Xfire Sued by Yahoo

  • Two Factor Authentication is now available on BeyondUnreal Forums. To configure it, visit your Profile and look for the "Two Step Verification" option on the left side. We can send codes via email (may be slower) or you can set up any TOTP Authenticator app on your phone (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) to deliver codes. It is highly recommended that you configure this to keep your account safe.
QAPete

QAPete

Chief Muckety Muck
Aug 17, 1999
1,329
0
0
63
Pottstown, PA, USA
www.beyondunreal.com
Xfire, a client-side program that helps you find your friends online, chat, and includes features such as P2P transfers, cross-game messaging and more, has been sued by Yahoo, according to a news.com report, for infringing on their software patent related to Yahoo's own game messaging technology. Xfire has responded, denying the validity of the claim. We've reported on Xfire several times in the past.

What are your views on software patents? Voice your opinion by clicking on our 'Comments' link.
 
FluXs

FluXs

old skool
Feb 12, 2002
1,026
0
0
39
United Kingdom
how did yahoo know about this without breaking any copyrights on xfire such as hacking away at it to see if xfire copied stuff...

still, go xfire!. yahoo must be low on cash atm
 
M

Mychaeel

New Member
Oct 3, 2001
3,830
0
0
47
Frankfurt/Main, Germany
www.planetjailbreak.com
FluXs said:
how did yahoo know about this without breaking any copyrights on xfire such as hacking away at it to see if xfire copied stuff...
Click to expand...
They don't need to prove that XFire copied anything from Yahoo. They probably don't even claim that XFire did anything like that. To satisfy patent infringement, it's sufficient to see that the infringing piece of software more or less does the same thing as the infringed one.

Patents and copyrights are two entirely different concepts. To infringe somebody's copyright, you have to copy something of their work -- as you said. To infringe a patent, though, it's sufficient to just do something to the same end that somebody else patented -- even if you developed it all by yourself, perhaps even had the same idea yourself, or possibly didn't even know somebody else had the same idea (and patented it).

So, basically, you can be legally sued for patent infringement for stuff you created all by yourself in the best faith.

Copyrights are what makes the commercial software development industry work (which is a good thing). Patents -- in the software industry -- are useless at best and harmful at worst, as demonstrated by the case in this news posting.
 
T

Timonator

Guest
i think i'll patent going to the toilet, i'll be a rich man, soon! muhaha!

oh **** i think microsoft already has that patent pending lol

btw: for me as a programmer the ePatents are THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN!
im developing a game right now, and if the ePatents would get me i would have to pay, like, a few couple of millions of billiards of US$ (omg teh suxx0r!)

ah well... theres a petition against those patents somewhere on the web... just google for "no ePatents" or so
 
Shrimp

Shrimp

Seafood splatter
Jan 13, 2003
740
0
16
40
Deep in South Africa
shrimpworks.za.net
Software patents are absolutely pathetic.

Fairly soon Open Source will be dead. Freeware will be gone. Alternatives to one or two software giants' products will be eradicated.

You will have the choice on ONE word processor, ONE spreadsheet, ONE graphics API (bye bye OpenGL), ONE messaging service, etc, etc, etc.

What about Gamespy Arcade? Does that not have buddy notifications and chat features all in one? That has been around for years before that patent was created. Are the going to sue Valve/Steam as well?

Where will software patents ever end? It's the lamest bunch of crap anyone ever thoght of doind. Ever.
 
Nemephosis

Nemephosis

Earning my Infrequent Flier miles
Aug 10, 2000
7,711
3
38
"Xfire does not infringe the Yahoo patent."

Yeah, wonderful reply. I buy that.
 
S

SquirrelZero

New Member
Apr 5, 2003
144
0
0
frag-ops.fragwhored.com
This is insane, absolutely insane. The bottom line Yahoo is presenting is Microsoftesque -- "You've made a piece of software that does what ours does only better, so now we're going to drown your ass in legal fees until you starve. We want your heart. We want to eat your children. Praise be software patents!"
 
A

Athenor

Guest
I thoroughly agree. Software code is firmly in the realm of copyrights, as it is written code, created to serve. It is -intellectual properly-, and quite honestly it's impossible to write code that does similar functions without having similarities in the code.

I didn't even know E-patents existed. I figured the furthest they had was DMCA encryption protection....

Athenor
 
W0RF

W0RF

BuF Greeter, News Bagger
Apr 19, 2002
8,731
0
36
47
Columbus, OH
Visit site
The US Patent Office is swamped with patent applications. As such, sometimes they push things through without reviewing them properly.

... which is how Amazon (I think) was able to patent "one-click" purchasing, which basically means other online resellers would require you to click, go to some other confirmation page, and click a second time to purchase. What a revolutionary idea, you must patent one-click purchasing right away. :rolleyes:
 
mackey

mackey

Cometh the apocalypse.
Aug 27, 2004
120
0
0
41
England
www.fpscentral.com
\/\/0RF said:
The US Patent Office is swamped with patent applications. As such, sometimes they push things through without reviewing them properly.

... which is how Amazon (I think) was able to patent "one-click" purchasing, which basically means other online resellers would require you to click, go to some other confirmation page, and click a second time to purchase. What a revolutionary idea, you must patent one-click purchasing right away. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Nightmare.

Does Yahoo messenger send pm's to friends in-game? Anyway, similar to what someone else started to say, surely Yahoo would be obliged to sue MSN messenger, Trillian and all the others?

Personally I reckon this is an attack on XFire to cripple them and draw users away from XFire (when their loses start to affect updates and maintenance of the software) and drag them to Yahoo's new baby All Seeing Eye. Just a theory.
 
J

Jackal

Crapass
Nov 13, 2003
8,179
57
48
Somewhere Over The Rainbow...
www.beyondunreal.com
Apostle11 said:
Nightmare.

Does Yahoo messenger send pm's to friends in-game? Anyway, similar to what someone else started to say, surely Yahoo would be obliged to sue MSN messenger, Trillian and all the others?

Personally I reckon this is an attack on XFire to cripple them and draw users away from XFire (when their loses start to affect updates and maintenance of the software) and drag them to Yahoo's new baby All Seeing Eye. Just a theory.
Click to expand...


I think you may have something here. They just got ASE...now they want Xfire? Next, like you said will be Trillian, then im sure Yahoo will sue Google for there new Gmail

This sorta goes with this.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050204/ap_on_fe_st/music_lawsuit
 
Last edited:
B

BtDMH

Guest
Clan UED founder

Another scenerio of "big rich company sues little startup company".
Yahoo knows they can drag along a legal battle with their abundance of available resources along till Xfire has to give in to Yahoo because Xfire doesnt have the resources to fight a drawn out legal matter. But hey that is the American way. "You got money, you get your way." And though it may be dirty business, dont worry, just like Yahoo and it's legal representitives would tell you ... "It's legal".

Oh, and there seems to be a little matter to address here. I hold the American patent on the binary string used to create the letter "e", and I have seen many of you have infringed on that patent in your previous posts ... my gorillas ... I mean my legal team will be contacting you soon with information how you can properly compensate me before having to take legal action. Thank you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom