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Patent Markings May Spell Trouble For Activision
eldavojohn writes "If you pick up your copy of Guitar Hero and read the literature, you'll notice it says 'patent pending' and cites a number of patents. A group alleges no such patent pends nor are some of the patents applicable. If a judge finds Activision guilty of misleading the public in this manner, they could become liable for up to $500 per product sold under false patent marking. The patents in question seem to be legitimately Guitar Hero-oriented, and little is to be found about the mysterious group. The final piece of the puzzle puts the filing in Texas Northern District Court, which might be close enough to Texas Eastern District Court to write this off as a new kind of 'false patent marking troll' targeting big fish with deep coffers."
I invented trolling for false patent markings (patent pending).
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Guess someone in the patents-cubicle zoned out and forgot to follow up on his email properly..
"Oh those patents, yes, they're sent off..."
"What are those patentnumbers, we need them for printing.."
*searches inbox on 'patent issue'* "Here's a list, let me put it in excel for you.."
"kthx!!"
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
... numbers from Patent Hero, the newest game from Activision - you play along with the patent process but aren't really applying for them?
You hold the pen. You fill out the forms. You are the Patent Hero!
As the article notes, these have become common lately. Groups going under names like the one here, "Patent Compliance Group", spend their time digging through product literature looking for "patent pending" claims, and then dig to see if a patent really is pending. In some small percentage of cases, it isn't, and they hope to make enough money on those to justify the endeavor.
I mean, I don't like false advertising, but somehow this particular cure seems even worse than the relatively minor disease of a game claiming it has a patent pending when it doesn't. Given that anyone can file a patent for pretty much anything, it's not like "patent pending" is worth much as a claim anyway.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The final piece of the puzzle puts the filing in Texas Northern District Court, which might be close enough to Texas Eastern District Court to write this off as a new kind of 'false patent marking troll' targeting big fish with deep coffers.
Troll? Hardly. The Electronic Frontier Foundation routinely files lawsuits like this one on the public's behalf. Compare PCG's lawsuit against alleged patent fraud to EFF's investigations and other actions against alleged copyfraud. So what's the big difference between a "false patent marking troll" and EFF?
If hardware is required to have related patents listed on the product, shouldn't software need these markings? What a mess that would spell.
Until Unisys's LZW patent expired, every major non-free paint program had "Licensed under U.S. Patent 4,558,302 and foreign counterparts" in its about box.
Well, the obvious difference is that most of the EFF actions in the article you linked to involve them defending people who have actually received DCMA takedowns
Activision produces Guitar Hero series under license from Konami, owner of patent rights in the Guitar Freaks and DrumMania franchises. Konami already managed to sue Roxor Games into oblivion for In the Groove, a spiritual sequel to Dance Dance Revolution.
Also, from what I can tell, EFFs purpose of suing isn't to line their own pockets, but to strike down invalid patents and patent claims because it stifles innovation.
How do you know the plaintiff in this case isn't acting on behalf of some video game developer that wants to make another guitar game?
"Covered by one or more of the following patents..." seems to me they have their ass covered
I was wondering why a third party would be bringing legal action against Activision for allegedly violating federal patent law because it seemed to be a criminal, not a civil case. Then I look up the definition of "qui tam"
Qui tam is a writ whereby a private individual who assists a prosecution can receive all or part of any penalty imposed (from wikipedia).
It's a money grab, a shakedown. Patent Compliance Group filed a "qui tam" action.
Qui tam is a writ whereby a private individual who assists a prosecution can receive all or part of any penalty imposed (from wikipedia).
Does anyone have any info on Patent Compliance Group, Inc.? Even though they are incorporated, I can't find any information about them, like who is on their board and where they are located.
So Activision is being sued because they put "patent pending" on a product that doesn't actually have a patent pending. Ok, with you so far.
But then the summary adds this:
The patents in question seem to be legitimately Guitar Hero-oriented, and little is to be found about the mysterious group.
If there are patents in question, then ... why are they being sued? Either they have pending patents or they don't, right?
Comment of the year
This reminds me of the 'Abmanhnungen' in Germany. In both cases it's gaming the system and should be severely punished...
