Slashdot Mirror
RuneScape Developer Victorious Over Patent Troll
An anonymous reader writes "Gamasutra reports that a US District Court judge has dismissed the patent infringement lawsuit brought against RuneScape developer Jagex discussed previously on Slashdot. Judge David Folsom last week dismissed online chat company Paltalk's claims that Jagex infringed on Paltalk patents relating to online network communications. The judge's ruling only resolved Jagex's case. Microsoft settled with Paltalk for an undisclosed sum in 2009 after the online communication technology company sued over the patents in a $90 million claim. That settlement opened the door to Paltalk's claims against other game companies, including Blizzard, Turbine, SOE and NCSoft. Paltalk alleged in the Jagex-related suit that it had suffered 'tens of millions of dollars' in damages. Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard said in a statement, 'It is exceedingly unfortunate that the US legal system can force a company with a sole presence in Cambridge, UK to incur a seven-digit expense and waste over a year of management time on a case with absolutely no merit,' and that Jagex 'will not hesitate to vigorously defend our position against any patent trolls who bring lawsuits against us in the future.'"
RuneScape managed to run+escape the patent troll?
people still play runescape...?
Microsoft has money, why do they always settle with patent trolls? They can afford to fight, and probably win, a lot of these cases. Perhaps the trolls know this and agree to settle for pittance, rather than getting in a court battle.
And so where do we get to donate to cover said 7 figure expense and otherwise bitchslap said patent trolls?
Checkbook's right here. And they still suck.
What a monstrous pile of drivel. Pages and pages of confused circular talk couched in language so broad you could apply it to anything you want. It's insane when a patent is awarded for something like this, when it was designed for a lightbulb, or an electric motor or gunpowder, but this pseudo-IT-speak is dreadful. I would say the lawyer who wrote it didn't know what the Internet was or how it operates. Bloody American patent system
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
In a few weeks, Jagex will release an update to Runescape that will allow you to fight a brand new boss, Paltalk the giant Troll.
-FB
Look at the Immersion rumble lawsuit. MS settled with Immersion, part of the settlement was that Immersion was to turn their guns on Sony and then pay MS back with the money Immersion got from Sony.
So MS bolster's Immersions patents by settling and making them look valid, also giving Immersion money to sustain a lawsuit against Sony. MS gets to help crimp Sony's business and help keep out other companies from the gaming market without looking like a patent troll themselves. Well, until the truth leaks out.
Short version: they're scum.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/147162.asp
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I hate patent trolls as much as the next guy, but it's a little misleading to complain about being hauled into the U.S. legal system as a foreigner. U.S. patents only have legal effect for U.S. sales. If you sell significant enough quantities to make a patent suit worthwhile in the U.S., you've got a decent U.S. presence. That said, congratulations for beating a troll in East Texas - and before trial no less. Not an easy thing to do.
Just an anecdote here. I have a small software company in Europe. We sold our software to one customer in the USA - against the advice of our lawyer, who said to stay out of the US market. A year or so later, a person in that company who had been using our software lost her job. Her hubby had free legal services through UAW, and she could use them. So she figured she'd give it a try: sue us and claim that our software caused her to be fired.
Needless to say, we had to look into the situation. It turns out that basically any US court, even the local court in Nowhereville, can use the so-called "long-arm statute" to claim jurisdiction - just because you sold to a customer in their neighborhood. The fact that the signed purchase contract specifies a different jurisdiction is apparently irrelevant.
Sure, one could just not show up in court. But then you lose, regardless of the merits of the case. While any verdict might be impossible to collect, ultimately it might mean that no one from our company would dare travel to the US. It's not the kind of thing you want hanging over your head forever.
In our case, there was a happy ending. The fact that we actually got a US lawyer to write a rather pointed letter about the stupidity of the claim was enough to get the UAW attorney to back down. Still, it could have gotten really ugly. Needless to say, we have never taken another US customer. Life is too short for this kind of crap.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
MS is not SETTLING with patent trolls, it is funding them. MS can afford patent troll payouts, 90 million is peanuts to them. And even if it was 9 billion, then that would be price for burdening all their competitors with endless patent troll battles. I let the tick feed on my rich blood and release a billion offspring on my enemies who cannot afford the loss of blood.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Reclaim your legal fee's and make them hurt!!
Jagex may have personnel only in the UK (I think Gerhard was being a bit inaccurate - there certainly used to be also a tiny office in London), but a large number of their servers are in the US because a large proportion of their clients are in the US and they want low latency. If those servers were seized it would mess the company up very badly.
In the UK, the loser in such cases is often forced to pay the costs of both parties by default.
Which is how it should be.
Why should an innocent person be bankrupted by legal fees just because some greedy infantile pathetic idiot sued him when he didn't do anything that deserved suing?
Which fails if you're so vastly outgunned. You get sued by $MOVIE_STUDIO for pirating some movies, and they walk into the court with 3 lawyers billing out at $1000/hr. All you've got is a lawyer working on the cheap. You win, they pay the piddly $100/hr your lawyer charged. They win, you not only pay the $100M you owe, but the $4M in billable hours (4 lawyers * 1000 hours each) as well. And in the US (and probalby many other places), he who has money wins. And attempts to appeal that fail, well your $100M may turn into $1M, but now you've racked up another $500k in legal fees (125 hours each), so you are stuck with $4.5M in legal fees with $1M settlement. And it may get appealed again.
Loser pays only works if the amount paid is the lower of the two bills. You lose and your lawyer was working pro-bono? Zip for them! Then again, it can lead to people trying to sue companies and the company then uses a lowballed one for defense. Sure they lose, but if you spent $250/hr on a lawyer and the company spent $100/hr, well, you just lost $150/hr out of your settlement, which can mean you win in principle, but you end up owing your lawyer money.
You can make it asset-based, but that has its own issues as well.
There's no sane way to do it equally amongst all parties that won't end up benefitting companies with money in some way. Perhaps if judges exercise discretion - in cases where there's a vast gulf between the plaintiff and defendant in ability to pay, the one with less means to pay (e.g., corp vs. person) doesn't pay winner's lawyer fees. But if it goes the other way, then not only are fees paid by loser (they could afford their team of lawyers, they can afford one more), but a punitive amount is awarded for trying to outgun the proceedings. But that puts too much sense into the justice system.
1. Shut off any USA business you may have completely. That is what non-Internet companies like for example diagnostics and pharmaceutical companies making generics do. In the Internet case this is rather difficult.
I was waiting for a drug that my daughter takes to come off-patent so prices would drop. Then the generic showed up. Then it disappeared. Now it hasn't returned an my only option is to pay for the brand name. It's quite ridiculous, and even worse for those with even more expensive drugs.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
No system is perfect, but at least with this one, fear of losing a lawsuit can help stem the tide of frivolous lawsuits. Unfortunately, a lot of scumbag lawyers are doing the old "no win, no fee" thing now and the UK is beginning to look almost as bad and litigious as the USA.
Still got a bit to go before it catches up though, and as it seems america is still moving forward (backwards, shirley, Ed), the UK might be playing catchup for quite a while.
Amazed at how many parents play RS. I have talked to several that started playing just checking into what their kids were doing and got hooked. I made a character helping my wife one day, and still play a few hours a month. Casual enough it does not feel hard core (I would never play WOW for instance), yet deep enough to hold your interest. Jagex mentioned they were even surprised when they studied their demographics, but I have never seen them published anywhere.