Technology lawsuits are the best. It brings out those hot and important debates that the gaming community thrives on. Things like “Did they really come up with motion controls first? No? But are they the first to do it that way?” and all kinds of other wonderful questions that have lead to more split hairs than one would find on… a woman with… an unhealthy scalp… ? Anyway, looks like a new one’s rolling on in, and this one from a company called Paltalk Holdings, who once had their sights on Microsoft, and after settling out of court, are now aiming toward not one, but five companies we all would find familiar: Sony, Blizzard, Activision, Turbine, and NCsoft.
The deal here is, according to Paltalk’s lawyer, Max Tribble, that all these companies are in violation of a patent the company filed back in the mid 90’s that involved “technology for ways to control interactive applications over multiple computers.” Pretty easy to take such a phrase to include online gaming, no?
Paltalk is calling these companies’ implementations of their technology willful, and thus is demanding triple the amount in damages that they would normally. Mr. Tribble’s client is also asking the court to stop these companies from violating their patents any further.
For the record, they filed a suit against Microsoft for a modest $90 million, and settled for an undisclosed amount. Odds are that this one will end in settlements as well. It’s hard for me to look at this and think there’s any legitimacy to the claims, and that it’s really a vicious exploitation of the patent system. But what do I know? Maybe they did ape tech from this company I’ve never heard of before. Share your own thoughts below the dotted line!
