Courtroom drama: Microsoft being sued for Xbox Live patent infringement |
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Microsoft, as it turns out, is embroiled in a long-drawn battle over the ownership of the patent for their online service Xbox Live. As it turns out, they are being sued by Peter Hochstein and Jeffrey Tenenbaum for infringing on their patent of a method for "communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations."The said patent was filed back in 1994, and in 2004, just before the release of the Xbox 360, the lawsuit followed. Five years and still ongoing, the case is reported to be heating up. The thing is, as Kotaku suggests, this may not be your regular "they're rich and popular, let's slap them with a frivolous lawsuit for money" type of case.
When the patent owners sued Microsoft back in 2004, they simultaneously did the same thing with Sony as well. The beef with Sony: the PS2's online network also infringed on their 1994 patent. That ended quietly and (understandably) with no media fanfare when Sony settled with them for an undisclosed sum back in April of this year.
Microsoft, on the other hand, chose to be stubborn about it, resorting to little tricks that reported to have held up the case for weeks in February 2009, making a big fuss over a single typo, and "dumping 140,000 documents on Hochstein and Tenenbaum without an index."
Microsoft may not be too excited to find out that this particular secret of theirs has spilled out into the wild. But maybe this will expediate the case and force the unpleasant patent infringement merry-go-round to a halt.
At the expense of Microsoft, we're thinking, too.
Other courtroom drama Microsoft was involved in:
- Xbox game designer sues Microsoft for homophobic discrimination
- BBC Watchdog reignites Xbox 360 disc-scratching issue
- Microsoft settles US$ 90 million lawsuit over Halo and Xbox tech
Via Kotaku
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Comments [refresh]
PC was doing that years before that patent was filed, what a load of BS.
i, like most of you think this is stupid, but it's a nice comparison of what kind of companies they are.
microsoft's patent: "Playback music via the device whilst playing a game"
.. pathetic
Seriously? Think of where the world would be now if the guy who invented the phone or lightbulb was a "I'm the only one to use the tech outlined in this patent" freak.
Microsoft's legal dept. is a mess!
Whenever I see anything with "Microsoft being sued" in its title, I get happier then if I won a $1 billion dollar lottery. Really, very happy, hope the idiots at that company loose a lot, not like they earned a cent of it anyway.
i doubt it since they r still b!tching with the patent owners..they should just have paid them 4 then they wouldn't have to waist money with their lawyers
You should check this place out, you can converse with all the other MS hating tools and geeks out there
http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa
Have fun!
I've been a member since about 2002...
Apple is even worse when it comes to ripping people off.
Patents in general like this are retarded. It's like people thought they could just pick up any old patent idea and keep it around just so they could sue people in the future. Neither of these tools ever did anything with it.
This kind of thing makes the patent office out to be a joke. I should go out right now and patent 'vehicles which are powered by a source of chemical combustion that is without toxic or harmful waste' and sue anyone that makes a clean running car in the future.
I dont care who is suing who, crap like this is a joke.
Not surprised really
Why do you hate them so much? Did MS physically or mentally harm you in some way? Did they touch your pee-pee? I don't like a lot of the things they do, but they're a company in America, stealing from and stepping on the little guys is the norm. Read up on Apple's and Sony's history and tell me they haven't done the same...