back to article IBM scores $45M zinger from Zynga in patent wringer

IBM's patent farm has yielded another bumper crop, with a Delaware jury awarding Big Blue $45 million in damages from mobile games maker Zynga.  Jurors decided [PDF] last week that FarmVille maker Zynga, and its subsidiary Chartboost, had infringed on two IBM patents - including one from way back in the Prodigy days of 1989. …

  1. IGotOut Silver badge

    Seriously?

    Patents that old are still valid?

    The system is completely and utterly broken and no one will fix it because....well money.

    1. Homo.Sapien.Floridanus

      Re: Seriously?

      I’ve never received compensation or credit for my patent no. 1: “method for stroking perpendicular wood sticks causing friction-induced combustion” probably because lawyering wasn’t invented back then.

      - Thag, Inventor

    2. I am David Jones Silver badge

      Re: Seriously?

      Most patents are valid for max 20 years (pharma gets more time). But, unless barred by a statute of limitation, you can sue for past infringements.

    3. Mage Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Seriously?

      Stuff like that shouldn't be patentable.

      Arguably what's used for shouldn't be allowed either, but that's a different bottle of maggots.

  2. b0llchit Silver badge
    FAIL

    Software and business patents

    Leeches... and everybody else (of any importance) lost.

    1. David 132 Silver badge

      Re: Software and business patents

      Yeah, but it's Zynga... this is definitely one of those wasp vs. scorpion "can't they both lose?" scenarios.

      1. el_oscuro

        Re: Software and business patents

        Hopefully, they can both go bankrupt, stiffing the lawyers in the process.

  3. Paul 14
    Coat

    I've taken out a patent on the concept of money which means that every transaction everywhere ever owes me a cut. As a result I should now be the richest man that ever lived but I can't afford a dang lawyer to take the whole world to court....

  4. JRStern

    And this is why the patent system is now dead

    IBM has been doing this for fifty-plus years.

    Maybe there was some ancient period when it made sense, maybe not.

    99% of patent cases are nonsense - the patent is invalid, not remotely what the system was made for.

    And 99% of the time the biggest company wins, bludgeoning the opponent with lawfare.

    Little guys never succeed in enforcing patents against big guys.

    PTO has been invalidating its own issued patents for the last twenty years.

    And it's all going on quietly - we seem to have worse problems to worry about.

    What a mess.

    1. Irongut Silver badge

      Re: And this is why the patent system is now dead

      > PTO has been invalidating its own issued patents for the last twenty years.

      US PTO. RoW not so much.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IBM are patent trolls..

    Without royalties, they would be bankrupt.

    1. ZX8301

      But it cuts both ways - if IBM hadn’t paid patent royalties on the Williams tube the National Research Development Corporation would’ve been still-born and we’d have missed out on Hovercraft, Pegasus computers, Ambisonics and erm, Sinclair ‘pocket’ televisions.

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