All Encompassing Patents

SpicyMcHaggas writes "Looks like another bogus lawsuit over an incredibly broad patent on something that already exists. StarChamber, an online strategy and collectible card game seems to be one of the infringing factors, along with a player ranking system on the site. The patent supposedly covers any sort of ranking system that indicates a player's proficiency in said game. This sort of practice is what deters would-be great games from making it into the gaming world."

Considering the Patent Content

[j0keralpha]

" For example, claim 92 of the '560 Patent covers the playing of a game over a communication network, such as the Internet, where multiple instances of a game are transmitted over the Internet between multiple players and a gaming website and some of these instances may overlap in time. Also, users' rankings may be transmitted from the gaming website to the users, where the rankings are indicative of the users' proficiency in playing the game for which the users' ranks are being displayed, and where the rankings are updated. "

If Im reading this right, they should be suing WoTC, Blizzard, and, well, everybody... Problem is this guy isnt dumb enough to go after somebody who can fight back... Wonder what the chances of getting the EFF or someone similair involved is...

Geez, we did it long ago...

[nsxdavid]

I have yet to read the patents themselves... just the supposed letter. But we were doing this with CyberStrike in the early 80's, AirWarrior and BattleTech Online even earlier than CS. If it has to be a web site in play, rather than an online service (such as GEnie), then I imagine AirWarrior would qualify as Prior Art, no? It was on the web before CS and did the whole ranking thing too. Need to go see the application date of the patent(s) now.

I of course, must reserve judgement until I study the actual patents in question. It always hurts to do this, they are written to obfuscate. As a side note to the whole patent mess, I think plain english contract law concepts should be adopted for patent descriptions.

Case's Ladder

[nodwick]

Wouldn't Case's Ladder [casesladder.com] be considered prior art? From the patent info:

Inventors: Goldberg; Sheldon F. (3360 E. Serene, Henderson, NV 89014); Antwerp; John Van (Springdale, MD)

Assignee: Goldberg; Sheldon F. (Henderson, NV)

Appl. No.: 759895

Filed: December 3, 1996

I remember playing Red Alert using Case's Ladder back in mid-1996, which seems like a pretty clear case of a ranking system for a multiplayer game. Of course, if you leave the online-game context and move into the wider arena of general games/sports, ladders have been around long before that.

Great News!

[fleener]

The Patent Office is hiring patent examiners [uspto.gov] in the Computer Science Field. We've seen the hard, comprehensive work of patent examiners profiled on Slashdot many times. Don't pass up this opportunity to join the U.S. Government Team. You too could be the subject of a future /. post!

Re:Proficiency?

[haystor]

I was playing MegaWars III online in the early 80's on Compuserve. There were definite rankings there.

Does anyone know if MegaWars still exists in any format?

Ruining it for everyone

[The I Shing]

Back when the web was really taking off, and everyone was talking about how liberating it was, and how empowering it was for small companies and individuals, I had in the back of my mind that somehow someone would come along and just ruin it.

I naturally assumed that it would be large corporations that would find a way to squeeze everything off the web that wasn't run by large corporations, but now I think that it's the patent trolls and the spammers that are going to slow the expansion and development of the web and other internet services to a crawl. No-one other than the big boys can do anything on the web without having to worry about someone popping up and saying, "Ah, hold it right there, I own the whole concept of what it is you're trying to do," and even the large corporations are being stung by this trend.

Oh, and BTW, according to youmaybenext.com, PanIP has been sending threatening notices to more small businesses, despite (or because of) the fact that their (his) e-commerce patent is currently being re-examined.

Re:Hmm...

[jfengel]

The USPTO does consider its job to include dealing with prior art. It just doesn't do a very good job of it.

The courts are a crummy way to deal with prior art: its expensive, and judges aren't trained in technology. Patent examiners are. A patent examiner generally has a college degree in the field to which he (or she) is assigned.

I don't see an easy solution. Properly investigating prior art takes a really long time. Dealing with the vast mass of paperwork applicants file takes a really long time. I can just see the lawyer for this applicant badgering the bejeezus out of this patent examiner. Or maybe he just rubber-stamped the top of the pile and went home.

Patent examiners are like teachers: we expect them to do what should be incredibly valuable work, then pay them badly and overwork them. That's never an excuse for doing a bad job, but what doesn't excuse an individual should come as no surprise for the group.

This is just wrong.

[Frank White]

I know I'll probably get modded down for this, but what happens to the world when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially?

Even foreign governments.

Intellectual property in all of its various forms is being abused by the corporate world - both friends and foes of Linux and otherwise. The madness is the laws supporting this behavior continue to pass, bypassing the individual and wholeheartedly supporting the corporation.

Isn't the government supposed to be working for us? Aren't our rights supposed to be first and foremost in their minds? There is a balance to be maintained, and our rights are not unlimited, but more and more across the entire globe the individual is lost.

Not to be funny but has anyone considered the implications of all these recent intellectual property rights and how it seems more and more that we're being pushed into the draconian future of Johnny Mnemonic and Shadowrun? The only way you get information is to steal it. The only way for another corporation to get information is to hire you to steal it.

