2. The only thing that matters (essentially) for the infringment lawsuit is the language of the Claims. The rest of the patent is just a description and its only legal effect is to give clarity to any potentially vague terms.
After reading through the claims in the patent, I can kind of see where Wildcat has issue (claims 21 and 38), but these seem so incredibly broad and generic that it would be impossible to lay any foundation of exclusivity and uniqueness. Basically those 2 claims are giving Tyler Peppel exclusive intellectual property of the rights to any TCG software. Basically, if any non-standard (read: not a regular 52 card deck) card game were to have an online component, that developer would be in violation of this patent. The patent itself is inherently too broad and in my personal opinion is likely to be thrown out
I am a graduate of law school, have a background in patent law, and say please reserve judgment before letting emotions get in the way.
In the end the merits of ongoing litigation will be decided based on the specifics of the case--namely the exact claim language between the asserted patent and the allegedly infringing product.
I havent looked at the case at all, so that's about all Im qualified to say on the matter.
After reading through the claims in the patent, I can kind of see where Wildcat has issue (claims 21 and 38), but these seem so incredibly broad and generic that it would be impossible to lay any foundation of exclusivity and uniqueness. Basically those 2 claims are giving Tyler Peppel exclusive intellectual property of the rights to any TCG software. Basically, if any non-standard (read: not a regular 52 card deck) card game were to have an online component, that developer would be in violation of this patent. The patent itself is inherently too broad and in my personal opinion is likely to be thrown out
This is what makes my eye twinge in terms of people trying to make businesses, it reminds me of the Apple law suit over some small company in an unrelated market having an apple in their logo and were told to take it out.
The patent and copyright system today is broken. Corporations are similar to empires, sometimes doing good and other times causing great damage. The greatest time for innovation is whenever the rules are set and stable, and there's some loose access to goods.
This is why in part the most recent innovations are often in entertainment and technology especially on the software side. Since more of the stuff is "open" with coding being open source and entertainment ideas rather wide open with thousands of years of ideas to draw from.
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
You know, I'm looking it over. This has many of the hallmarks of that convicted con artist that forged documents to make it look like he owned half of Facebook or something a few years back. The only reason people found out was because Facebook refused to settle like he expected they would and computer-savvy people looked them over, authenticating that they were forgeries.
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"The above post is the opinion of the poster and is not indicative of any stance taken by the President of the United States, Congress, the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the Department of the Navy, or the United States Marine Corps."
I want to disclaim that I'm not rendering legal advice here because I don't know all the facts, and because ya'll are not my clients.
Anyway, I'm a patent attorney, and I have to say that whoever prosecuted this thing has balls of steel. I can't believe that some of these claims were allowed. If this patent is valid then WOTC may infringe, but its possible that many claims would be held obvious depending on the landscape of prior art that's out there, or possibly even straight-up anticipated.
So it's kind of a patent troll's dream because it's broad, but it's also a defense attorney's dream in a way because you can prepare so many great invalidity defenses. I have a feeling that this is what prompted the notice of dismissal in the first case, the defense probably just built up a great mess of invalidity contentions and the plaintiffs didn't have the capital to fight that.
I want to disclaim that I'm not rendering legal advice here because I don't know all the facts, and because ya'll are not my clients.
Anyway, I'm a patent attorney, and I have to say that whoever prosecuted this thing has balls of steel. I can't believe that some of these claims were allowed. If this patent is valid then WOTC may infringe, but its possible that many claims would be held obvious depending on the landscape of prior art that's out there, or possibly even straight-up anticipated.
So it's kind of a patent troll's dream because it's broad, but it's also a defense attorney's dream in a way because you can prepare so many great invalidity defenses. I have a feeling that this is what prompted the notice of dismissal in the first case, the defense probably just built up a great mess of invalidity contentions and the plaintiffs didn't have the capital to fight that.
I'm assuming this is also what happened with the Worlds.com lawsuit against NCSoft concerning their game City of Heroes. I mean, the owner or Worlds.com pretty much said, "If this pans out we're going after Blizzard and World of Warcraft next".
It really is a troll's dream. Seriously, if it gets thrown out or the plaintiff decides to drop the case, Wizards needs to go after them for attorney fees and the like. Patent trolls like this guy really do **** around too much with the legal system, and it only hurts the legitimate parties when something like this happens.
