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.'"

Comments

Re:I know what will make it better

[elwin_windleaf]

A simple way to donate back would be to buy one of their upgraded accounts for a little while. While RuneScape is a free MMORPG, I think their business model revolves around these upgraded accounts, and that would probably be the easiest way to support them.

Otherwise, their corporate site has a contact page (http://www.jagex.com/corporate/Contact/contact.ws) with a bunch of email addresses. I imagine that any one of them would work, especially if the message was "I have this money I'd like you to have". :)

Did anyone READ the patents?

[evanism]

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

New Boss

[SnakeEater251]

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.

because they use the trolls to assist them

[YesIAmAScript]

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

Re:because they use the trolls to assist them

[Alistair Hutton]

Immersion's patents were very, very valid, they didn't need Microsoft settling with them to make them look any more valid. Why do you think Nintendo used a different method of achieving rumble with the N64?

The Immersion patents were for an actual physical invention, the proper and just use of a patent application, that both Microsoft and Sony blatantly ripped off.

Re:what i want to know

[subanark]

Maybe you've stopped playing, but runescape is a game aimed at middle school and high school kids. Its simple, has a free ad supported version along with a low cost subscription non-ad version. It can be played from public computers without needing to install any software right in your browser. It provides the standard grind for rewards (with skill points you get to keep forever).

With runescape you get a good deal for what you pay for. It is falls in that nice nitch between causal (farmville) and hardcore (WoW) MMO gamers.

Re:I know what will make it better

[Ndymium]

Strange. I have all this money lying around on a dormant account in the Bank of Nigeria that I'd like to donate, but nobody wants to take me seriously!

Anyone in the US can sue a foreign company

[bradley13]

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.

Re:Anyone in the US can sue a foreign company

[Ihmhi]

I sincerely apologize for the lawyers of our country and the foul people who would wield them.

We've been trying to thin the lawyer's numbers for some years now, but silver prices are astronomical and there's a shortage on ammunition lately.

Not paranoid enough, think evil!

[SmallFurryCreature]

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.

Re:I know what will make it better

[arivanov]

Unfortunately, most registrar's are USA based.

So if a UK company sued in a USA court does a no-show, the troll wins by default. They can then get a court order and have the company USA assets which includes their domain transferred to them. This may include even a co.uk domain as long as it has been registered through Verisign or any of the other USA based registrars. If that is not enough they may get court orders and force any USA ISP to filter out (or deny routing) to any of the UK company servers and thus cut off any USA traffic.

So in cases like this there are 3 options:

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.

2. Pay up.

3. Fight it on the troll's home turf

This happens both ways by the way though the usual weapon in UK courts is not patents - it is libel and copyright. As a result a lot of USA Internet companies now filter out UK blocks altogether to minimise their libel exposure.