11mo ago

Zynga owes IBM $45M after using 1980s patented technology for hit games

arstechnica.com

Zynga plans to appeal and confirms no games will be affected.

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IBM argued that its patent, initially used to launch Prodigy, remains "fundamental to the efficient communication of Internet content." Known as patent '849, that patent introduced "novel methods for presenting applications and advertisements in an interactive service that would take advantage of the computing power of each user’s personal computer (PC) and thereby reduce demand on host servers, such as those used by Prodigy," which made it "more efficient than conventional systems."
According to IBM's complaint, "By harnessing the processing and storage capabilities of the user’s PC, applications could then be composed on the fly from objects stored locally on the PC, reducing reliance on Prodigy’s server and network resources."
The jury found that Zynga infringed that patent, as well as a '719 patent designed to "improve the performance" of Internet apps by "reducing network communication delays." That patent describes technology that improves an app's performance by "reducing the number of required interactions between client and server," IBM's complaint said, and also makes it easier to develop and update apps.
All I can say is yikes.
- I'm sure the patent made sense at the time, but it seems pretty generic now. Additionally, shouldn't the patent have expired at this point? Why is it still being enforced?
  
  That was my thoughts. Patents normally expire after 20 years, so how is a patent from the 80s still valid after nearly 40?
- Yeah, bullshit patents.
- Every single phone application does this. The entire Google and Apple app store economy is built on the local host doing something to make it easier on the servers.
  
  A good chunk of the internet in general as well. I don't see how this is in any way enforcable. So fucking many things do this.
Fuck Zynga, but "Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service" is clearly an invalid patent even if it was applied 20 years ago
It should be possible to patent only real stuff, not broad concepts that can be applied to everything
Patents aid in genocide.
There are hundreds of thousands of industrial processes that we need to change and innovate to combat climate change. Any small innovation will be patented and then potentially exploited to extract the maximum amount of profit. This reduces the pace of innovation generally, and makes greener more energy efficient solutions slower to be adopted.
Similar can be argued about advertising in general of course, they lead to more consumerism and more resource and energy use and why first world has such insane GHG per capita.
Does anyone know how IBM is allowed to sue for patents from the 80s even as far back as 2014? I thought they should have expired by then?

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