Computer Solitaire Patented?

Sadburger writes "Saw this over on GameDev: 'Thomas Warfield of Pretty Good Solitaire is reporting in his most recent blog that: 'My company has received the following letter from a law firm claiming to have a client that has patented computer solitaire. And by extension, all computer card games. I am not kidding.' Patent law strikes again...' Anyone know a good patent lawyer?" Someone alert the educational sector, since at least half my programming classes involved solitaire, poker, or blackjack.

Wha???

Fascinating. I didn't know that someone could patent a game that predates their very existence on this planet. Guess it's time for me to start trying to patent a computer version of Jousing or Gladitorial Combat or something

Kenix

-Minister of Disinformation

Obligatory Joke

I didn't know SCO had a games division.

Re:Obligatory Joke

Why would they need one? They don't have an OS division either.

Re:Obligatory Joke

One wonders, that considering the troubles SCO has seen, what kind of harrasment might be provoked by this action against
Goldberg; Sheldon F. (3360 E. Serene, Henderson, NV 89014);

Goldberg? Subarine pattent?

Is it just me, or isn't Goldberg the guy who was notorious for making submarine pattents for anything and everything computer related before they were even made?

I think he even tried pattenting a memory chip originally, and somehow delayed it and fudged it over time into a microprocessor.

The USPTO needs a overhaul and right soon.

Wow

Think of the royalties Microsoft will have to pay!

Maybe the patent office never heard of Wes Cherry

You know, the guy who wrote solitaire for Windows [slashdot.org] back in the early 90s.

Re:Maybe the patent office never heard of Wes Cher

I used to run Solitaire (Hoyle) on my Tandy 1000 SL/2 with Hard Drive kit. Back in the 80's. And before that, I had Sol on a TRD 80 Model II on the 8" floppy. Talk about prior art, I think there was a version for the VAX.

Re:Maybe the patent office never heard of Wes Cher

They're specifically patenting providing card games over a network.

Solitaire over a network? Sounds like a very unbalanced players/observers ratio there.

In other news

A law firm wrote to the Copyright Office claiming to own the copyright on Copyright Offices. Said firm asked for an undisclosed sum of money or else they would sue and get the Copyright Office closed for copyright infringment.

Funny? Wait till we get there :-(

Watch Out!

I'm going to patent floating point math.

The mother of all Patents!

I shall patent the process by which one attains a patent?.. and by extension all subsequent patents!

I'll be a patent god with little bolts of patent energy zapping cash from every pore! People and corporations alike will fall at my feet and beg for mercy as I pitilessly strip them of financial resources...

BEHOLD! I *AM* PATENT LAW!

Computer Solitaire?

That's stupid. Computers don't even like card games. Except for WOPR, who was all about playing games.

Why would they sit around for hours playing (cards) with themselves?

I wonder if I could patent human solitaire? Or better yet, humans playing with themselves...I would be richer than Billy Gates!

Re:Computer Solitaire?

Actually, OS/2 shipped with a solitaire game (Yukon) that would play itself, thus saving the users countless hours of time and freeing them up to perform more productive tasks!

prior art?

Unless the patent was filed before 1979, there is plenty of prior art. I remember playing poker and blackjack on my TRS-80 when I was 4 years old.

Microsoft will stomp on this

If this is allowed to happen all the MCSE's (Minesweeper Consultants, Solitaire Experts) will have to pay royalties.

Missing the point

The point of the blog is not whether to fight it or not, but to marshall resources to totally obliterate the patent in question. Fighting it in court will be easy, but the point is to stop this patent from being used against others.

I suggest reading the comments in the blog. Several other developer friends of mine have posted (Scott, Sean! What's up?) great points. Scott Miller posted a great point about his company being sued because a wrestler thought his name was stolen for a game: Max Payne. The stupidity and greed extends far and wide.

Re:Missing the point

The case of the wrestler Maxx Payne versus the game Max Payne certainly seems a legitimate case to me. Scott Miller calls the guy a nobody, but he wasn't a nobody back in his day. He was in the WWF. He had t-shirts and other merchandice with his name and likeness on them.

Now, I think that the game having the same name is probably accidental, but that doesn't mean that the game has effectivly prevented this guy from ever using that name again -- a name he had used professionally for years before the game was first announced. In that, I would think that it wasn't necessarilly about greed or stupidity. It might be, but not necessarilly.

semi-dupe but in sheep's clothing.

we've seen this idiot before. last time he was here, he was C&Ding starchamber.net [slashdot.org]. Apparently he took our "overly broad" patent comments to heart and has started going after every online game he can find... gotta love it.

OK... I got your prior art right here, pal

If I can dig up my old Apple //c floppies and assuming they still work, I can provide evidence in the way of an Apple BASIC Blackjack program under ProDOS 1.1.1.

