Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 58 (M)
Posts: 2432
PokerStars PS have taken over the battle to patent FT Full Tilt’s Rush Poker according to a recent eGaming Review article.
Having never secured exclusive rights to the software they created a few years ago, Full Tilt's fight has now been handed to PokerStars along with the rest of their company.
PokerStars have immediately asked for the case to be postponed, with their lawyer, Matthew Dixon, stating:
"My client only became involved in this application seven weeks ago, having been transferred the application by court order from a non-trading company. Since then my client has been seeking suitable representation, as well as dealing with the ramifications of the transfer of assets."
Because Full Tilt never managed to acquire a patent a number of copies emerged, including PokerStars' own Zoom Poker, but now it seems the new owners are moving to these identical products.
Speaking out against the claim, Per Hildebrand, the founder of InstaDeal, said that PokerStars' lawyers must have once "concluded that the product is not patentable as they launched Zoom and now want to argue that it is patentable".
Edited by Sorin888 (25 September 2012 @ 18:43 GMT)
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 10090
i don't understand what do they want to patent? the only thing that can have a patent or copyright to be more precise is the name, nothing else i see that can be protected- ipoker have their own speed poker, pokerstars zoom poker- so what's the point to patent anything when competitors already have their own products running for some time
Joined: Dec '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 707
Posted by pochui: i don't understand what do they want to patent? the only thing that can have a patent or copyright to be more precise is the name, nothing else i see that can be protected- ipoker have their own speed poker, pokerstars zoom poker- so what's the point to patent anything when competitors already have their own products running for some time
you can patent your software and products so that no one else can copy it without paying royalties etc. for example when samsung launched some software on their phones apple took them to court for copying, so im assuming its something along them lines...but as is stated they cant really pantent it as they have ripped it off themselves..lol
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
lmao. I always thought it would be difficult for fulltilt to protect their idea of rush poker, as fantastic as it was, but when they went under I think the issue became void, and any site could copy it. Pokerstars have no right to complain when they have their own version. It's too late to make the other sites get rid now and surely they would have to ditch zoom poker to be able to argue this is exclusive to ftp. The only possible win I can think of is that other sites would have to pay compensation to fulltilt but then they would have to go to court with each poker site individually proving why their version infringes on the original rush poker and why this would have affected ftps customer base. In other words a complete waste of time.
It also occurs to me that if rush poker was patentable why wasn't the first idea to have online poker and why didn't the first online poker site try to sue the sites that copied them.
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
Why not going after the patent, if they are figuring out they may get some extra money. Yes, they have gone over the edge themselves with their own version of rush, but now they own both companies, so if anything happens, they will just take the money from the right pocket, and put it in the left one
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
Posted by Mober: Why not going after the patent, if they are figuring out they may get some extra money. Yes, they have gone over the edge themselves with their own version of rush, but now they own both companies, so if anything happens, they will just take the money from the right pocket, and put it in the left one
You mean the pockets of lawyers and accountants. Lawyers to get the royalties from the other sites and accountants to pay as little of those royalties as possible.
Joined: May '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 58 (M)
Posts: 1372
Code, name and the design can be protected but the rules of a game can't be. So, provided a competitor doesn't copy the look of Zoom, doesn't use the name Zoom and uses their own code they can't be touched.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
Never though about te patente of an online product. It’s a tough question, but I think it should be patentable. If all other software is, why not something like this. Than can use similar code lines, and the final product can even have the same appearance, if it does exactly the same with different line codes. But if the lines codes are the same, that means copy, plagiarism. Think about the cars technology: they all have wheels and a steering wheel and air condition, but they are all patented.
