Wildcat Intellectual Property Holdings of Dallas, Texas has sued Wizards of the Coast in Federal Court claiming that the Hasbro subsidiary has violated its electronic trading-card patent by publishing "Magic: The Gathering Online." While Wildcat is suing Wizards of the Coast, it does not name Hasbro in its lawsuit.
Wildcat claims the popular online collectible trading card game infringes on at least seven aspects of its Electronic Trading Card patent. Those infringements include "making, using, selling, hosting, and/or providing access to within the United States, and/or importing into the United States, at least Wizards' 'Magic: The Gathering Online' game, infringing one or more claims of the '216 Patent."
Wildcat says it uses the patent on its own game Unit Commander which it calls "the ultimate mercenary trading card game." The company is asking the court for "injunctive relief to stop the alleged infringing activity."
This lawsuit seems like BS to me. I have found nothing about this Unit Commander game online, but I did find the relevant patent from another case involving this very company (This time on the online version of Chaotic.)
Seeing as how the other case was dismissed as well as Hasbro's backing of WOTC meaning they can hire many teams of lawyers if they wish, I very very much doubt this will amount to anything substantial. Also do not see how you can even hold an electronic trading card patent, unless there is a proprietary method involved seeing as it is pretty commonplace...that would be like Hershey sueing Russel Stovers for making chocolate. "we made it first, so only we get to make it..." No.
Of course, I am not a lawyer and thus understand very little of copyright law, so I may be completely off base here.
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Can anyone find any information on the company? When I google wildcat intellectual property holding all I get is the court case.
EDIT Here's their card game http://unitcommand.com/index.php - The site is copyrighted in 2010. It looks like a pretty awful game. I doubt that they'll be able to shut down MTGO, but are their any lawmages here who think that they'll get money out of Wizards?
Wait...what? What exactly are they being sued for? It might be because English isn't my native language but I don't get it. Are these Wildcat-guys suing because MTGO is too similar to their own game (which is most likely BS) or are they suing because MTGO is an online card game? Or are they suing because the Wildcat-guys own the right to distribute Magic in the US? o.O That can't be right, I am very confused by this.
Patent law is widely misunderstood! I Am Not A Lawyer but the basic idea is this:
The only thing they are suing about is that they have a patent that says they have the exclusive right to make Electronic Trading Card games, and MTGO fits the definition given in the patent, so they believe they can get WotC to pay money for their 'idea'.
How exactly companies like this get broad, generic patents like that is difficult to explain, but it's a profitable risk to get them so you can file lawsuits like this one. The recent Apple/Samsung brawl was similar, with dumb patents being 'defended' in multiple countries.
I am personally in the 'patents are an unnecessary evil' camp.
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sounds like a failing company desperate for attention/money (HEY!!!, CHECK OUR OUR ONLINE CARD GAME TOO!!!!). I've been playing cards for like 12 years and I've heard of most games, this is not among them.
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sounds like a failing company desperate for attention/money (HEY!!!, CHECK OUR OUR ONLINE CARD GAME TOO!!!!). I've been playing cards for like 12 years and I've heard of most games, this is not among them.
I have never heard of them either, and you could be right about this being a cry for bailout attempt.
Just for the record MTGO has been live since June 2002.
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"Finally, the public interest would not be disserved by the issuance of a permanent injunction, as the public does not have any sunstantial interest in the practice of defendant's accused games."
So, they're saying that NO ONE EVEN PLAYS MTGO?!?!?! What about the millions and billions of people who play online because there's no paper magic community where they live? what about the millions of dollars invested into playing online magic?
"requiring defendant to pay plaintiff its' damages, costs, expenses, and prejudgement and post judgement interest for defendant's infringement of patent"
So, they want WoTC to basically shut down and give all their money to them?! ...
what the heck IS unit commander?!? The only thing that comes up when i yahoo search unit commander wildcat, are computer parts and this case....
This is getting out of hand, I think the judge should rule that their patent be amended to JUST say "electronic card game named 'Unit commander'" and not just "Electronic Trading card" ...These people just grasp at straws, don't they?
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The patent to which the complaint refers is here. If you read the patent and the complaint, you'll be left scratching your head as to where there is even a case; I can't see any infringement (hey, but I'm not an patent attorney in the US).
