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Is Zynga Trying To Patent Virtual Currency?
sarysa writes "Techcrunch spotted a recent patent application by Zynga, attempting to patent virtual currency purchased with real money for use in a gambling context. It is unlikely that the application will pass due to a plethora of prior art where free MMOs that have gambling minigames would qualify, but Techcrunch also spotted that the application mentions Farmville as an example of embodiment. This indicates that Zynga may be attempting to patent non-refundable virtual currency as a whole. Should be interestering to see how this develops."
It's like the IPv6 problem.
Many people can see that this is something that will be a key element of future society. It's just a matter of patenting as many related ideas now and waiting for them to come into use.
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Webpage_and_web_service_patents
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Invalid_patents_remain_unchallenged
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_trolls
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Divine_e-commerce_patents
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The Major BBS by Galacticomm had a multiplayer poker game where you converted credits you bought for general use (usually used for metered online time) into poker chips, with the ability to win more credits.
Now I'm not a patent lawyer, but this paten sounds exactly, and I mean exactly like how we used to play.
ALL currencies are virtual. They have only the value that a group of people assign them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It seems to me that Zynga is trying to end-run Facebook's attempt to take control of virtual currency transactions in Facebook apps. If they can get a patent on virtual currency, they can try to extort a big fat patent license fee from Facebook or otherwise escape the new Facebook Credits.
It will be interesting to see if Facebook contests this patent application.
The USPTO does not have (any or) enough patent/trademark clerks to really search out all instances of prior-art and because of the large back log are encouraged to just rubber stamp everything they come across if /they/ (who could be below-average in knowledge about a particular field) don't know of any prior art off-hand.
How about making the USPTO pay the legal bill whenever a patent is invalidated through the court system?
That way, there'd be no immediate punishment for granting bullshit patents. Patents that aren't challenged, wouldn't affect the USPTO's bottom line. But (if successful) would make it free for the challenging party to invalidate a patent. It would be a great incentive to watch general quality of issued patents, and perhaps hire enough people / raise fees to cover the actual required effort. If an important patent means a bigger legal bill when invalidated, that would help to pay more attention to patent applications with (potentially) wide impact.
I'm not a fan of patents in the 1st place, but weeding out the many nonsense-patents that are on record, would be a good start. Especially those nonsense-patents that patent trolls uses as beating stick, and that cost society a lot more (down the line) than hiring a few qualified patent clerks.
I think banks were even earlier. They started making metal/paper tokens with different values on them, and eventually evolved into an elaborate system handled by the governments around the world. The money on my Visa debit account feels pretty virtual too.