Last week, Microsoft finally won a long-standing court case that started back in 2004. A patent holder sued both Microsoft and Sony for infringing on patents for multiplayer online gaming, according to Gamasutra. The lawsuit was started by Jeffrey Tenenbaum, Peter Hochstein, and Harold Milton Jr., the original patent rights holder. It accused Sony and Microsoft of infringing upon a 1994 patent for an “apparatus and method for electrically connecting remotely located video games.”
The suit was aimed at Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network, was seeking royalties and an injunction against continuing operation. U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Borman dismissed the case, and ruled that Microsoft collect all legal fees from the plantiffs.
The judge quibbled with the use of term “electrical connection” in the patent, noting that Xbox Live does not communicate by such method. The plantiffs were hoping that the judge would focus on the fact that the patented invention allowed “for two or more players playing the same video game to compete with each other without using the same physical video game which alleviates the necessity of proximity of the players."
Sony dropped out of the case in April 2009 after settling with the plantiffs out of court.
1 Comments
August 3, 2010
Sony should have stuck it out.