Looks like patents cover games with ads

After looking at the abstract for all three of the patents liked in the blog entry:

• 1 [164.195.100.11]
• 2 [164.195.100.11]
• 3 [164.195.100.11]

They cover card games that would also include advertisements and collecting user information and profiles... so this could cover online card games done through MSN Gaming Zone or via Yahoo... amongst other online card gaming sites.

Dear Thomas Warfield:

Go play with yourself.

No excuse anymore

The Patent office just ran out of excuses for allowing frivilous patents through the process. It is understandable that a patent examiner might not be equipped enough to understand a one-click shopping patent, or a patent about 3rd party payment transactions over a phone network, but not understanding solitare? Even in its currently obfuscated form the patent is flagrantly obvious. Even in 1995 people were talking about how much time is wasted playing computer solitare. It would be like someone patenting the concept of a winged reusable space vehicle after the Columbia explosion, or patenting a vaccuum tube based moving picture box.

The only way this is going to change is if the patent office becomes liable for the total defense costs + 20% of anybody who engaged in a patent fight and had the patent ruled invalid. Expecting the American small businessman to do the patent office's job for them is rediculous. They are charged with being an authority on a particular and significant portion of US law, but have degraded into a rubber-stamp. Anyone who even read this patent would have declared it invalid. The patent office must feel the financial pinch of their mistakes, or they will continue to make them as part of their modus operandi.

It is no longer enough to go hunting against one painfully obvious patent at a time. We must correct the system that is so incompetent as to allow anything at all to be approved with the full protection of the law. That system, the patent office, and the people who work there, just ran out of excuses.

A radical idea

These are the same thugs that are harassing Star Chamber [slashdot.org]. I've been thinking about how to combat this problem. Perhaps it's time for a Viral Patent License. Here's how it would work:

A Viral Patent Board would be set up as a charitable foundation, with the stated goal of eliminating the use of software patents.

Companies are either VPL friendly, neutral, or agressive.

All companies start as neutral.

A company remains neutral if they have never fired the first shot, but have not yet given the VPB permission to use their portfolio.

A company is agressive if they have threatened a friendly or neutral company for software patent infringement. IOW, if you ever fire the first shot in a patent battle, you are forever considered agressive.

A company is friendly if they have:
1. Promised in writing to never fire the first shot.
2. Allow their entire software patent portfolio, now and in the future, to be used by the Viral Patent Board to threaten agressive companies. This license is non-exclusive.
3. Require in the licensing terms of all their intellectual property that agressive companies be excluded from licensing. IOW, if you have a patent that Microsoft has licensed to incorporate into MS-Word, then part of your deal with Microsoft must be that MS-Word not be licensable by agressive companies.
4. Agree that beginning in 2009, it's open season on neutral companies as well, and the Viral Patent Board may sue them as they see fit.

The net effect would be that all software would eventually become infected with Viral Patent Board controlled IP, and such software would not be licensable by agressive companies. This means that even if you write no software - you're nothing but a software patent litigator - you must conduct your business without the aid of software of any kind. This might be further extended to the attorneys that work for such companies, so that they could not use software, even at home.

I'm posting as AC because I am in the MMO games business, and own a patent critical to that business that many companies are infringing on. I am willing be the first to hand over my patent to stop this nonsense.

Sue the patent office?

The USPTO regularly approves bogus software patents that litigator-companies use to extort money from other companies. The sued companies face costs resulting from paying fees for litigation, maybe use of the patents, and maybe lost business due to the threat.

I was wondering if it is possible in our legal system to sue the USPTO for causing these financial damages through their incompetent approval of bogus patents?

End Intellectual Slavery Now!

These trivial patents are keeping bright, industrious people working as virtual slaves for the established software publishers who steal the fruit of their mental labor through legal chicanery. The copyright and patent laws intended purpose of furthering Progress is not being accomplished. Instead they have been subverted to the point where the Progress is greatly slowed and only the wealthy can fight one of these (ought to be) unenforceable patents long enough to overturn it.

personally,

If I were looking for multiplayer card games on computers over networks (i.e., 'prior art'), I'd start with door games [geocities.com]. Hey, looks like card games to me. :)

Word from the Patent Office

OK... so the other day I called the Patent Office and asked them about how one would challenge a Patent based on the latest DNS Patent fiasco.

After talking to someone who seemed to discourage me from challenging a Patent that has signifigant prior art ("well it costs a lot of money, etc") he mentioned that the whole basis for a Patent is it's Claims section. If the Claims section is, in fact, something brand new then a patent will go through.

The interesting part is that a challenge to a patent will cost you $2,500 and $8,000+ if you want to have a part in the challenge. It seems to me that Congress should step in and regulate the USPTO as it seems as though they are becoming a potential hinderance to innovation by allowing prior art patents where they should be protecting innovation.

