Yahoo! Sues Xfire Game Browser

Gamespot has the word that Yahoo! has filed a lawsuit against XFire, just two months after Yahoo!'s acquisition of the All-Seeing Eye, a similar game matching program. However, the lawsuit seems to revolve around the Yahoo! developed GameProwler. The program allows instant messaging users to see if buddies are currently playing games. From the article: "As this complaint is just one week old, no 'next steps' are certain. Lawyers familiar with patent law have told GameSpot a case like this could cost up to $2 million to defend and take up to two years to fully adjudicate."

Goody

[APE992]

Let's sue someone who does something better than us! Huray!

Re:Goody

[BoomerSooner]

Welcome to the world of patents and politicians that are owned by the corporations. Until people get some backbone and quit voting because they are afraid be prepared for more of the same.

Re:Goody

[RichardX]

Let's sue someone who does something better than us! Huray!

Dear Sir/Madam.
As a legal representative of Yahoo Inc. I request that you immediately remove the above comment, which, by including the term "Huray!" infringes on Yahoo!'s ownership of all exclamatory words including "Yahoo!" "Yippee!" "Yee-haw!" "Hurray!" "Huray!" and "w00t!"

Failure to comply with this request will result in a squad of 600 pound gorillas kicking in your door and dragging you off to the federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" penetentiary

obligatory prior art post

[bersl2]

I know I've seen, at the very least, the old Gamespy program do this (i.e., keep a list of user names and whether they are playing on a server).

Anybody got a link to the text of the patent?

Re:obligatory prior art post

[edward.virtually@pob]

no, but i have a link to my post on prior art [slashdot.org]. just s/freeware/small/g.

Re:obligatory prior art post

[qad]

Slight nuance: Involving an instant messenging service to invite players. See Figure 2 [gamespot.com].

Patent on USPTO site

[Anonymous Coward]

Here [tinyurl.com]

Re:Patent on USPTO site

[aztektum]

This doesn't sound like it should have even been approved. The gist of it is "messenger client that tracks game servers and other players online status." WTF? Gamespy has been doing this since the late 90's.

Weak. I guess it is true, "Why innovate when you can litigate?!"

Re:Patent on USPTO site

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

I havn't read the patent so you might be right about it being bad, but Gamespy and Xfire (And Kali/ASE) are very different.

Gamespy is a server browser that can store the server you just connected to from it, and have other clients query you for it.

Kali and All Seeing Eye is a server browser that once you query all servers for their details and playerlists, allows you to search for someone.

Xfire is an IM client with a packet sniffer. It sniffs and sees you connecting to a HL server, and tells your buddy

Re:obligatory prior art post

[Cheapy]

(No, I haven't read TFA, I just am taking what other posters have said and using that.) I also remember Westwood Online (R.I.P. Westwood!) having a feature somewhat like this during Red Alert 2. And I'm sure Battle.net *had* to have a feature like this sometime before hand. I suppose that would be prior art.

Re:obligatory prior art post

[MikeFM]

I know I've used MUDs that did this for over a decade. You could play one MUD and use an IM-like network to see who was on other MUDs and chat with them or even play games with them. Seems the concept would be similar enough to invalidate such lame patents.

I remember doing similar things with BBS systems too.

Re:obligatory prior art post

[bedessen]

I don't know why no one has posted it yet but here's a link to the text of the patent [uspto.gov]. The claimed date of filing seems to be 3-July-2000, when the provisional patent was filed.

Is Microsoft next?

[cwestpha]

The ability to find out if freinds and contacts are currently online playing Xbox Live! has been a feature since 3.0 which has been out since before Halo 2 launched. So I wonder if this could be considered prior art (depending upon when Microsoft was working on it's development) or if Microsoft is the next target for a yahoo lawsuit.

Past Employee\Prior art

[qad]

From the article, it looks like there are two problems:

1)Kirmese, one of the Xfire's management, worked for Yahoo and came up with the patent in question while in Yahoo's employment.

2)Whether the implementation of connecting gamers through messenger programs under patent 6,699,125 is really enforceable.

Yahoo is concerned about a former employee using an implementation of connecting gamers together through a messenging service. Somehow, I suspect the patent itself might fall within prior art. The patent was awarded in 2004, and I seem to remember other examples of using messenging services to get games going.

Re:Past Employee\Prior art

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, like the MSN Gaming Zone - the ONLY way to get internet games going in most Microsoft-published titles is to use the zone.

Re:Past Employee\Prior art

[zarthrag]

I remember ICQ's "Play Quake" option way back in 96

Re:Past Employee\Prior art

[chotchki]

How about the most famous messaging system? Battle.net from Blizzard, and its also old enough to qualify as prior art.

Another "With an X" patent

[cgenman]

They've patented the standard way of doing online cross-game friends detection, but With an IM client. I see they've found up my patented "Way of patenting things with superficial addition X, with a browser" Since they already know it, I'd like to share it with you all.

Remember that this way of patenting things (with a browser) is patented, and is available for a nominal lawsuit when I catch you.

First take an everyday concept, like buying dogfood or raking your lawn. Explain this in excruiciatingly exacting language, carefully crafted to be as broad and unintelligible as possible. If necessary, run it through an obfuscation [queensu.ca] program to get the broadest possible interpretation bork. Then, and this is key, to the end of the patent add the words "with an X" where X is something the patent clerk doesn't really understand with a browser.

Here are some examples of things that you can get away with, err, add to the end of everyday activities, to get your own shiny new patent.

With the internet
With a CPU (whatever that would mean)
With an IM client
With XML
Live
With one click
With a shared data management paradigm arrangement
With multiple people at once
With an electronic circuit
With a cellular data network*
With a frick'in laser beam
With an open-source environment
With a closed-source environment
With a plug-in
With metadata
Automatically
With subdomains
With an encryption layer (cover all of your bases and encrypt this patent)

If you are still having trouble thinking up things to patent, see also this [eff.org] helpful list. No idea is too obvious or too widely in practice to slip by the patent office with a browser. Yes, for just 20 million dollars in theoretical damages awarded by a judge who also didn't know what they were doing, you too could sue the pants off of anyone mowing their lawn in a closed-source environment. I guarentee it!**

*Note that while "With a multiuser telephonic networking connection" is acceptable, "over the phone" is not.

**Not an express or implied guarentee.

Prior art

[IgD]

There used to be a program called Kali that did this back before games had in game browsers. This was used back in the Win95 and Doom days. I think Kali is still around in some form or the other.

Re:Prior art

[cronostitan]

Meanwhile Kali is very much alive again.... and yes.. Kali had this feature already in 1994.