Typical patent trolling. It's actually one of the largest problems in business right now that no one seems to be addressing legally. I know that just the threat of being sued by a troll has prevented my company from working with certain clients in the past.
These guys are just hoping that the legal costs to Hasbro are so large that they would rather settle out of court. That being said I hope WOTC does counter-sue them to try to destroy them and their patents, as WOTC has pretty good standing to show they were first to market with a trading card game and they do own several patents for that.
I wonder how many the Unit Commander game infringes on? If they cant produce the game for scrutiny then I wonder if they even have a leg to stand on.
Though I'm not well versed in the legal side (though I've dealt with many patents lawyers), I am an expert in my technical field and have quite a few patents to my name.
A patent is (perhaps was is the better qualifier) designed to protect an idea such that the designer has sufficient time to market their idea and make profit from it.
A patent can generally be awarded if it's novel and is not obvious to an EXPERT in the relevant field(s). There is no (true) restriction on how trivial the patent can be. This is a good thing, since there are ideas that are very trivial, yet they are exceedingly novel and very much non-obvious. The best example of such a scenario is one that exploits what 100% of the experts would have previously agreed is a negative phenomena (i.e. multi-path communications environments, and hence MIMO was an excellent patentable idea).
To me, and what should have been apparent to the patent clerk who allowed this patent to proceed, is the shift from paper to digital cards is a fairly obvious transition, especially considering it was awarded in 2001. If this were awarded in 1985, when things were incredibly fresh and new regarding the Internet, I can see a case. But the patent would be expired by now...
I think a major problem with modern patents is three-fold:
(1) uber-generic patents that are designed such that they can sue basically anyone working in the field. To deal with this, there must be patent reform.
(2) non-novel patents (e.g. apple's rounded corners) need to be banned (by the rules of patent law, they should never exist anyway!)
(3) the Internet is not an emerging field and hence patenting "digital" versions of things should be considered "trivial" or simply have prior art of the non digital variety. This goes for things such as aspects of Siri (as an example) having sufficient prior art to invalidate the patent.
One thing that definitely needs to occur is requiring the patent holder to prove they have marketed / made sufficient sales within a certain time frame (e.g. 5 years), otherwise the patent should be deemed expired (this would deal with patent trolls).
I wouldn't be too worried, it's clearly patent trolling (looking through the technical specifications is a fun read for those interested in how people in 2001 thought the world would look like) .
Far more interesting are how the patent predicted certain trends in MTGO and certain predictors were way off. For example, according to the patent:
You should be able to download your connection onto a floppy disk, give the floppy to your friends, and now your friends will have your digital card.
If you play Shivan Dragon enough times/solve the Dragon puzzle-game, you can upgrade it to Thundermaw Hellkite.
You'll be able to play your own custom cards that you can play using MTGO.
When you attack with your Thundermaw Hellkite, the card will roar and fire animation will emerge from its mouth.
If you manage to collect a full set, you'll be the envy of all your friends at school.
Legal team of said Dallas company is trying to run the assets aground by invoking the ire (and fines) of the court in a guaranteed-to-fail lawsuit. For vengeance.
Or, yeah, lawgames. Let's play hunt the language loophole. Jerkasses. I hope the Hasbro team has fun making fools of them, then.
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Legal team of said Dallas company is trying to run the assets aground by invoking the ire (and fines) of the court in a guaranteed-to-fail lawsuit. For vengeance.
Or, yeah, lawgames. Let's play hunt the language loophole. Jerkasses. I hope the Hasbro team has fun making fools of them, then.
Sadly, these suits are all too common today, and it will cost Hasbro hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars to defend the suit. The hope of getting it back is small. Hasbro would have to prove that the suit is frivolous, and that is a very high standard. Generally, if a valid patent exists and there is some argument, no matter how small, then it is not a frivolous lawsuit. In such a case, the court will award costs, but not attorneys' fees. This will leave Hasbro holding the bag.
I worked at a large law firm, and, if this goes to trial, it could cost upward of $50,000-100,000 a DAY. Prior to trial, the defense firm could run up $250,000-500,000 (or more, depends on the firm and things like discovery) in fees. For a real example, in one contract case I worked on, the attorneys' fees were about $2 million. In a class action case, the fees were over $20 million.