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It really is a troll's dream. Seriously, if it gets thrown out or the plaintiff decides to drop the case, Wizards needs to go after them for attorney fees and the like. Patent trolls like this guy really do **** around too much with the legal system, and it only hurts the legitimate parties when something like this happens.
It's basically not possible to get attorney's fees; the threshold for what constitutes a "frivolous" lawsuit is extremely high. If a party can make arguments that its patent is valid and infringed, even if those ultimately aren't winning arguments, courts are absolutely loath to award fees.
Though I agree there are problems with the patent system, I don't think courts should get more aggressive with fees. Every time you sanction someone with borderline arguments, you make courts less accessible, and largely this impacts the poor and the small business owner more than the corporation who can afford to gamble. Think of the civil-rights plaintiffs in the 60s and how tenuous their arguments were considered to be at the time.
Also, I just wanted to note that I see a bunch of people reading the specification of the patent and concluding that Wizards is fine since the cards don't evolve or shoot fire or whatever. The specification is just meant to be possible examples of the patent "in action," if you will, and it doesn't matter much whether Wizards does any of that. What really matters in a patent suit are the claims of the patent, which are the numbered entries at the very end. If Wizards infringes even one of those claims, and if that claim is found "valid" (which is a complex inquiry but basically focuses on whether this was known before it was patented), then Wizards will be found to infringe.
What is it with America that they can sue each other for the silliest things? Isn't it obvious that MTGO has been running for far longer than this crappy looking game?
What is it with America that they can sue each other for the silliest things? Isn't it obvious that MTGO has been running for far longer than this crappy looking game?
Patent is 2001, MTGO went public 2002. I'm unsure though when WotC first drew it up, so if they have documentation that shows them developing it before Spring 2001 the claim would be further debunked.
What is it with America that they can sue each other for the silliest things? Isn't it obvious that MTGO has been running for far longer than this crappy looking game?
Everyone has been very quick to criticize this company for suing, but the problem with the patent system really isn't the litigants, it's the way the institution is run. Patent and Trademark Office examiners are way under-qualified, under-payed, and understaffed. PTO examiners almost never have a law degree and usually only have a college degree in science at most. The average patent gets reviewed by the PTO for something like eight hours. That's the problem with the system, it needs government reform. I have a magic analogy here.
Imagine if Wizards was run by people with only a beginner-level knowledge of the game and the rules. So the people designing the cards (PTO examiners and Congress) have just a basic understanding of what they need to do.
Yet basically all the players (litigation attorneys) have been playing the game for a long time and have studied the rules really closely, and play very competitive tournaments with high stakes.
The floor judges (federal judges) at these tournaments are very good at what they do, but they have to know the rules to like hundreds of other games, and have to regularly judge tournaments in those other games: chess, poker, whatever. They maybe judge one magic tournament a year. So unfortunately, they don't typically know the rules better than the players.
But to make things worse, the floor judge brought his girlfriend (the jury) along, and he sometimes lets her make rulings on things, even though she has no idea how to play magic and probably didn't know it existed until that day.
Meanwhile, Wizards is printing super broken and confusing cards, like:
Bad Patent #1 RR Sorcery
Flip a coin. If heads you win the game, if tails you get a jury finding of obviousness.
or
Bad Patent #2 2U Enchantment
Target creature implements a trading card metaphor (see claim 16)
So these judges are left to make impossible calls trying to figure out what these cards mean, and some players are having games decided because of coin flips or because of the floor judge's girlfriend.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to blame the players here, it makes sense to blame the people at Wizards who are printing the super broken cards. I think Congress needs to do a better job funding the PTO. I also think we need expert juries so we don't have the judge's girlfriend making uninformed calls. I also think that some federal judges should specialize in patent cases so that they don't have to know the rules to a million games and can focus on judging correctly.
Imagine if Wizards was run by people with only a beginner-level knowledge of the game and the rules. So the people designing the cards (PTO examiners and Congress) have just a basic understanding of what they need to do.
Yet basically all the players (litigation attorneys) have been playing the game for a long time and have studied the rules really closely, and play very competitive tournaments with high stakes.
