The Daily Populous Wednesday May 8th, 2024 day edition
Authored by insider-gaming.com and submitted by alex040512

Activision Blizzard has been found liable of patent infringement, and must pay Acceleration Bay $23.4 million. The ruling came down from a jury on May 3 after a nine year legal battle.

According to the verdict, Activision infringed on two Acceleration Bay patents that related to networking and broadcasting technology. These technologies were then used in various Activision games’ multiplayer.

The jury came back with a ruling that Activision was liable for $18M for infringement within World of Warcraft and $5.4M for infringement in two Call of Duty titles.

When deciding on a verdict and amount, the jury was asked two questions. The first question was whether Acceleration Bay proved “by as preponderance of the evidence” that Activision infringed on the patents. The second was to determine a monetary amount that would “fairly and reasonably compensate Acceleration Bay”.

In a statement to Insider Gaming, Activision said it was disappointed with the ruling and will appeal.

“While we are disappointed, we believe there is a strong basis for appeal,” an Activision Spokesperson said. “We have never used the patented technologies at issue in our games.”

Prior to the lawsuit, a spokesperson called the claims baseless due to the age of the patents.

“These are baseless claims. The technology at issue was invented nearly 25 years ago. We have never used it in our games – nor would we,” the spokesperson said.

In addition to its lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, Acceleration Bay has similar patent infringement cases going against Take-Two and EA.

What do you think of the $23.4M verdict against Activision for Patent Infringement? For more Insider Gaming, read all of the details surrounding the closure of four Bethesda studios by Microsoft.

Foman1231 on May 8th, 2024 at 03:52 UTC »

The plaintiff in this case is a patent troll that has sued nearly every technology company and video game developer that you can think of, always seeking tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in "damages" -- for patents that they didn't invent and don't use. Absolute trash that this is still allowed to be a business model in this country.

Spore_Cloud on May 7th, 2024 at 21:45 UTC »

A Reuters article mentions

"The two patents at issue in the trial covered communications technology related to the "simultaneous sharing of information" between multiple "widely distributed" computers."

These patents were acquired from Boeing. Without more information they seem vague AF and maybe patent trolls.

HudakSSJ on May 7th, 2024 at 20:58 UTC »

Damn. 2 cups of tea will weigh heavy in them now.