Before you say that Hasbro has in-house lawyers, companies always go to a defense firm because their own in-house lawyers don't have the resources to fight this kind of suit, and probably are not barred in the state where the suit takes place. Also, even $2 million is a lot for a company to shell out in a case. They don't like to do it because it is just like burning money - it doesn't go to anything useful or generate more money.
As for an evaluation of the case, I have not looked at the patent or the complaint. I do know that patent trolling cases often go on for years (look at the Apple/Samsung case). And, the parties often settle (to avoid things like the Apple/Samsung verdict) and the high costs.
i noticed it is the same lawyers from previous as well. WEll, hate to say it, but sometimes you come up with a great idea that is either way ahead of its time, or is refused to be implemented due to limited tech or inability by other parties to want to put it forward.
An example is a company i worked for patented years ago a database system of high definition digital pictures of the human body all of the way down to the cellular structure, in various stages including surgical procedures in which hospitals could share this information together. At the time back in 2003, no hospitals wanted to get behind it, as this data and information was "private".
Great idea that I am sure will be worth quite a bit some day, and have some serious government expenditure backing in addition to commercial backing... just a waiting game.
I think patents in the US need to be renewed every 10 years? or are there different limits?
The patents involving print tech I was involved in a few years back usually costs $20-40 Grand per patent, and you have to present a case on it. When you go to renew it, even if you are not producing it, you would have to show that you have made some sort of "progression" on it, and not let it sit and not allow it to not "further benefit the greater good of mankind".
As Kjeldoran Assassin points out, the cost to defend the case and go to court will be weighed in by Wotc and Hasbro, and I'm sure the Wildcat team is hoping to get a settlement.
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The patent was granted in 2001. If memory serves correctly, MTGO started in 2002. I have seen no litigation for ten years against WotC from this firm, and what's more - and in WIzards's defense that make it substantial - is that the game with a patent that is over ten years old is still in the beta process according to it's website as of 04 November 2012. That is almost 11 years after the patent was granted.
But what's more at stake is the scope of the patent. In essence, the patent gives them control over "electronic card games", which can include the Yu-Gi-Oh! games that came out for the various Gameboy systems, Duel of the Planewalkers, and far more. I think the patent will be looked at again because of these facts and will be "simplified".
What's more, the patent was issued to Tyler Peppel, and I see no paperwork transferring it to Wildcat Gaming, which means they are technically outside of the jurisdiction of the courts to rule on this. In a case like this, the individual must file the lawsuit, not a company he works for or owns. That is going to be a contentious issue.
As people have said, this is patent trolling, plain and simple. It's hitting a lot of big names lately. Nintendo and Sony were both hit recently. NCSoft, the owners of City of Heroes were hit as well. Normally with something like this, you'd go after "small fish" first in order to build up legal precedent and go from there. It's why Worlds.com went after NCSoft for City of Heroes: it was a small company, and the guy filing hte lawsuit admitted publicly that if he won, he was going after Blizzard-Activision for World of Warcraft, among others. It was settled, the terms of the settlement are confidential but NCSoft probably paid some money. Probably a lot more money that he would have gotten had he been able to prove his case, because Blizzard would have been a much harder fish to catch.
But I guess Wizards is the smallest fish around, because Hasbro and Konami are both massive companies with plenty of lawyers.
EDIT:
What's probably going to happen is Wizards answers the complaint. A trial date is set. This company is going to push for an out-of-court settlement for money, and Wizards probably won't grant it. They have a solid defense concerning timespan and the like, as well as who filed the initial complaint. So, the company drops the lawsuit, realizing it's a lost cause. Wizards says, "Oh no you don't!" and files for frivolous actions against the company. That gets settled out of court.
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Can anyone find any information on the company? When I google wildcat intellectual property holding all I get is the court case.
EDIT Here's their card game http://unitcommand.com/index.php - The site is copyrighted in 2010. It looks like a pretty awful game. I doubt that they'll be able to shut down MTGO, but are their any lawmages here who think that they'll get money out of Wizards?
At the bottom left of the page... "Members: 920" "Currently there are no members playing the game"
Guess that means they've got time for frivolous lawsuits!
