Social Gaming Patent Troll Goes After Facebook, Zynga For In-Game Purchases

from the some-build-bridges,-some-live-under-them dept

Another day, another patent troll. Ars Technica reports that a shell company called Gametek LLC is suing a bunch of social gaming giants, including Facebook and Zynga. The patent? Patent #7,076,445: "A system and methods allowing the creation, integration, and transaction of advantages," later clarified (somewhat) as giving the user "access to and purchase offered advantages and interact with interactive advertisements to purchase products and or services." In other words, in-game purchases. The one and only point in the patent's favor is its early registration date:

"It looks like the patent was filed June 20, 2000, and at that time, I'm not sure this isn't a novel idea," Dallas attorney and Law of the Game blog author Mark Methenitis tells Ars Technica. The early filing means the patent "predates Facebook and most all of the social games as we know them," Methenitis notes, though older gaming services like AOL and Yahoo Games may have been using similar techniques before that.

Even if there is no prior art, this just demonstrates the problem with software patents. Software innovation moves fast, and the majority of "novel" inventions are still pretty obvious and inevitable, usually being developed by multiple people at once. More importantly, they don't require any actual implementation, just laughably vague descriptions of a concept like the ones above. That allows companies like this to buy a patent, sit on it, do nothing, and attempt to place a private tax on the actual innovators:

But the lawsuit doesn't seem to comes from a company that actually makes such games. The patent in question was granted in 2006 as the sole protected invention for one Shawn Cartwright. It was then transferred to little-known "revenue transaction software" company Theados Corp. last year, before being reassigned to plaintiff Gametek earlier this month.



The Gametek LLC that filed the lawsuit is based in Newport Beach, Ca., but shares a name with a Florida-based, early-'90s game developer best known for game show adaptations which closed its doors in 1998. The shell company doesn't seem to have any legitimate products in social gaming or any other field, and may have been created specifically to argue this case.

When companies are able to hold back real progress while contributing zilch, it's just more evidence that the patent system is broken.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: in app payments, in game purchases, patent troll, patents, social gaming

Companies: facebook, zynga