Palm Sued Over Multiplayer PDA Games Patent 15
Dr. Manhattan writes "Palm, along with several other companies, are being sued
by Peer-to-Peer Systems LLC pursuant to patent 5,618,045. Seems that "an interactive multiple player game system including at least two playing devices communicating over an ad-hoc, wireless, all-to-all broadcast network" is not 'obvious.'
Dang, I was planning on writing one..."
Hmmm.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Dang it... this is real.
slashdot::rant.print();
Fix up the patent system (Score:1)
Perhaps modify the way patents are evaluated. How about limitting it to one year max (or less) for non-physical patents.
Or even better, 6 month max before they have to allow open source implementations to come out uncontested. Then perhaps it would be fair increase it to two years max (or less) for non-physical patents.
Vote Trajano!
Hmmm (Score:1, Funny)
Has anyone ever played chess or another game via radio, audio communications or other wireless method.
Do we now have to pay royalties to play 20 questions on a long road trip?
Are all non wired communications for the purpose of gaming going to be illegal.
Re:Hmmm (Score:1)
So if you play chess on a physical board via shortwave radio with another person you are fine. Likewise, you can play chess on two handhelds over a shortwave radio, as long as there isn't any software that automaticly synchronizes things. ie: each person would have to manually input the opponents moves.
Based on the vague patent, it looks like having a LAN
Re:Hmmm (Score:1, Interesting)
from:
http://www.cobrasoft.tmfweb.nl/download.htm
PAKCHESS.ZIP
PR4OPRIJ.ZIP
PSB.ZIP
These programs are dated 1992/1993
But.... (Score:1)
Re:But.... (Score:2)
Yes, and if you had read the article you would know that Peer-to-Peer is also suing Cybiko.
Read The Patent (Score:2)
multi (Score:1)
As opposed to all those multi-player games running on just one device...
Re:multi (Score:2, Informative)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Laser games? (Score:2)