You guys are defending WOTC because you love magic, and so do I--- but lets not forget that WOTC has done this EXACT thing against countless other games. They even once sued a mom who bought the name dinobot.org for her son (that was his online name) because dinobot was a trademarked name under Hasbro. They had a licensing agreement with Nintendo over pokemon and sued the very day after it expired. You can read much more about this sort of thing here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/735348/how-can-you-publish-a-tgc-without-being-sued-or-pa but in a nutshell, I believe this may be karma at work. WOTC have been patent nazi's for years, making the TCG market hazardous for anyone that cant afford top notch legal council throughout every step of the development process-- and even then they may still end up having to pay WOTC a licensing fee to avoid a lawsuit.
You guys are defending WOTC because you love magic, and so do I--- but lets not forget that WOTC has done this EXACT thing against countless other games. They even once sued a mom who bought the name dinobot.org for her son (that was his online name) because dinobot was a trademarked name under Hasbro. They had a licensing agreement with Nintendo over pokemon and sued the very day after it expired. You can read much more about this sort of thing here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/735348/how-can-you-publish-a-tgc-without-being-sued-or-pa but in a nutshell, I believe this may be karma at work. WOTC have been patent nazi's for years, making the TCG market hazardous for anyone that cant afford top notch legal council throughout every step of the development process-- and even then they may still end up having to pay WOTC a licensing fee to avoid a lawsuit.
1.) "Dinobot" was a name owned by Hasbro, not Wizards of the Coast. Ergo, it wasn't Wizards of the Coast suing the woman since they had no legal right to do so, it was Hasbro that did it.
2.) They sued Nintendo/Game Freak. No excuse for that, but it was making them money so I can understand why they did it. However, that was not over a patent, it was over their rights to continue to produce something they had staked a LOT of money into.
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As someone who works tangentially in this field I just wanted to clarify a couple things:
1. The popularity, or lack thereof, of either game has no relevance on the outcome.
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.
3. Patents can be thrown out in lawsuits if the defense can argue it should never have been granted in the first place. This happens all the time and is the one thing that keeps a lot of these suits from happening in the first place; you might go into it and come out without your patent.
4. The claims are extremely broad but back in 2001 if this thing did not exist then (unlikely) then maybe, maybe there is a chance that Wizards will agree to settle (fyi that is the most negative outcome possible: this is all about money, there is no way that they really just want MTGO shut down).
5. Patent Examiners have a limited time and resources compared to what defense attorneys do to find things that invalidate broad claims. So even though there is a patent, there is a good chance that the high paid legal team Hasbro and WOTC can put together can make a compelling case to get the suit to drop.
So, basically no worries that MTGO will ever shut down because of this. Worst case scenario: they settle and this thing goes away.
It's difficult to believe a minow could take on Hasbro without serious financial implications. I can't imagine they have much capital to work with, even if their game has seemingly no costs since it doesn't function.
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http://updates.kotaku.com/post/34921199248/texas-patent-firm-asks-judge-to-shut-down-magic-the
This lawsuit seems like BS to me. I have found nothing about this Unit Commander game online, but I did find the relevant patent from another case involving this very company (This time on the online version of Chaotic.)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=131&p=3&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=6,200,216&OS=6,200,216&RS=6,200,216
Note the case I am mentioning was dismissed without prejudice (http://litigation.maxval-ip.com/detailview.aspx?CaseID=74202)
Edit: Here is the actual complaint filing for those to look at: http://news.priorsmart.com/wildcat-intellectual-property-holdings-v-wizards-of-the-coast-l6ZF/
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Of course, I am not a lawyer and thus understand very little of copyright law, so I may be completely off base here.
EDIT Here's their card game http://unitcommand.com/index.php - The site is copyrighted in 2010. It looks like a pretty awful game. I doubt that they'll be able to shut down MTGO, but are their any lawmages here who think that they'll get money out of Wizards?
Patent law is widely misunderstood! I Am Not A Lawyer but the basic idea is this:
The only thing they are suing about is that they have a patent that says they have the exclusive right to make Electronic Trading Card games, and MTGO fits the definition given in the patent, so they believe they can get WotC to pay money for their 'idea'.
How exactly companies like this get broad, generic patents like that is difficult to explain, but it's a profitable risk to get them so you can file lawsuits like this one. The recent Apple/Samsung brawl was similar, with dumb patents being 'defended' in multiple countries.
I am personally in the 'patents are an unnecessary evil' camp.
online card game=/=online card game.
sounds like a failing company desperate for attention/money (HEY!!!, CHECK OUR OUR ONLINE CARD GAME TOO!!!!). I've been playing cards for like 12 years and I've heard of most games, this is not among them.