For many years in Germany attorneys have gamed the system, related to what you are allowed and not allowed to do esp. when selling something. These 'people' have for example scoured ebay ads, and when they found say a missing telephone number or missing note on how to undo the deal for a business seller, they sent such a 'Mahnung'. Not for free obviously, no, with an invoice for payment (for their own time/effort!). Yes, you will have to pay... It gets even worse. Suppose you've got an old magazine with old demo software disk on it and put it on ebay.de (as a German, I don't think you can be touched if not), then you'd better check there are no programs on there that are now forbidden. DVD copying software for example that circumvents the protection scheme is no longer allowed since several years.
People have been sent a 'Mahnung' for putting a mag with such no longer allowed software on ebay, and had to pay large amounts of money to such 'scammers'. You think you get a few euros, but you have to pay many hundreds. Nice.
These people are the worst kinds of assholes around just as the guy I mentioned in a previous posting, 'Pieter Lakeman' (who created a foundation supposedly to help clients of the DSB bank with supposedly bad loans, but in reality this foundation just pays his 300 euro/hour salary and there were hardly any bad loans anyway; He then influenced people to take away their money from DSB which led to its collapse. Nice!), and I consider them to be legal scammers.
See for one notorious guy, who was sentenced to jail for other things, this page (it didn't end well for him and I don't think many people will give a damn, he was really hated as one can see in many forums...): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Freiherr_von_Gravenreuth
Um, no, patent pending is the opposite of stifling creativity.
Patents stifle creativity. Patent pending lets you know what patents to look up.
Society needs to be warned about pending patents, so that people won't waste their time developing something identical, and then learn it is patented. That is much most stifling of creativity than 'Here is a list of things you should look up before developing a product like this'.
You can argue that patents are bad, but you cannot possibly argue that 'knowing patents exist before spending time and money developing a product' is bad.
I'm actually amazed it's any sort of crime, and it certainly shouldn't be per instances. It's the equivalent of printing 'may contain peanuts' on food that does not, in fact, contain peanuts.
I mean, an argument can be made that an overkill 'patent pending' use can result in the person being unable to find the actual relevant patent by throwing too much chaff in there, but these patents are relevant...if you're using the software you purchased, you're using the patents. You're just using them on the hardware you bought separately. The government should just order them to correct the error.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Okay, to recap what is actually happening for insane people who have no reading comprehension: No one is going after any patents whatsoever.
Some extraneous 'patent pending' numbers were printed on software boxes. No one has even slightly indicated that anyone would attempt to 'enforce' said patent-printing mistakes, or that other people wish to use said patents on their software, because the patents do not even relate to software.
Again: There are no actual patents involved at all. The 'offense' was a box that asserted that various pending patents applied to it, when they clearly do not, and no one is even slightly asserting they do. No one is attempting to enforce any patents, no one is attempting to strike down any patents. The patents mentioned will remain valid (For the things they actually apply to) even if this suit succeeds.
Apparently, falsely claiming you have a patent pending is a civil liability, as is claiming a pending patent applies to something it doesn't, and groups have arisen to run around suing people for this. This is the story of one of those groups.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Man, your reading comprehension is terrible.
Indeed. This entire discussion is a rather blatant example of the failure of moderation. Half the people here seem to think we're actually discussing whether a patent is valid or not.
Actually discussing whether or not the large fine makes sense in this day and age, when it's fairly easy to look up patents, is another thing, as is whether or not it should apply if you do it accidentally, and a real discussion we could actually be interesting.
Likewise, an argument could be made that you should have to lists patents required to use a device on said device even if the device itself doesn't use the patent. (You can replace 'device' with 'software'.)
If you really truly need a patent to do something with what you buy, like if you need to use a patented device to put fuel in your car, I would argue that it would actually make sense to require the car, as well as the fuel device, to state that. This isn't how the law works, and thus that argument won't really help Activision, but it would make sense.
Or, for perhaps a more relevant example, some companies have taken to patenting hardware interfaces. But they can patent just the cable, and hence stop people from making compatible cables, while not patenting the plug itself, and hence not having to notify people on their device.
Hence I might build and sell my own cable and be in violation of patent law, even after I've looked up the patents on the device itself. Yes, in theory, I could be in violation of patents for all sorts of things, but the point is that companies should be required to inform me, a purchaser of their stuff, all the patents that are relevant, even if, strictly speaking, they don't apply to the stuff itself. Perhaps some sort of 'See also' patent list.
But almost all the people here seem to think this is some actual patent dispute, so heaven forbid we have an actual relevant discussion. Ugh.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?