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Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

clickerheroes2.com

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Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#71

Post by jlarocco »

bhargav wrote: post #68
oldcynic wrote: post #55

Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming. Which is the lesser of these evils?

Not sure why this is even a question. The morality of the latter is subjective while the former is not. Have you seen the patent picture? They literally have a cell phone, connected to a cloud, and other computers. How the fuck is this approved by the patent office? That is literally how every transaction via cell phones occur.

The morality of both of them is subjective.

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#72

Post by daodedickinson »

oldcynic wrote: post #55

Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming. Which is the lesser of these evils?

It's not even close. People have the freedom to make bad games; there's no way these trolls invented this idea and empowering them endangers everybody.

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#73

Post by chasing »

oldcynic wrote: post #55

Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming. Which is the lesser of these evils?

The latter -- f2p and premium currencies -- is the lesser of two evils. By a long shot.

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#74

Post by ziikutv »

jlarocco wrote: post #71
bhargav wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is even a question. The morality of the latter is subjective while the former is not. Have you seen the patent picture? They literally have a cell phone, connected to a cloud, and other computers. How the fuck is this approved by the patent office? That is literally how every transaction via cell phones occur.

The morality of both of them is subjective.

Would be more useful if you can comment on how/when patent trolling would be ethical

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#75

Post by chapill »

TillE wrote: post #60
chapill wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Pretty obvious patent trolling Not really. The patent was filed in 2000. Approved in 2007. It hasn't changed hands. The company makes software. Believe it or not, this is the US system working as intended. An obvious troll is a patent holding company, with no products, who purchases old patents, then goes on a suing spree for any company that uses printers.

Like the peculiarly specific definition of "startup" which is often used here, I don't believe that very specific definition of patent trolling is commonly accepted. I'm sure you could find examples from Slashdot 10+ years ago where it's clearly intended as a more general "abusive exploitation of patents for monetary gain".

The problem with accepting HN or Slashdot's definition is both groups are extremely biased in this matter. The general consensus is patent troll == non practicing entity.

https://thelawdictionary.org/patent-troll/

Everyone here can disagree all they want, but they're still wrong as far as most lay persons are concerned.

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#76

Post by fludlight »

bhargav wrote: post #68
oldcynic wrote: post #55

Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming. Which is the lesser of these evils?

Not sure why this is even a question. The morality of the latter is subjective while the former is not. Have you seen the patent picture? They literally have a cell phone, connected to a cloud, and other computers. How the fuck is this approved by the patent office? That is literally how every transaction via cell phones occur.

> How the fuck is this approved by the patent office?

Someone with a clue please go work at the USPTO and improve the situation. They're hiring:

https://www.usajobs.gov/Search?l=&l=&a=CM56&p=1&smin=17840&s...

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#77

Post by cannonedhamster »

oldcynic wrote: post #55

Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming. Which is the lesser of these evils?

This is a company that literally took the path of lessening the amount of money that they receive from their users because they didn't like the ethics of it. This is not a bad company.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-21-clicker-he...

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#78

Post by staticautomatic »

williamstein wrote: post #69
DenisM wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what's the ballpark cost by any chance?

I got a quote from them 2 or 3 years ago for a company and the amount was for $7K/year. RPX said they came up with the price based on the likely danger of patent trolls to this company, so I don't know if the price they would quote now or to another company would be the same.

That's pretty reasonable compared to the litigation costs.

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#79

Post by oldcynic »

heroprotagonist wrote: post #66
oldcynic wrote: post #55

Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming. Which is the lesser of these evils?

This company actually left the F2P model for the second version: http://www.clickerheroes2.com/paytowin.php

That was surprisingly refreshing to read. Not common to see an honest take on what's wrong with f2p gaming from a game company.

Re: Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game

#80

Post by cortesoft »

matttah wrote: post #43
scarmig wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be some kind of patent troll clearinghouse. Companies can check it to see if other companies are reporting the same shakedown tactics for a given patent. Though, could a patent troll could get around that by spacing out the trolling? So by the time any company finds another company that's been trolled, they've already paid it up and don't have as much incentive to fight the patent troll after the fact. T…

That's a great idea...perhaps a quick weekend project there we'll talk on!

As a sister comment pointed out, thankfully it has already been done! https://trollingeffects.org/
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