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Computer Solitaire Patented?
Sadburger writes "Saw this over on GameDev:
'Thomas Warfield of Pretty Good Solitaire is reporting in his most recent blog that: 'My company has received the following letter from a law firm claiming to have a client that has patented computer solitaire. And by extension, all computer card games. I am not kidding.' Patent law strikes again...'
Anyone know a good patent lawyer?" Someone alert the educational sector, since at least half my programming classes involved solitaire, poker, or blackjack.
I didn't know SCO had a games division.
Think of the royalties Microsoft will have to pay!
You know, the guy who wrote solitaire for Windows back in the early 90s.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
A law firm wrote to the Copyright Office claiming to own the copyright on Copyright Offices. Said firm asked for an undisclosed sum of money or else they would sue and get the Copyright Office closed for copyright infringment.
:-(
Funny? Wait till we get there
My Stack Overflow user
I'm going to patent floating point math.
Yet Another Web Site
I shall patent the process by which one attains a patent?.. and by extension all subsequent patents!
I'll be a patent god with little bolts of patent energy zapping cash from every pore! People and corporations alike will fall at my feet and beg for mercy as I pitilessly strip them of financial resources...
BEHOLD! I *AM* PATENT LAW!
Why would they sit around for hours playing (cards) with themselves?
I wonder if I could patent human solitaire? Or better yet, humans playing with themselves...I would be richer than Billy Gates!
Unless the patent was filed before 1979, there is plenty of prior art. I remember playing poker and blackjack on my TRS-80 when I was 4 years old.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
If this is allowed to happen all the MCSE's (Minesweeper Consultants, Solitaire Experts) will have to pay royalties.
I suggest reading the comments in the blog. Several other developer friends of mine have posted (Scott, Sean! What's up?) great points. Scott Miller posted a great point about his company being sued because a wrestler thought his name was stolen for a game: Max Payne. The stupidity and greed extends far and wide.
we've seen this idiot before. last time he was here, he was C&Ding starchamber.net. Apparently he took our "overly broad" patent comments to heart and has started going after every online game he can find... gotta love it.
They cover card games that would also include advertisements and collecting user information and profiles... so this could cover online card games done through MSN Gaming Zone or via Yahoo... amongst other online card gaming sites.
Go play with yourself.
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
The Patent office just ran out of excuses for allowing frivilous patents through the process. It is understandable that a patent examiner might not be equipped enough to understand a one-click shopping patent, or a patent about 3rd party payment transactions over a phone network, but not understanding solitare? Even in its currently obfuscated form the patent is flagrantly obvious. Even in 1995 people were talking about how much time is wasted playing computer solitare. It would be like someone patenting the concept of a winged reusable space vehicle after the Columbia explosion, or patenting a vaccuum tube based moving picture box.
The only way this is going to change is if the patent office becomes liable for the total defense costs + 20% of anybody who engaged in a patent fight and had the patent ruled invalid. Expecting the American small businessman to do the patent office's job for them is rediculous. They are charged with being an authority on a particular and significant portion of US law, but have degraded into a rubber-stamp. Anyone who even read this patent would have declared it invalid. The patent office must feel the financial pinch of their mistakes, or they will continue to make them as part of their modus operandi.
It is no longer enough to go hunting against one painfully obvious patent at a time. We must correct the system that is so incompetent as to allow anything at all to be approved with the full protection of the law. That system, the patent office, and the people who work there, just ran out of excuses.
The ______ Agenda
I used to run Solitaire (Hoyle) on my Tandy 1000 SL/2 with Hard Drive kit. Back in the 80's. And before that, I had Sol on a TRD 80 Model II on the 8" floppy. Talk about prior art, I think there was a version for the VAX.
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
These are the same thugs that are harassing Star Chamber. I've been thinking about how to combat this problem. Perhaps it's time for a Viral Patent License. Here's how it would work:
A Viral Patent Board would be set up as a charitable foundation, with the stated goal of eliminating the use of software patents.
Companies are either VPL friendly, neutral, or agressive.
All companies start as neutral.
A company remains neutral if they have never fired the first shot, but have not yet given the VPB permission to use their portfolio.
