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Zynga and Blizzard Sued Over Game Patent
eldavojohn writes "Thinking about developing a game involving a 'database driven online distributed tournament system?' Well, you had better talk to Walker Digital or risk a lawsuit, because Walker Digital claims to have patented that 'invention' back in 2002. The patent in question has resulted in some legal matters for the makers of 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: World at War, Blur, Wolfenstein, DJ Hero 2, Golden Eye 007, World of Warcraft and its expansions, Mafia Wars, and many others.' Walker Digital (parent company of Priceline.com) said it's not sure how much damages are going to be, and requested that through discovery in the court. If you think Walker Digital is not a patent troll, check out their lawsuit from two months ago against Facebook for using privacy controls Walker Digital claims to have patented. It would seem that any online competitive game that uses a database to select and reward contestants in a tournament could potentially fall under this patent — of course, those with the deepest coffers will be cherrypicked first."
Software patents confuse the hell out of me. I mean, reading the patent abstract, it sounds like it could apply to any of thousands of database driven multiplayer tournament systems (games).
Case in point: I write database driven business applications, and is essentially just reading + writing data, similar to the abstract. Objects have statuses (scores) which pivot around a status hierarchy (levels) which determines if an object can move to the next level (game progression). Certain actions and events are even restricted by the ownership of certain properties and items (inventory/magic items/stats). This abstract could apply to many different softwares.
It pisses me off how this abstract reads just like it's own name. I wonder if it was filed by drunk 5-year olds...
Blizzard really don't have to go far for prior art on this at all. Starcraft 1 had a system that was essentially the same as Starcraft 2's ladder system. You could choose to play a match in the Blizzard ladder system and you'd be ranked and the results stored on the Blizzard database server. The Starcraft 1 ladder was removed in later patches as no one was using it towards the end (they were playing on other custom laddering systems) but it was there in the beginning and it was very similar to what's in Starcraft 2.
It's actually quite funny that they've chosen to sue the one company that has the most prior art on this.
If I were the judge presiding over this case, the first thing I'd do is ask Walker Digital to explain why it took eight years before they decided to start suing publishers/developers, despite there being a number of games released earlier which supposedly infringed on their patent. If they couldn't reasonably explain the delay in such a way as to allay my suspicious that they simply wanted to hold off litigation until they had a lot of guys to go after for maximum returns, I'd tell them (in legal speak of course) to fuck off.
But I am no lawyer of course, and I have no idea if it would be as simple as that.
MUD Essex University 1978-1987ish - kept a record of your level (thus a database), being rewarded with increased abilities every level until you got to Witch/Wizard level, and allowed remote play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/ecsjun84.htm
Obviously it depends on exactly how the claims of the patent are phrased, but from the abstract it would appear that this constitutes substantial prior art nearly 20 years before the 2001 filing date.
A quick look at some of the claims show it would probably be prior art against some of them. The game stored level and sex, (claims 1-2), it was a game of skill (claim 3). Claims 8,9,10 appear to be fairly generic method of interacting with any remote game, leaving only the association of payment with the game. I'm sure online games needing payment were present in the 80's too
In summary, the patent appears to have been awarded for something that is obvious and where prior art already exists
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
And this is the problem with even doing business in a country that allows such abstract "patents", especially software patents. You don't need to be in the patent business, or invention, or even be in an area where you expect to have to research patents for running a business, and you don't even need to actually violate any valid patent - you can still sued out of existence if you're not big enough to fend such things off.
It's not the "yet-another-big-company-sued-for-obviousness" stories that are the problem - how many tiny little outfits just settled out of court instead of fight something they *know* they should win? You don't point at Google first, you take lots of small companies and get their settlements in order to provide you with some authenticity and then go for the big boys, and you'll never hear about those small-fry that feel they have to pay up because it's too costly for them to annoy the patent-holders or defend against them in court.
Seriously - stop doing business in places that have software patents. It's a gamble that is going to cost you big if you are unlucky enough to step on a patent-troll's foot. I hereby patent "method to determine if a user of a game is in a country subject to software patent laws for the purpose of denial of access to such users", by the way.
I wonder if anyone has tried or even contemplated suing the Patent Office for awarding overly broad and obvious patents. There would not be so much trouble if the Patent Office actually did their job and denied these kinds of patents.