Death Knight [Paltalk lawyer] casts [litigation] for xxx hundred million in damages. (Source: Tenton Hammer)
Paltalk Holdings Inc. is taking on the MMO industry's biggest players in court
In online games, one crucial aspect of
gameplay is to synchronize the scene across a wide array of players'
computers. Events like explosions or special effects must be
transferred to and played simultaneously on a broad variety of
internet connect machines which is not always an easy task. In
2002, Paltalk Holdings Inc. of Jericho, N.Y. purchased two patents
from a company called HearMe. The patents cover sharing data
among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital
environment.
Now Paltalk, a reputed patent monger, has taken
many of the massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming industry's
biggest players to
court in Marshall, Texas, claiming they violate its patents.
Paltalk hand picked the east Texas court for its long history of
favoring plaintiffs (patent holders) in lawsuits. States
Christopher Donnelly, a partner at Donnelly Conroy & Gelhaar LLP
in Boston, "The eastern district of Texas is considered a
plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction."
Paltalk is suing
Turbine Inc. of Westwood makers of the Lord of the Rings Online
MMORPG, a popular $15 per month entry; Japan’s Sony Corp., maker of
the online game Everquest; Activision Blizzard Inc., whose World
of Warcraft is the world’s most popular subscription-based
online game; NCSoft
Corp. of South Korea, maker of the game Guild Wars; and the
British firm Jagex Ltd., which produces the free online game
Runescape.
Noticeably absent in the suit are CCP Games,
makers of EVE Online; Square Enix makers of the popular Final Fantasy
X11; Linden Lab, which produces the popular Second Life game; and
GRAVITY Co., Ltd., which produces Ragnarock online, a game popular
for its free servers. It is unclear why Paltalk singled out the
companies it did, while ignoring others, which likely use similar
technologies.
Paltalk has a strong legal track record.
In 2006 it took Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, to
court over technology in Halo. The case went to a trial in
Marshall, Texas, in March. Mid-trial Microsoft gave in,
conceding the validity of Paltalk's clients and paying it a
reportedly massive undisclosed licensing fee.
The firm, like
others, looks to continue to milk the patent system -- and the U.S.
software industry -- for all its worth in the friendly Texas courts.
Last month a Texas court ordered Microsoft to stop
selling Microsoft Word within 60 days, as well as paying $200M
USD in damages to another patent monger firm. The ban has been
temporarily lifted, but the damages remain, unless Microsoft can win
an appeal.
"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates
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