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EFF Attacks Online Gaming Patent
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The EFF is attacking more bogus patents. This time they're going after the 'method and system of playing games on a network' which covers tournament ladders, online rankings and advertisements. The patent in question has already been asserted against a number of small companies who know that licensing it is cheaper than litigating. Ars Technica's coverage mentions that Netrek looks like a good source of prior art. 'Netrek, an online multiplayer game with origins in the mid 1980s, makes use of much of the same technology described in Goldberg's patent. Much of the code for Netrek is open source, and its development is archived online; the source code was first posted to Usenet in late 1989. The EFF has also documented other instances of prior art with the assistance of students at the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.'"
99% of the time the goal is to make the legal process take forever. So you have to pay legal fees, often can't work because they are mailing you 600page books of things you have to research and you still have living expenses. Your company will be stalled. Then they just wait for you to crack or run out of money. Even if all you do is hold up prior art the law isn't so simple. They'd have a long investigation on whether or not it truely is prior art, whether we can tell or not if it came first as humans can know nothing. That this supposed knowledge is just a flawed combination of our senses. My point is it doesnt matter if there is a case or not their only goal is to stall. Most people arent willing to give up their lives for often over 8months to show up some asshat. You end up in the hole near a million dollars, your company is certainly disbanded at this point and the company you stood up to has already hit 20victims since.
The only option in these cases is class-action. Or bend over and take it, film the experience and send it to the EFF who will hopefully have some luck finding you some cream.