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Sega suing Level 5 over patent infringement

H

Hobby

Member
Sega claims that Level Five are infringing on two of their patents used in Nintendo DS games. These patents outline the manipulation of a character in game with the usage of a stylus or one's finger. Sega seeks to halt sales, as well as the disposal of all 8 Inazuma Eleven titles, and are also seeking approximately 900 million yen in damages.

At the first oral hearings held on Dec. 7th, Level 5 expressed that they will challenge this case. They are currently preparing a counter case, and have not commented further at this time.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20121211-OYT1T00864.htm


Mod abuse:

RyanDG said:
Anyone familiar with Inazuma able to say whether or not this sounds like something in the game? Still digging for any others that I can find... But this one specifically referenced a soccer touch screen game...


(21)Application number : 2011-131223 (71)Applicant : SEGA CORP
(22)Date of filing : 13.06.2011 (72)Inventor : TSUTSUMI ATSUSHI
ITO MITSUHIRO

(54) IMAGE PROCESSOR AND METHOD THEREOF
(57)Abstract:
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To smoothly control the movement of a character by a simple operation.
SOLUTION: When carrying out one-two pass from one character 50 to the other character 52, single or double operation is carried out to the other character 52 on a touch panel 22. When the character 50 is drug-operated and moved thereafter, a ball is automatically passed back from the ally character 52 to the character 50 after the ball is moved to the ally character 52.


Edit - Image included with the patent:
Yd1mP.jpg
Click to expand...
 
B

Big Papa Husker

Member
Hobby said:
Sega claims that Level Five are infringing on two of their patents used in Nintendo DS games. These patents involve manipulating a character in game with the usage of a stylus or one's finger. Sega seeks to halt sales, as well as the disposal of all 8 Inazuma Eleven titles, and are also seeking approximately 900 million yen in damages.

At the first oral hearings held on Dec. 7th, Level 5 expressed that they will challenge this case. They are currently preparing a counter case, and have not commented further at this time.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20121211-OYT1T00864.htm
Click to expand...

Hell, don't a shit-ton of DS games do that?
 
F

farnham

Banned
When I read this my gut reaction was : "Poor sega trying to maintain life by leeching off license money from other companies which actually have sales.."


Why?
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Member
Didn't SEGA patent a lot of stuff relating to changing 3D views in the 1990s as well?

I think we're on the verge of witnessing Sega's evolution into a fully fledged patent troll.
 
A

astronautcowboy

Member
Depending on the innards of the patent, they could have a case, but why does SEGA love bad publicity so much? Suing Level-5 is like arresting Santa Claus for breaking and entering.
 
F

Foshy

Member
Hobby said:
Sega claims that Level Five are infringing on two of their patents used in Nintendo DS games. These patents outline the manipulation of a character in game with the usage of a stylus or one's finger. Sega seeks to halt sales, as well as the disposal of all 8 Inazuma Eleven titles, and are also seeking approximately 900 million yen in damages.

At the first oral hearings held on Dec. 7th, Level 5 expressed that they will challenge this case. They are currently preparing a counter case, and have not commented further at this time.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20121211-OYT1T00864.htm
Click to expand...
Sounds like they could sue every dev ever who made a DS game over this.
 
T

thekonamicode

Member
How are patents like these even allowed? I'm going to patent coming to a full stop at a stop-sign. All you suckers are going to owe me so much money now.
 
J

Jonnyram

Member
You probably want to do a bit of research into this before claiming everyone else does it, or it being a broad patent. The article states, for starters, that Sega is claiming two patents related to the control of characters via touchpen have been violated. I suspect the patents are a little more specific than just "player touches character; character moves".
 
A

abstract alien

Member
chickdigger802 said:
Is sega also gonna sue nintendo (zelda ds games) and every single ios dev?
Click to expand...

This was my first though. There has to be something else at play here, because Sega should literally be able to pop out a next gen Dreamcast with the amount of money they would get. EVERYONE has broken that patent lol
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
Without seeing the details of the patent, on its face, it looks like any lawyer worth his or her salt could blow it up.