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Just for the record MTGO has been live since June 2002.
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So, they're saying that NO ONE EVEN PLAYS MTGO?!?!?! What about the millions and billions of people who play online because there's no paper magic community where they live? what about the millions of dollars invested into playing online magic?
"requiring defendant to pay plaintiff its' damages, costs, expenses, and prejudgement and post judgement interest for defendant's infringement of patent"
So, they want WoTC to basically shut down and give all their money to them?! ...
what the heck IS unit commander?!? The only thing that comes up when i yahoo search unit commander wildcat, are computer parts and this case....
This is getting out of hand, I think the judge should rule that their patent be amended to JUST say "electronic card game named 'Unit commander'" and not just "Electronic Trading card" ...These people just grasp at straws, don't they?
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This looks like 110% frivolous litigation.
These guys are just hoping that the legal costs to Hasbro are so large that they would rather settle out of court. That being said I hope WOTC does counter-sue them to try to destroy them and their patents, as WOTC has pretty good standing to show they were first to market with a trading card game and they do own several patents for that.
I wonder how many the Unit Commander game infringes on? If they cant produce the game for scrutiny then I wonder if they even have a leg to stand on.
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A patent is (perhaps was is the better qualifier) designed to protect an idea such that the designer has sufficient time to market their idea and make profit from it.
A patent can generally be awarded if it's novel and is not obvious to an EXPERT in the relevant field(s). There is no (true) restriction on how trivial the patent can be. This is a good thing, since there are ideas that are very trivial, yet they are exceedingly novel and very much non-obvious. The best example of such a scenario is one that exploits what 100% of the experts would have previously agreed is a negative phenomena (i.e. multi-path communications environments, and hence MIMO was an excellent patentable idea).
To me, and what should have been apparent to the patent clerk who allowed this patent to proceed, is the shift from paper to digital cards is a fairly obvious transition, especially considering it was awarded in 2001. If this were awarded in 1985, when things were incredibly fresh and new regarding the Internet, I can see a case. But the patent would be expired by now...
I think a major problem with modern patents is three-fold:
(1) uber-generic patents that are designed such that they can sue basically anyone working in the field. To deal with this, there must be patent reform.
(2) non-novel patents (e.g. apple's rounded corners) need to be banned (by the rules of patent law, they should never exist anyway!)
(3) the Internet is not an emerging field and hence patenting "digital" versions of things should be considered "trivial" or simply have prior art of the non digital variety. This goes for things such as aspects of Siri (as an example) having sufficient prior art to invalidate the patent.
One thing that definitely needs to occur is requiring the patent holder to prove they have marketed / made sufficient sales within a certain time frame (e.g. 5 years), otherwise the patent should be deemed expired (this would deal with patent trolls).
Far more interesting are how the patent predicted certain trends in MTGO and certain predictors were way off. For example, according to the patent:
Or, yeah, lawgames. Let's play hunt the language loophole. Jerkasses. I hope the Hasbro team has fun making fools of them, then.
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Sadly, these suits are all too common today, and it will cost Hasbro hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars to defend the suit. The hope of getting it back is small. Hasbro would have to prove that the suit is frivolous, and that is a very high standard. Generally, if a valid patent exists and there is some argument, no matter how small, then it is not a frivolous lawsuit. In such a case, the court will award costs, but not attorneys' fees. This will leave Hasbro holding the bag.
I worked at a large law firm, and, if this goes to trial, it could cost upward of $50,000-100,000 a DAY. Prior to trial, the defense firm could run up $250,000-500,000 (or more, depends on the firm and things like discovery) in fees. For a real example, in one contract case I worked on, the attorneys' fees were about $2 million. In a class action case, the fees were over $20 million.
Before you say that Hasbro has in-house lawyers, companies always go to a defense firm because their own in-house lawyers don't have the resources to fight this kind of suit, and probably are not barred in the state where the suit takes place. Also, even $2 million is a lot for a company to shell out in a case. They don't like to do it because it is just like burning money - it doesn't go to anything useful or generate more money.
As for an evaluation of the case, I have not looked at the patent or the complaint. I do know that patent trolling cases often go on for years (look at the Apple/Samsung case). And, the parties often settle (to avoid things like the Apple/Samsung verdict) and the high costs.
