Turbine Sued

Turbine has been accused of patent infringement in the creation of its Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online titles, by the same company that has already successfully sued Microsoft over an identical breach.

Paltalk Holdings succeeded in negotiating an out-of-court settlement with Microsoft in 2006, when it sued the software giant for infringing its patent for the development of the Halo games.

It now has its sights fixed on Turbine, reports The Boston Globe, and has filed a complaint with the US District Court in Marshall, Texas that accuses the developer of breaching a technology patent it owns which covers the sharing of data among connected computers. This patent is apparently for technology used in multiplayer online games, which enables every player in a game to see an identical digital playing field.

The figure paid to Paltalk by Microsoft for use of its patent is an undisclosed one, but experts say this prior victory will make it tougher for Turbine to challenge the patent's validity.

As well as Turbine, several other online game creators are also targeted by the lawsuit. Sony of Japan, Activision Blizzard, NCsoft, and Jagex are all accused by the company of similar infringements.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

Edit: So it's also targeting every "BIG" named MMO company as well? :|

Who is the guy thats sueing them?
I wanna go kill them.

Seriously, whats the big deal?

Apparently he owns a patent which covers multiplayer games. It's going to be hard for them to win since he won the Microsoft case.

Yeah they've been trying to sue other companies as well. The fun fact is: they've been watching companies create these games for YEARS and now that they're big, they're SUDDENLY going to pipe up and cash in billions in claims.

They've simply been waiting until it was worth enough billions to get these lawsuits going.

Really, this patent system is FCKED!

Here's another article on why patents in the gaming industry is messed up: http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/General/fea...ents-in-Gaming

They didn't "win" against Microsoft, they settled out of court. Settling does not mean that you admit to any wrongdoing.

Pretty sweet gig the guy has going there though. There's no telling whether or not he can win the case if it goes to trial, but it may be more cost-effective for all these companies just to settle.

wow... so now they can cite precedent does that mean they are going to win millions??

Hah, you beat me to it Rox. I was literally about to post that link! You're on the ball tonight.


Basically that patent covers anything even remotely MMO. It's ridiculous. It's got a weird history to it too. It was created by some charity ages ago, or something, and was owned by LucasArts maybe at one point.

As people realised just how much it could cover, it got sold on, but it had reached the point where a lot of people thought they'd never win the suits.

Obviously Microsoft paid up, but it's a pretty dark cloud for gaming in general.

They were going for NCSoft, I seem to recall, but the case is still open. Last I heard, they were trying to claim 'prior art', which is to say that the idea of the patent pre-existed the patent itself, in a publicly available form.

If they win against anyone though, then every developer out there is gonna have to cough up the cash.

Read more here....

Of course they don't take the small gaming companies to court, no no only those who CAN cough up the billions.... >_>

That's like someone having patented 'the film roll' and sueing Hollywood this year.

It's really WTF


Also, you're welcome Ben :3

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous. I mean I could understand if it covered something small but, that covers way too much.

Argh! What roxanne posted makes me even more mad.

I hate people who will ruin other people's hard work JUST for the sake of money. God dammit how much shittier can you get?

the weird thing it's how microsoft (which I don't know, has 10 times more money than any other company in the world) just went for a settle, I guess it was more easy for them to just give the money since they have tons of it

but It would've been so cool for microsoft to completely crush that guy and leave him leaving under a bridge

Moneys moneys! :p

so anyone whos made a MMO can be sued?