I grow more and more distressed at the world my son will grow up in, the conditions he will consider normal, the laws he will break just by trying to think.

Perfect Prior Art?

[adroovius]

I might know the perfect prior art to get this one stopped. The US Chess Federation (and international chess organizations too, I think) have kept rankings of players for decades. Newbies generally start out at 1000, and Grand Masters might get well over 2000. (I made it up to about the 1500 level). The rankings are based on the results of games between ranked players. Beating somebody improves your rating and losing to somebody lowers your rating - how much you increase or decrease your rating depends on the difference in ratings. Also, many rated games were performed over the ancient predecessor of the internet - the postal system.

looking at the patent abstracts...

[fireduck]

all 3 patents deal with online advertising and pushing content to players of (mostly) online card / gambling games based on feedback from the players. It gets humorous when one reads the specific claim 92 of the patent cited in the letter and then reads down to claim 95 in the same patent [uspto.gov]:

95. An apparatus for playing a game on a network, comprising:

a display area for electronically displaying an instance of the game to a first user;
an input area for allowing the first user to input a game play;
a communications network connection for communicating, on a network, game related information, between: (a) one or more of said display and said input area, and (b) an addressable node on said network accessible by a network address available to said apparatus;
wherein a plurality of users communicate with said addressable node for playing instances of the game; and
wherein between at least a majority of game plays by the first user, there is a game play related network transmission via said communications connection; and
a game speed of play control for allowing the first user to control the pace of the instance of the game.

So, apparently he's patented all online capable gaming machines (and the networks) as well...

Re:Patents help.

[mirko]

Well, IMHO, patenting software would appeal to something much more accurate as "one-click ordering"...
It'd involve huge complex algorithms along with an exhaustive study...
My point is not to encourage software patents, but rather to make these hard to get so that only the people who actually desserve to be patented will be.

Re:Patents help.

[akadruid]

Surely the solution to this is for the US Patent Office to run a site where members of the public can submit cases of prior art for consideration by the Patent Office. That way obviously dumb patents could be looked at without the need for anyone to start getting sued over it.
Feel free to correct me if this is not a workable solution - I assume there have to safeguards to stop people abusing this system to get valid patents revoked, but it must be possible to have a post-granting review of really stupid patents.
Alternatively perhaps a body such as the EFF could assemble a group of technical consultants from amongst the community to assist the Patent Office. I'm sure they would get a few volunteers from people who have recieved letters with a 'SCO' letterhead.

Re:2 Fixes for Prior Art

[jfengel]

I'm not a fan of loser-pays systems, because the tend to discourage poor people from filing. They also encourage poor people to settle quickly.

But I do like your idea for in-house appeals. If somebody sues me for patent infringement on a patent which is obvious or ridden with prior art, it would be nice to be able to file a document with USPTO to have the patent invalidated.

Unfortunately, the time periods are a problem. The USPTO's wheels grind slowly: a patent often takes years to grant, and I don't expect them to evaluate newly-submitted prior art any more quickly.

An open-source-esque system would be amusing, where any individual could submit prior art in the examination process. Sadly, it can't work: you can't publish the patented material until the patent is granted.

All these systems would be subject to abuses. There are those who will fight against any patent, which is not necessarily an invalid position, but fighting every patent would bog down an imperfect but still somewhat useful system without providing a clear alternative.

Don't like it? Then do something!

[GreenCrackBaby]

My wife is a geneticist. Those in her field are facing a similar IP battle as those of us in the computer world. That's why she decided to actually do something about it, and 2 years ago enrolled in law school. She isn't a lawyer yet, but already she's working with institutions such as the Canadian Health Law Institute as a legal advisor for genetic patenting issues. Hell, she already is on a first name basis with many of our elected officials (who, by the way, are very open to advice in this area). Soon she'll be in a position to actually affect the way genetic patents will go in the future.

But you want to know something? In her class of 120 law students, 3 come from a science background (none from comp sci). Most hold art or business degrees, and if you look at the website for most big law firms, you'll see that this is true for almost all of their IP lawyers as well. That's a pretty telling sign that there's a huge need for lawyers with a background that is based in science.

When she's done school, I'm going to follow in her footsteps. I'll be going for a law degree, and with my comp sci background perhaps I, too, could make a difference when it comes to stopping this madness.

Or did you expect this to just go away by itself?

Prior art fomr 1975

[AL9000]

Several games on the PLATO system at University of Illinois used this patents techniques. Dogfight and Moonwar immediately come to mind. Those of us who did these style of games, called it Big Boards. People entered the game and went to the 'Big Board' where you could challenge another player. Cumulative scores were kept. Interactive chat was alway at the bottom of the Big Board so victims could be taunted.

In general, PLATO is a great source of prior art for anything the internet has reinvented - from chat rooms, threaded discusions, and game systems to more obscure possible patents like using remote controlled microfiche projectors for a rumble effects in airplane crash simulations and paging people by sending data to someone else's sound card.

All of this work was done BEFORE software patents were even a thought in some greedy buggers mind. Copywriting software was unusual then.