The floor judges (federal judges) at these tournaments are very good at what they do, but they have to know the rules to like hundreds of other games, and have to regularly judge tournaments in those other games: chess, poker, whatever. They maybe judge one magic tournament a year. So unfortunately, they don't typically know the rules better than the players.
But to make things worse, the floor judge brought his girlfriend (the jury) along, and he sometimes lets her make rulings on things, even though she has no idea how to play magic and probably didn't know it existed until that day.
Meanwhile, Wizards is printing super broken and confusing cards, like:
Bad Patent #1 RR Sorcery
Flip a coin. If heads you win the game, if tails you get a jury finding of obviousness.
or
Bad Patent #2 2U Enchantment
Target creature implements a trading card metaphor (see claim 16)
So these judges are left to make impossible calls trying to figure out what these cards mean, and some players are having games decided because of coin flips or because of the floor judge's girlfriend.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to blame the players here, it makes sense to blame the people at Wizards who are printing the super broken cards. I think Congress needs to do a better job funding the PTO. I also think we need expert juries so we don't have the judge's girlfriend making uninformed calls. I also think that some federal judges should specialize in patent cases so that they don't have to know the rules to a million games and can focus on judging correctly.
Loved this analogy.
Also, has this case gone beyond the point of settlement? Or can WoTC just pay these losers and we can all go back to the party?
Also, has this case gone beyond the point of settlement? Or can WoTC just pay these losers and we can all go back to the party?
Its probably the goal of the plaintiffs. File a suit get a settlement as litigation would drag on for years, cost huge amounts of money, and if they lose, the consequences for the defendants could be catastrophic. They'll probably reach a confidential settlement as you don't want a value to go public lest more people file suits hoping to get settlements.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When they got a patent on collectible card games, WoTC sued and threatened many game companies enough to drive them out of business. Patents are a weapon, and if you're going to use them you better make sure you're not vulnerable yourself.
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Everyone has been very quick to criticize this company for suing, but the problem with the patent system really isn't the litigants, it's the way the institution is run.
Um..
How are the ones exploiting the downfall, the flaws, in the current system not equally guilty? They're the ones exploiting the goddammed system.
This almost reminds me of the lawsuit between Konami and RoXor games over the In the Groove / In the Groove 2 franchise [though I don't know why since there were more merits behind that lawsuit than here], and a lot of other stupid crap that goes on in the area of MUSIC games [patents over guitar controllers keeps Konami from bringing over its Guitar Freaks series despite it coming out in 1999, 6 years before Harmonix/Activision's Guitar Heroes series, and things like that].
I guess it reminds me of that because it shows flaws in the patent system as-is - though I could look at aspects more relevant to my major, computer science, since that area + computer programming, etc is becoming increasingly frightening with all the patent litigation, talk and fighting over software patents, etc.]
How are the ones exploiting the downfall, the flaws, in the current system not equally guilty? They're the ones exploiting the goddammed system.
I understand why people say this, but I still don't agree with it. There may be some people who truly "exploit" the system, but for most part I don't think that these litigants are doing anything ethically questionable.
Imagine that the government has given you a piece of paper that says "for the next 20 years, you are the only person with the right to offer an online trading card game." If other people want to offer an online TCG, they have to come to you and negotiate a license. That's what the government has unequivocally told you. They even gave you a piece of paper with a ribbon on it that says this. I've seen small-time inventors who have this thing framed on their wall because they're so proud of it.
Now someone out there decides to say "screw you" and take this idea you came up with and not pay you anything. The only way for you to get the money the government says you're entitled to is to sue them.
Maybe you walk up to your patent lawyer buddy bitterroot and he says "I can come up with a bunch of complex legal reasons why you probably won't win and this patent will be found unenforceable." Well, why should you (at least from an ethical/moral standpoint) have to listen to bitterroot? The U.S. Constitution (Amendment VII) clearly says that you have a right to have a jury decide this issue, not bitterroot or anyone else. Why is it guilty or bad or whatever for you to go and exercise that right? Why is it wrong to say "I don't want a stuffy, self-important lawyer like bitterroot making this call, I want normal people to hear my story and decide for themselves!"
The only bad thing that has happened in this story is the government giving you the piece of paper when they really shouldn't have. The rest, I think, is totally justified or at least justifiable.