Does Japan's civil system have the losing party pay the winning party's legal fees? Because I can see Sega coming out of this worse than they went in.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Craig Majaski said:
I wonder if this will be the beginning of the end for Sega once and for all? I guess we need to know more about the case.
Click to expand...
If so I kind of hope Nintendo just buys their IP and development houses. Go full asshole, get rewarded with the most ironic fate.

... Though come to think of it, there's probably a lot of teenagers and even 20 year olds who never really ever saw them as rivals since that diminished in the 32-bit generation and obviously fully died out with the death of the GameCube.
 
I

idlethreats

Member
I have no idea what the merits of Sega's claims are but come on, but it seems very unlikely that Sega has a patent that is a broadly defined as the article's description. That is probably just a simplistic paraphrasing that describes none of the nuances that Sega is probably suing over.
 
E

Eusis

Member
idlethreats said:
I have no idea what the merits of Sega's claims are but come on, but it seems very unlikely that Sega has a patent that is a broadly defined as the article's description. That is probably just a simplistic paraphrasing that describes none of the nuances that Sega is probably suing over.
Click to expand...
If there's actual code stolen or something then I could easily flip around there, but I think most of us are very cynical over software based patent disputes since Apple went insanely defensive.
 
S

squall23

Member
Oh great Sega, please enlighten me as to how you would make a multi-million media franchise based on kids summoning deities and monsters with a kick of a football.

Ironically, this might be the wake up call Hino needs to send the series back in the right direction.
 
D

dani_dc

Member
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." -John Carmack
 
E

Eusis

Member
Easy_D said:
So final nail in Sega's coffin? They can't possibly win this, can they?
Click to expand...
If this were the US, I'd say they probably could. Europe, maybe not. Japan... I really have no idea how software patent disputes tend to go there, I'm not too optimistic for Level 5 to be honest short of a settlement that renders this whole thing a non-issue.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Has anyone researched into the specific patents which are being violated yet? Any registered patent should be available for viewing to the public on the Japan Trademarks and Patents website. Who's interested in digging? :)
 
B

bobbychalkers

Member
Hobby said:
Sega claims that Level Five are infringing on two of their patents used in Nintendo DS games. These patents outline the manipulation of a character in game with the usage of a stylus or one's finger. Sega seeks to halt sales, as well as the disposal of all 8 Inazuma Eleven titles, and are also seeking approximately 900 million yen in damages.

At the first oral hearings held on Dec. 7th, Level 5 expressed that they will challenge this case. They are currently preparing a counter case, and have not commented further at this time.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20121211-OYT1T00864.htm
Click to expand...
So....
TWEWY
Phantom Hourglass
Contact
Dragon Quest X...
 
I

idlethreats

Member
Eusis said:
If there's actual code stolen or something then I could easily flip around there, but I think most of us are very cynical over software based patent disputes since Apple went insanely defensive.
Click to expand...
Oh sure, I'm not disputing the cynicism here, it's well deserved. I'm just saying that Sega's patent is likely a bit more specific than "manipulating characters with stylus or finger," that said description is probably a very simplistic paraphrasing and not the actual thrust of Sega's claim. Not that patents as poorly written as that don't exist, but if Sega had a patent like that I feel like they would have started making noise about it loooooong before now.
 
C

crinale

Member
Level 5 is REALLY bad at securing their idea by patents.
While other software companies have hundreds or even thousands of software patents, IIRC Level 5 has very few of them, or even none.

I don't know whether that is good or bad, though.
 
K

Kyou

Member
duckroll said:
Has anyone researched into the specific patents which are being violated yet? Any registered patent should be available for viewing to the public on the Japan Trademarks and Patents website. Who's interested in digging? :)
Click to expand...

But wild speculation is so much more fun. It's got wild right there in the name!
 
O

Open Source

Banned
Jonnyram said:
You probably want to do a bit of research into this before claiming everyone else does it, or it being a broad patent. The article states, for starters, that Sega is claiming two patents related to the control of characters via touchpen have been violated. I suspect the patents are a little more specific than just "player touches character; character moves".
Click to expand...

I wish more posters had this combination of reading comprehension and critical thinking.
 
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