An example is a company i worked for patented years ago a database system of high definition digital pictures of the human body all of the way down to the cellular structure, in various stages including surgical procedures in which hospitals could share this information together. At the time back in 2003, no hospitals wanted to get behind it, as this data and information was "private".
Great idea that I am sure will be worth quite a bit some day, and have some serious government expenditure backing in addition to commercial backing... just a waiting game.
I think patents in the US need to be renewed every 10 years? or are there different limits?
The patents involving print tech I was involved in a few years back usually costs $20-40 Grand per patent, and you have to present a case on it. When you go to renew it, even if you are not producing it, you would have to show that you have made some sort of "progression" on it, and not let it sit and not allow it to not "further benefit the greater good of mankind".
As Kjeldoran Assassin points out, the cost to defend the case and go to court will be weighed in by Wotc and Hasbro, and I'm sure the Wildcat team is hoping to get a settlement.
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I also recall that WotC had it's own patent on TCGs in general. I'm not sure if that's expired or not though.
But what's more at stake is the scope of the patent. In essence, the patent gives them control over "electronic card games", which can include the Yu-Gi-Oh! games that came out for the various Gameboy systems, Duel of the Planewalkers, and far more. I think the patent will be looked at again because of these facts and will be "simplified".
What's more, the patent was issued to Tyler Peppel, and I see no paperwork transferring it to Wildcat Gaming, which means they are technically outside of the jurisdiction of the courts to rule on this. In a case like this, the individual must file the lawsuit, not a company he works for or owns. That is going to be a contentious issue.
As people have said, this is patent trolling, plain and simple. It's hitting a lot of big names lately. Nintendo and Sony were both hit recently. NCSoft, the owners of City of Heroes were hit as well. Normally with something like this, you'd go after "small fish" first in order to build up legal precedent and go from there. It's why Worlds.com went after NCSoft for City of Heroes: it was a small company, and the guy filing hte lawsuit admitted publicly that if he won, he was going after Blizzard-Activision for World of Warcraft, among others. It was settled, the terms of the settlement are confidential but NCSoft probably paid some money. Probably a lot more money that he would have gotten had he been able to prove his case, because Blizzard would have been a much harder fish to catch.
But I guess Wizards is the smallest fish around, because Hasbro and Konami are both massive companies with plenty of lawyers.
EDIT:
What's probably going to happen is Wizards answers the complaint. A trial date is set. This company is going to push for an out-of-court settlement for money, and Wizards probably won't grant it. They have a solid defense concerning timespan and the like, as well as who filed the initial complaint. So, the company drops the lawsuit, realizing it's a lost cause. Wizards says, "Oh no you don't!" and files for frivolous actions against the company. That gets settled out of court.
Captain, United States Marines
"Peace through superior firepower."
At the bottom left of the page... "Members: 920" "Currently there are no members playing the game"
Guess that means they've got time for frivolous lawsuits!
1.) "Dinobot" was a name owned by Hasbro, not Wizards of the Coast. Ergo, it wasn't Wizards of the Coast suing the woman since they had no legal right to do so, it was Hasbro that did it.
2.) They sued Nintendo/Game Freak. No excuse for that, but it was making them money so I can understand why they did it. However, that was not over a patent, it was over their rights to continue to produce something they had staked a LOT of money into.
Captain, United States Marines
"Peace through superior firepower."
1. The popularity, or lack thereof, of either game has no relevance on the outcome.
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.
3. Patents can be thrown out in lawsuits if the defense can argue it should never have been granted in the first place. This happens all the time and is the one thing that keeps a lot of these suits from happening in the first place; you might go into it and come out without your patent.
4. The claims are extremely broad but back in 2001 if this thing did not exist then (unlikely) then maybe, maybe there is a chance that Wizards will agree to settle (fyi that is the most negative outcome possible: this is all about money, there is no way that they really just want MTGO shut down).
5. Patent Examiners have a limited time and resources compared to what defense attorneys do to find things that invalidate broad claims. So even though there is a patent, there is a good chance that the high paid legal team Hasbro and WOTC can put together can make a compelling case to get the suit to drop.
So, basically no worries that MTGO will ever shut down because of this. Worst case scenario: they settle and this thing goes away.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!