I also think these issues are never as clear-cut as people want them to be. I haven't gone and looked closely at this patent and the prior art, etc., but even if this is one of the junkiest patents ever issued, I can pretty much guarantee that there are supportable legal arguments for why it's valid and infringed. Maybe they're weak-ish arguments, but it's not as though these attorneys are walking into court with a piece of toilet paper and getting money for it.
It's not as simple as "these guys are exploiting the system." What if they sue on a patent that has a 50% shot of being valid? Is that exploiting the system? Where do you draw the line? 75%? 25%? When is it a legitimate suit and when is it "exploitation?"
Its probably the goal of the plaintiffs. File a suit get a settlement as litigation would drag on for years, cost huge amounts of money, and if they lose, the consequences for the defendants could be catastrophic. They'll probably reach a confidential settlement as you don't want a value to go public lest more people file suits hoping to get settlements.
Think of all the magic cards the plaintiff could buy with the money! We can settle this RIGHT NOW, for only a hundred cases of RTR.
I work for the Swiss patent office---This patent is why Switzerland doesn't allow software patents.
Quote from "9909 »
I can't see any infringement (hey, but I'm not an patent attorney in the US).
I see lots of litigation opportunities within the patent. He's also probably not a troll because he has a patent on the invention in Japan and looks like a single inventor.
What's interesting is this guy's patent was filed on March 6, 1995.
It's not as simple as "these guys are exploiting the system." What if they sue on a patent that has a 50% shot of being valid? Is that exploiting the system? Where do you draw the line? 75%? 25%? When is it a legitimate suit and when is it "exploitation?"
Patent trolls (not sure if that's the case here) are always exploiting the system no matter what chance of success. Companies that literally exist to buy up patents and sue others who have been "infringing" *since before they even bought the patents.* They have no intention on actually producing themselves anything covered in the patents, just siphoning money through legal loopholes. Maybe the problem is that patents are things that can even be sold, I don't know, but there is a problem somewhere.
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After reading through the claims in the patent, I can kind of see where Wildcat has issue (claims 21 and 38), but these seem so incredibly broad and generic that it would be impossible to lay any foundation of exclusivity and uniqueness. Basically those 2 claims are giving Tyler Peppel exclusive intellectual property of the rights to any TCG software. Basically, if any non-standard (read: not a regular 52 card deck) card game were to have an online component, that developer would be in violation of this patent. The patent itself is inherently too broad and in my personal opinion is likely to be thrown out
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
I take it you're not a believer in Apple's patent on square cell phones with rounded edges
I love Magic. I love Magic Online. They should not have a monopoly on digital card games because of overly broad patents.
In the end the merits of ongoing litigation will be decided based on the specifics of the case--namely the exact claim language between the asserted patent and the allegedly infringing product.
I havent looked at the case at all, so that's about all Im qualified to say on the matter.
Probably my favorite quote of his, but certainly has a lot of flavor.
This is what makes my eye twinge in terms of people trying to make businesses, it reminds me of the Apple law suit over some small company in an unrelated market having an apple in their logo and were told to take it out.
The patent and copyright system today is broken. Corporations are similar to empires, sometimes doing good and other times causing great damage. The greatest time for innovation is whenever the rules are set and stable, and there's some loose access to goods.
This is why in part the most recent innovations are often in entertainment and technology especially on the software side. Since more of the stuff is "open" with coding being open source and entertainment ideas rather wide open with thousands of years of ideas to draw from.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
So yeah, patent troll, blah blah. It's probably not going to amount to much.
Captain, United States Marines
"Peace through superior firepower."
Anyway, I'm a patent attorney, and I have to say that whoever prosecuted this thing has balls of steel. I can't believe that some of these claims were allowed. If this patent is valid then WOTC may infringe, but its possible that many claims would be held obvious depending on the landscape of prior art that's out there, or possibly even straight-up anticipated.
So it's kind of a patent troll's dream because it's broad, but it's also a defense attorney's dream in a way because you can prepare so many great invalidity defenses. I have a feeling that this is what prompted the notice of dismissal in the first case, the defense probably just built up a great mess of invalidity contentions and the plaintiffs didn't have the capital to fight that.
