Is Zynga Trying To Patent Virtual Currency? 89
sarysa writes "Techcrunch spotted a recent patent application by Zynga, attempting to patent virtual currency purchased with real money for use in a gambling context. It is unlikely that the application will pass due to a plethora of prior art where free MMOs that have gambling minigames would qualify, but Techcrunch also spotted that the application mentions Farmville as an example of embodiment. This indicates that Zynga may be attempting to patent non-refundable virtual currency as a whole. Should be interestering to see how this develops."
The Major BBS circa 1990 and poker. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Major BBS by Galacticomm had a multiplayer poker game where you converted credits you bought for general use (usually used for metered online time) into poker chips, with the ability to win more credits.
Now I'm not a patent lawyer, but this paten sounds exactly, and I mean exactly like how we used to play.
prior art (Score:2, Interesting)
Back when precious metals were the currency, fiat currency is virtual currency.
If we want to stick to the IT field, with fractional reserve banking and dematerialization, normal currency is even more virtual than virtual one. The world is under the spell of numbers in a computer.
Patents on one side, pirate parties pushing for the complete removal of copyright on the other side... Both options would make people poorer, the second one seems the less troublesome but something in the middle would be the best: you can assert copyright but then you cannot disperse free samples to entice people (either it's open or it's behind a paywall), you can patent stuff that other people can't come up with on their own, you can sue, or even directly get compensation for something like "the actual damage infringement caused minus the advantages (publicity) gotten from piracy".
Facebook v. Zynga (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems to me that Zynga is trying to end-run Facebook's attempt to take control of virtual currency transactions in Facebook apps. If they can get a patent on virtual currency, they can try to extort a big fat patent license fee from Facebook or otherwise escape the new Facebook Credits.
It will be interesting to see if Facebook contests this patent application.
Make the USPTO liable for invalidated patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
The USPTO does not have (any or) enough patent/trademark clerks to really search out all instances of prior-art and because of the large back log are encouraged to just rubber stamp everything they come across if /they/ (who could be below-average in knowledge about a particular field) don't know of any prior art off-hand.
How about making the USPTO pay the legal bill whenever a patent is invalidated through the court system?
That way, there'd be no immediate punishment for granting bullshit patents. Patents that aren't challenged, wouldn't affect the USPTO's bottom line. But (if successful) would make it free for the challenging party to invalidate a patent. It would be a great incentive to watch general quality of issued patents, and perhaps hire enough people / raise fees to cover the actual required effort. If an important patent means a bigger legal bill when invalidated, that would help to pay more attention to patent applications with (potentially) wide impact.
I'm not a fan of patents in the 1st place, but weeding out the many nonsense-patents that are on record, would be a good start. Especially those nonsense-patents that patent trolls uses as beating stick, and that cost society a lot more (down the line) than hiring a few qualified patent clerks.
I ran the first SL casino 4 years before that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Zynga was founded in 2007, Facebook was founded in 2004, I ran a virtual currency casino in 2003, and even before that, there were already some standalone slot machines built by Linden Lab itself. WTF? :)
Re:prior art (Score:1, Interesting)
pirate parties pushing for the complete removal of copyright on the other side...
Please: don't fall for the FUD (I know, I know: media tend to portray that this way, but media aren't neutral parties to this fray).
Picking one random example [pirateparty.org.uk]. An abstract:
We will legalise use of copyright works where no money changes hands, which will give the public new rights [...]
Counterfeiting, and profiting directly from other people's work without paying them, will remain illegal.
Fear not. No complete removal of copyright in sight.
Re:The Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I think banks were even earlier. They started making metal/paper tokens with different values on them, and eventually evolved into an elaborate system handled by the governments around the world. The money on my Visa debit account feels pretty virtual too.
Re:casinos (Score:3, Interesting)
Invalidating or avoiding it will require reading the claims, not the name or the abstract.
You're right.
Basically claims any form of virtual currency. Online casinos have been doing this just about forever.
Restricts to gambling games. Online casinos have been doing this just about forever.
Appears to be essentially meaningless. WTF is a chip in a virtual currency context?
The claims carry on like this. 4 and 5 basically elaborate on things that all gambling systems must do. 6 is any virtual currency that can't be redeemed for real currency. 7 and 8 are the same as 4 and 5 only built on 6 rather than 1. 9 is selling in-game items for non-redeamable virtual currency; I expect Linden Labs will have a few things to say about that one, among others. 10 covers basically any imaginable implementation of 9. 11 is giving a gift of virtual currency, but only if the two players have a "friends" relationship set up. May be novel; I haven't seen it in any of the games I've played before, but hardly earth-shattering. 12-15 are the same as the first few claims but phrased from a "computer with a loaded program" perspective rather than a business-process perspective. 16 is basically the same as 11, only not restricted to currency, and requiring a client-server implementation. 17-20 are trivial, obvious variants of 16.
The rest of the application [google.com] is also pretty bizarre. Take a look [google.com] at figure 2. Basically, they've included a diagram of the organization of a typical computer, complete with northbridge and southbridge. Presumably because they think this will make the application look more technical than, "hey, gambling chips on a computer!!!1!"
Stupid Question (Score:3, Interesting)
I read it and as far as I can see the "innovation" is that you can't convert the virtual currency back into real currency. It's a bit thin and too generalised to be granted a patent on as far as I can figure out.
Unless I'm missing something it really is that simple and obvious.
Re:Fools (Score:1, Interesting)
I can use real money in a "computer-implemented" poker game online. Or in a "computer-implemented" slot machine. So real money neatly fits their definition.