81–90 of 200 posts
This patent is absurd... selling credits was invented about a day after the concept of money itself. Accounting for those credits in a database was done by the fucking Egyptians. What the heck does this patent actually teach ? It teaches absolutely nothing. It goes on for pages describing technology that already existed at the time and for decades prior to 2000. It’s a disgrace and an embarrassment.
Trying to find other companies under the same threat is a great approach. In a similar situation, this allowed my company to fight a patent troll and share costs, so we didn't cave under the, "It'll cost us this much in legal fees anyway" argument.
While it doesn't help in this case (since there is already a looming legal threat from an NPE), you can buy patent troll insurance now: https://www.rpxcorp.com/ . This covers your legal fees in the event of litigation, which can scare off a patent troll who just wants a hit-and-run settlement.
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 doesn't seem that disparate either - they are both exploitative.
I do stand corrected on this company after being linked to their post on reversing their model.
This patent is absurd... selling credits was invented about a day after the concept of money itself. Accounting for those credits in a database was done by the fucking Egyptians. What the heck does this patent actually teach ? It teaches absolutely nothing. It goes on for pages describing technology that already existed at the time and for decades prior to 2000. It’s a disgrace and an embarrassment.
I think credits actually pre-date currency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it doesn't help in this case (since there is already a looming legal threat from an NPE), you can buy patent troll insurance now: https://www.rpxcorp.com/ . This covers your legal fees in the event of litigation, which can scare off a patent troll who just wants a hit-and-run settlement.
It is ridiculously disheartening that this sort of thing even has to exist. It's just taking the money you'd be forced to pay some exploitative patent troll, and giving it (well, probably/hopefully less of it, but still) to an exploitative insurance firm instead.
Locksmiths and firefighters aren't exploitative.
Can american patent trolls equally easy bully companies outside the US?
Probably not. US Patents are the cheapest patents to get. If, say, a German company infringed on a US Patent by selling to a customer in France, that would be completely legal, unless the US Patentholder also had a French patent, which is often not the case. They'd have to prosecute in French court as well, which, given the size of France's market vs. the US, would be Pyrrhic (with a capital P) at best. The calculus…
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.
> 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...
Pretty obvious patent trolling if they're only going for this rather smalltime developer and none of the high profile F2P game developers and big time game developers releasing AAA games with a premium currency.
>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.
I haven't read the entire patent, but I fail to see the difference between the 2000 filing, and the 2007 filing. So how does that work?