A company is agressive if they have threatened a friendly or neutral company for software patent infringement. IOW, if you ever fire the first shot in a patent battle, you are forever considered agressive.
A company is friendly if they have:
1. Promised in writing to never fire the first shot.
2. Allow their entire software patent portfolio, now and in the future, to be used by the Viral Patent Board to threaten agressive companies. This license is non-exclusive.
3. Require in the licensing terms of all their intellectual property that agressive companies be excluded from licensing. IOW, if you have a patent that Microsoft has licensed to incorporate into MS-Word, then part of your deal with Microsoft must be that MS-Word not be licensable by agressive companies.
4. Agree that beginning in 2009, it's open season on neutral companies as well, and the Viral Patent Board may sue them as they see fit.
The net effect would be that all software would eventually become infected with Viral Patent Board controlled IP, and such software would not be licensable by agressive companies. This means that even if you write no software - you're nothing but a software patent litigator - you must conduct your business without the aid of software of any kind. This might be further extended to the attorneys that work for such companies, so that they could not use software, even at home.
I'm posting as AC because I am in the MMO games business, and own a patent critical to that business that many companies are infringing on. I am willing be the first to hand over my patent to stop this nonsense.
I was wondering if it is possible in our legal system to sue the USPTO for causing these financial damages through their incompetent approval of bogus patents?
The problem is, that's an offline game. They're specifically patenting providing card games over a network.
Probably the best case for prior art would go to a MUD with a multiplayer card game in it. Many of them date back well before this patent and a lot of them had coders with too much time on their hands creating cool games.
These trivial patents are keeping bright, industrious people working as virtual slaves for the established software publishers who steal the fruit of their mental labor through legal chicanery. The copyright and patent laws intended purpose of furthering Progress is not being accomplished. Instead they have been subverted to the point where the Progress is greatly slowed and only the wealthy can fight one of these (ought to be) unenforceable patents long enough to overturn it.
OK... so the other day I called the Patent Office and asked them about how one would challenge a Patent based on the latest DNS Patent fiasco.
/.ers but my Congressman/woman holds "town meetings" about once a year. I went to one and they actually proved somewhat helpful when I needed to get my point across. The key when speaking at these is to not be confrontations, have facts ready to go, and speak to the audience. In speaking to the audience, I mean finding something that will make them nod their heads in aggreement with you. That was you make the issue "hot" to that Congressman/woman. If you seem like a lone wolf with an issue, it won't become one. The Congressman/woman's job it to represent the population and the more that this issue represents, the hotter the issue it will become.
After talking to someone who seemed to discourage me from challenging a Patent that has signifigant prior art ("well it costs a lot of money, etc") he mentioned that the whole basis for a Patent is it's Claims section. If the Claims section is, in fact, something brand new then a patent will go through.
The interesting part is that a challenge to a patent will cost you $2,500 and $8,000+ if you want to have a part in the challenge. It seems to me that Congress should step in and regulate the USPTO as it seems as though they are becoming a potential hinderance to innovation by allowing prior art patents where they should be protecting innovation.
Now I don't know about any other United States based
Don't get pissed, lobby for change. I know we (as in my fellow geeks) like to avoid politics, but we need to start becoming more of a voice of change...
Those patents all relate to network gaming for card games. Now I was under the impression that Solitaire was a single-player game (hence the name)
How would that relate to network play?
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
I am hereby filing a patent for a programs in which the output "Hello World" comes up on the screen.
Anyone who copies this will feel the wrath of my lawyers...
They're specifically patenting providing card games over a network.
Solitaire over a network? Sounds like a very unbalanced players/observers ratio there.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The crazy thing about patents is that you can patent the same old ideas in new domains. Solitaire might have existed before computers, but it's still a valid patent when applied to a version for a computer. Likewise, if the patent is for solitaire on desktop computers then there is room for someone else to get a patent for solitaire for handheld computers. This is how the same old business processes that people have used for years are patentable when applied to the internet.
Now, in this case, it would be interesting to see when the patent was applied for. Can the original poster provide the patent number?