's destination. (There's also some mumbo-jumbo about "easy to understand" displays and "real driving feeling" -- make of it what you will.) I'll leave it to patent agents expert in the field (do such beasts exist?) to determine whether the patent is valid and whether it's been infringed.

There's a previous art

[maxgilead]

This patent most probably is bogus (as most of them do). There's been years ago (early '90?) a game for DOS in which you played a driver of a flying taxi which had to deliver customers to their chosen destination points ASAP. And there was jumping and bouncing all the time ;-) One surely could call this taxi driver as 'crazy'. Of course game was 2D in 320x200 resolution :-)

Re:There's a previous art

[charon]

Wasn't that called "Quarantine"?

Re:There's a previous art

[maxgilead]

No. Quarantine true, was another DOS taxi game but I'm talking about really old title, 2D only with sidescrolling board... Ugh! This game was called 'Ugh!' :-)

Here's link to its review: http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/game/87

Great game!

prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

and old dos game "quarantine" should do it.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/review/R 47 033.html

review from gamefaqs.

Re:prior art

[ThenAgain]

The link seems to be broken so here's another one. I haven't found one with a decent screenshot.

I remember this game. It was about running all over a post-apocolyptic city, picking up and dropping off fares with a time limit, mowing down other pedestrians, jumping the taxi over things, and purchasing weapons.

Previous Lawsuit

[Sangloth]

Anybody remember Fighter's History?
I've never played either Crazy Taxi or Simpson's Road Rage, but Fighter's History was practically a palette shift of Street Fighter 2. Capcom took DataEast to court, and lost. The judge felt that while there were definitaly similarities, Fighter's History was a different game of the same genre.

Uncanny Simularities"

Quick Summation Half way down

I'm surprised, I remember the entire thing so vividly, but I just can't find more resources about it on the web....

Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.

The SCO Principle

[Mr Syd]

IANAL, but surely under the long-established "SCO Principle" SEGA should be suing everyone who PURCHASED Simpsons Road Rage? I am looking forward to my letter!

Precedent

[ronfar]

There already is a legal precedent for this in the video game industry, I refer you to the case of K. C. Munchkin a Pacman type game that came out for the Magnavox Odyssey.

Scroll down this page for details:

Odyssey II page

From this, I'd say that Sega may have a case, provided they really can demonstrate that there is no prior art.

However, I'm hoping they don't get the game removed from shelves. That's what happened with K. C. Munchkin fortunately after I had already purchased it.

Patent application...

[Snak Attack]

was obviously created by babelfish from a Japanese original.

"A game display method for displaying a game in which a movable object is moved in a virtual space, comprising the steps of: "

"a caution area is set around the dangerous area, and when a character enters the caution area, the character is caused to pause. "

Actually, if you ever want your writing to sound like it was written by a lawyer, just translate it from english to german to french then back to english.