I'm assuming this is also what happened with the Worlds.com lawsuit against NCSoft concerning their game City of Heroes. I mean, the owner or Worlds.com pretty much said, "If this pans out we're going after Blizzard and World of Warcraft next".
It really is a troll's dream. Seriously, if it gets thrown out or the plaintiff decides to drop the case, Wizards needs to go after them for attorney fees and the like. Patent trolls like this guy really do **** around too much with the legal system, and it only hurts the legitimate parties when something like this happens.
Captain, United States Marines
"Peace through superior firepower."
*DCI Rules Advisor*
It's basically not possible to get attorney's fees; the threshold for what constitutes a "frivolous" lawsuit is extremely high. If a party can make arguments that its patent is valid and infringed, even if those ultimately aren't winning arguments, courts are absolutely loath to award fees.
Though I agree there are problems with the patent system, I don't think courts should get more aggressive with fees. Every time you sanction someone with borderline arguments, you make courts less accessible, and largely this impacts the poor and the small business owner more than the corporation who can afford to gamble. Think of the civil-rights plaintiffs in the 60s and how tenuous their arguments were considered to be at the time.
Also, I just wanted to note that I see a bunch of people reading the specification of the patent and concluding that Wizards is fine since the cards don't evolve or shoot fire or whatever. The specification is just meant to be possible examples of the patent "in action," if you will, and it doesn't matter much whether Wizards does any of that. What really matters in a patent suit are the claims of the patent, which are the numbered entries at the very end. If Wizards infringes even one of those claims, and if that claim is found "valid" (which is a complex inquiry but basically focuses on whether this was known before it was patented), then Wizards will be found to infringe.
Patents over physical designs or inventions is a fantastic thing. Patents over ideas that can't be diagrammed technically makes no sense at all.
Patent is 2001, MTGO went public 2002. I'm unsure though when WotC first drew it up, so if they have documentation that shows them developing it before Spring 2001 the claim would be further debunked.
Everyone has been very quick to criticize this company for suing, but the problem with the patent system really isn't the litigants, it's the way the institution is run. Patent and Trademark Office examiners are way under-qualified, under-payed, and understaffed. PTO examiners almost never have a law degree and usually only have a college degree in science at most. The average patent gets reviewed by the PTO for something like eight hours. That's the problem with the system, it needs government reform. I have a magic analogy here.
Imagine if Wizards was run by people with only a beginner-level knowledge of the game and the rules. So the people designing the cards (PTO examiners and Congress) have just a basic understanding of what they need to do.
Yet basically all the players (litigation attorneys) have been playing the game for a long time and have studied the rules really closely, and play very competitive tournaments with high stakes.
The floor judges (federal judges) at these tournaments are very good at what they do, but they have to know the rules to like hundreds of other games, and have to regularly judge tournaments in those other games: chess, poker, whatever. They maybe judge one magic tournament a year. So unfortunately, they don't typically know the rules better than the players.
But to make things worse, the floor judge brought his girlfriend (the jury) along, and he sometimes lets her make rulings on things, even though she has no idea how to play magic and probably didn't know it existed until that day.
Meanwhile, Wizards is printing super broken and confusing cards, like:
Bad Patent #1 RR
Sorcery
Flip a coin. If heads you win the game, if tails you get a jury finding of obviousness.
or
Bad Patent #2 2U
Enchantment
Target creature implements a trading card metaphor (see claim 16)
So these judges are left to make impossible calls trying to figure out what these cards mean, and some players are having games decided because of coin flips or because of the floor judge's girlfriend.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to blame the players here, it makes sense to blame the people at Wizards who are printing the super broken cards. I think Congress needs to do a better job funding the PTO. I also think we need expert juries so we don't have the judge's girlfriend making uninformed calls. I also think that some federal judges should specialize in patent cases so that they don't have to know the rules to a million games and can focus on judging correctly.
Loved this analogy.
Also, has this case gone beyond the point of settlement? Or can WoTC just pay these losers and we can all go back to the party?
Why did you play Confusion in the Ranks ?! and Hunted Dragon ?! It's so CONFUSING!
Its probably the goal of the plaintiffs. File a suit get a settlement as litigation would drag on for years, cost huge amounts of money, and if they lose, the consequences for the defendants could be catastrophic. They'll probably reach a confidential settlement as you don't want a value to go public lest more people file suits hoping to get settlements.