Now I don't know about any other United States based /.ers but my Congressman/woman holds "town meetings" about once a year. I went to one and they actually proved somewhat helpful when I needed to get my point across. The key when speaking at these is to not be confrontations, have facts ready to go, and speak to the audience. In speaking to the audience, I mean finding something that will make them nod their heads in aggreement with you. That was you make the issue "hot" to that Congressman/woman. If you seem like a lone wolf with an issue, it won't become one. The Congressman/woman's job it to represent the population and the more that this issue represents, the hotter the issue it will become.

Don't get pissed, lobby for change. I know we (as in my fellow geeks) like to avoid politics, but we need to start becoming more of a voice of change...

What about casinos?

This guy is just trying to bully small companies into paying him with these patents. If he actually tried pushing this on bigger companies, they trash his life, buy it from him, and then trash it some more.

The games do not require a manual dealer and in one embodiment, played in a gaming establishment using low cost gaming stations.

Do not require a manual dealer? Played in a gaming establishment using low cost gaming stations? Sounds like casinos to me.

Dismantle the USPTO

The patent office is obviously too stupid to exist. Obviously they know there's prior art -- it's probably on the computers they use at work. What's more, many of the prior art examples are copyrighted, so they can't claim not to know without admitting they're not doing their job in that respect.

This has gone beyond gross incompetence. They're ignoring other laws as well as common sense. They've gone rogue. The USPTO needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up, with checks and balances built in to prevent this rampant stupidity from reccurring.

Network Gaming

Those patents all relate to network gaming for card games. Now I was under the impression that Solitaire was a single-player game (hence the name)

How would that relate to network play?

whatever happened to prior art?

Wouldn't it be ironic if they took so long in giving these guys the patent because they were spending time playing windows solitaire?

In that case...

I am hereby filing a patent for a programs in which the output "Hello World" comes up on the screen.

Anyone who copies this will feel the wrath of my lawyers...

Didnt I predict this?

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=94715&ci d=8124679 It's not exactly the same, but close to what I said

Call their bluff (no pun intended)

I admire Thomas for his commitment to fighting this patent.

It might be worthwhile to inform Goldberg Patents that you are aware of other infringements to their patent, namely Microsoft and that you are forwarding their patent complaint to Microsoft as a gesture of good will. I would explain that after the Eolas patent incident, Microsoft would surely be sensitive to such blatent patent infringement as is present in Microsoft windows and the Microsoft Gaming Network.

Maybe that will get their attention.

The Question Mark ?????????/

I patented the question mark ... I don't want to see anyone use it on /. I am also currently suing Dr. Evil's father.

Patent on Bullets entering your head?

For me, the stand out thing in this whole fiasco is that the developers don't go insane, hire a white van, fill it with baseball bats and friends, and drive round to see him. Personally I would be fuming! At the least I'd send them about five pages full off swearing (even knowing it would probably be a bad idea once lawyers are involved.) Then I'd have the added dilemma of costs: hire a good patent attorney, or an efficient hitman? Surely the latter is cheapest? There's two men near us who will drive over someone's legs for $100! for $180 they reverse back again (some sort of odd bonus scheme going on there...) To all the software developers associated with this nonsense: I salute your calm natures and courage 'under fire'. Considering how angry this makes me just to read, I'm sure that you've all been feeling a bit low, so I'm off to find anyone I can donate some money to for 'the cause' - be that patent attorney or otherwise ;)

My Patent

Well, I am going to be watching these guys because I have a patent on shuffling card games on a computer. You play that game once, but if I see a card is not in the same order in the next game I am going to sue!

Amazing

I think I'll try to patents. Obviously, given the above, it doesn't matter that patents were around before my granparents were conceived.

Here's your attorney... Oh sorry, you're in the US

When this would be a European (i.e. European Patent Convention member state) patent, it would have been an easy nut for me to crack. Playing games is excluded from patenting.

However, it's a US patent, which makes it a little more difficult.

What to do?
Tell the other party that he merely has a claim (18) aimed at a card playing game (solitaire) that already existed at the filing date and that the claim lacks novelty.
Perhaps he is able to amend the claim to a computer programmed to let a user play the game which might make the claim novel, but I'd say that's a claim directed at obvious subject matter.

Next, there's the Gilette defence:
Would it, at the date of filing be obvious to implement solitaire in a computer programme? If so (which is the case IMO), than you can't infringe the claim *or* the claim is invalid: a claim cannot be stretched to cover something that was known/obvious at the date of filing.

You can order the file wrapper with the USPTO, info is at their homepage. My US colleagues do this regularly, AFAIK it's no problem. This may help you to see how broad the claim can be interpreted.

This is of course no legal advice, as I am not a US patent attorney.

Re:Perhaps there is a deeper meaning

more harm than good... thats just silly, you just don't hear about the thousands of patents that are harmless or justifyed. 99% of patents protect something legitimate, its just the one precent you hear about.