[新聞] EA的Apex 英雄和冒險聖歌被起訴專利侵權

[wizardfizban (瘋法師)]

EA Sued For Patent Infringement In Apex Legends And Anthem
https://segmentnext.com/2019/10/04/ea-sued-patent-infringement/

Electronic Arts (EA) has been sent a legal notice to appear in the United
States district court of Texas over at least two counts of patent
infringement.

The lawsuit was filed by Stone Interactive Ventures (SIV) last month, where
the plaintiff noted that it currently holds the rights to US7593864B2 and
US8516473B2 in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. EA is required
by law to obtain a license to operate on the said patents, which the
publishing giant decided not to. Hence, EA must either obtain a license from
the limited liability company — pay mounting royalties — or cease its
ongoing infringement, at least that’s what the lawsuit alleges.

The patents in question are generally related to management and ownership of
virtual properties, and distribution and sale of program objects. Apex
Legends and Anthem were both quoted as examples through which EA continues to
violate trademark law — specifically, through their in-game currencies.

Apex Legends and Anthem have Apex Coins and Anthem Shards respectively that
can be used to purchase cosmetics from an in-game store to customize the
appearance of weapons and characters. SIV argued that the players are also
infringing on the same patents by obtaining virtual properties through these
virtual currencies.

In addition, the virtual properties can further be transferred or shared
in-game, which is a violation of “purchase and ownership of property rights”
 as mentioned in the patent bylaws.

The lawsuit failed to mention any sum that the plaintiff wants in damages,
leaving it to the court of Texas should a ruling be cast in SIV’s favor.


The world of patent infringement is a messy and complicated one. SIV, from
what information is available, is basically a patent assertion entity that
purchases patents to profit, not to use. Also, SIV has made claims on behalf
of Intellectual Ventures Assets (IVA), the rightful assignee of the patents
mentioned in the lawsuit, casting SIV as a possible shell company to duel
these legal matters.

Making it even worse is that IVA owns about 40,000 patents with no intention
of using them anytime soon. It’s essentially a threat to aspiring
entrepreneurs and large-scale technology companies.

EA, while the defendant in this case, has also been securing patents that can
drive microtransactions in the future. More recently, the publishing giant
was spotted to have obtained a patent through an asset acquisition for a
system that creates a sense of urgency to make in-game purchases as soon as
possible.

The reason being that the virtual items decrease in value over time based on
the number of purchases made. Hence, if players want to reap maximum
benefits, they will want to be the first ones to make the purchase — a kind
of day-one microtransactions.

EA also patented a technology that fiddles with matchmaking. Such a system
can observe player-behavior (skill, experience, sportsmanship, and other
preferences) before pitting them against each other. By matching a novice
against an experienced player, the system would basically be encouraging the
novice to emulate the decked-out player by purchasing items being used by
them.

Hence, pushing microtransactions through enticement and a false perception of
superiority, something that many other game publishers besides EA are gunning
for as well.

====

EA被起訴專利侵權，而例子是Apex 英雄和冒險聖歌。

起訴的是Stone Interactive Ventures這間公司。

而相關的兩個專利主要和兩個功能有關，就是：

Management and ownership of virtual properties
虛擬財產的管理及所有權

Distribution and sale of program objects
程序物件的分發和銷售

嗯！我想有些人己經懂了，就是商城相關功能。

所以 SIV (Stone Interactive Ventures) 也說了.....

SIV argued that the players are also infringing on the same patents by
obtaining virtual properties through these virtual currencies.

使用這些功能的玩家也侵犯了專利。

而SIV目前看來就是間買下專利用後來告人盈利的公司，本身沒在使用專利。

然後SIV在訴訟的內容是代表專利的合法受讓人 Intellectual Ventures Assets 這間公司
提出索賠，也就是SIV其實可能是IVA的空殼公司而已，功能是用來處理這些法律上的事。

專利的世界真是高深呀！

有沒有專業大佬要來說明一下，我其實也是看的一知半解。

--

               It is difficult to communicate a life with words.

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推 fan8512: 專利蟑螂？？？
→ wizardfizban: 不清楚 法律的世界太高深了
→ wolver: 就跟在八卦釣魚,然後告人賺和解費的蟑螂一樣
→ wolver: 八卦的是個人工作室,這是公司型的專業加強版
推 egg781: 這能贏?
推 DivineSX: 不用贏，和解就好了，當EA的訴訟成本>和解金的時候，EA
→ DivineSX: 很有可能會直接答應和解
→ spfy: 能不能讓他告等勝訴了讓對方負擔全部訴訟費用?
→ wizardfizban: 對方只是個空殼公司 隨時能拋棄
→ spfy: 空殼公司有空成這樣喔
推 Foot: 所以是商城的哪個功能，通行證那個嗎？
推 r85270607: 那...為啥要是EA,?
推 mizuarashi: 直接打專利失效官司比較快
推 aa9815aa: EA有錢啊 EA看起來是小咖嗎
推 egg781: EA有錢,但EA有這麼好惹嗎?
噓 shentotto: 這告不成阿，暴雪那套一堆廠商再用，有夠白癡的。
→ audi1005: 專利蟑螂+1
推 AkikaCat: EA是不好惹，只是告其他家有可能被幹爆，但EA要錢不要臉
→ AkikaCat: ，開個低於訴訟費的和解金有機會拿到錢這樣？
推 bitcch: 被專利蟑螂搞了
推 Cerebro: 看看就好 美國的專利法律根本就是搞笑的...亂七八糟