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Is this what it boils down to? That'd be funny because MtG was started before any other trading card game.
RGGruul Aggro
WSoul Sisters
WBTokens
BUGRRestore Balance
BMono-Black Infect
EDH:
RGWMayael, the Anima
GWURoon of the Hidden Realm
BDrana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Um..
How are the ones exploiting the downfall, the flaws, in the current system not equally guilty? They're the ones exploiting the goddammed system.
This almost reminds me of the lawsuit between Konami and RoXor games over the In the Groove / In the Groove 2 franchise [though I don't know why since there were more merits behind that lawsuit than here], and a lot of other stupid crap that goes on in the area of MUSIC games [patents over guitar controllers keeps Konami from bringing over its Guitar Freaks series despite it coming out in 1999, 6 years before Harmonix/Activision's Guitar Heroes series, and things like that].
I guess it reminds me of that because it shows flaws in the patent system as-is - though I could look at aspects more relevant to my major, computer science, since that area + computer programming, etc is becoming increasingly frightening with all the patent litigation, talk and fighting over software patents, etc.]
I understand why people say this, but I still don't agree with it. There may be some people who truly "exploit" the system, but for most part I don't think that these litigants are doing anything ethically questionable.
Imagine that the government has given you a piece of paper that says "for the next 20 years, you are the only person with the right to offer an online trading card game." If other people want to offer an online TCG, they have to come to you and negotiate a license. That's what the government has unequivocally told you. They even gave you a piece of paper with a ribbon on it that says this. I've seen small-time inventors who have this thing framed on their wall because they're so proud of it.
Now someone out there decides to say "screw you" and take this idea you came up with and not pay you anything. The only way for you to get the money the government says you're entitled to is to sue them.
Maybe you walk up to your patent lawyer buddy bitterroot and he says "I can come up with a bunch of complex legal reasons why you probably won't win and this patent will be found unenforceable." Well, why should you (at least from an ethical/moral standpoint) have to listen to bitterroot? The U.S. Constitution (Amendment VII) clearly says that you have a right to have a jury decide this issue, not bitterroot or anyone else. Why is it guilty or bad or whatever for you to go and exercise that right? Why is it wrong to say "I don't want a stuffy, self-important lawyer like bitterroot making this call, I want normal people to hear my story and decide for themselves!"
The only bad thing that has happened in this story is the government giving you the piece of paper when they really shouldn't have. The rest, I think, is totally justified or at least justifiable.
I also think these issues are never as clear-cut as people want them to be. I haven't gone and looked closely at this patent and the prior art, etc., but even if this is one of the junkiest patents ever issued, I can pretty much guarantee that there are supportable legal arguments for why it's valid and infringed. Maybe they're weak-ish arguments, but it's not as though these attorneys are walking into court with a piece of toilet paper and getting money for it.
It's not as simple as "these guys are exploiting the system." What if they sue on a patent that has a 50% shot of being valid? Is that exploiting the system? Where do you draw the line? 75%? 25%? When is it a legitimate suit and when is it "exploitation?"
Think of all the magic cards the plaintiff could buy with the money! We can settle this RIGHT NOW, for only a hundred cases of RTR.
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Better yet, pay the settlement in MTGO tickets.
I see lots of litigation opportunities within the patent. He's also probably not a troll because he has a patent on the invention in Japan and looks like a single inventor.
What's interesting is this guy's patent was filed on March 6, 1995.
Richard Garfield's Trade Card Game Method of Play patent was filed on October 17, 1995 (http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?FT=D&date=19970902&DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&locale=en_EP&CC=US&NR=5662332A&KC=A&ND=4).
This guy's electronic TCG patent could invalidate Garfield's patent....
Author of "Flogging the Data"' econometric article series.
Patent trolls (not sure if that's the case here) are always exploiting the system no matter what chance of success. Companies that literally exist to buy up patents and sue others who have been "infringing" *since before they even bought the patents.* They have no intention on actually producing themselves anything covered in the patents, just siphoning money through legal loopholes. Maybe the problem is that patents are things that can even be sold, I don't know, but there is a problem somewhere.