
Patent trolls are shaking us down for selling “rubies” in our game - guildwriter
https://www.clickerheroes2.com/patent_trolls.php
======
Lasher
I passed this on to a friend of mine who has been doing virtual currency in
online games since the mid 1990s (MUDs) and has been called as an expert
witness in the past to defeat some of these "virtual currency" patents.

~~~
fragsworth
Hey. Developer of Clicker Heroes here.

More examples of prior art are very helpful, so that would help us out a lot.
Do you have any examples of any of these MUDs that had virtual currency?

~~~
mmihaly
Yeah. I'm the friend he mentioned. Achaea.com was the first game in the world
to use virtual currency/goods as its business model, back in 1997. Still live
today. My company's at ironrealms.com. I mailed you offering help.

~~~
fragsworth
Wow. I actually remember playing your game when I was 17. I can't remember
details about the virtual currency though.

The '838 patent was filed in 2000 (which is the effective date, 2007 is just
the processing date). Did Achaea have virtual currency before then? If so,
that would help us a lot.

~~~
mmihaly
Yep, we started doing it in 1997 and have plenty of documentation to that
effect.

~~~
Veelox
I love seeing patent trolls taken down.

------
jannotti
Trying to find other companies under the same threat is a great approach. In a
similar situation, this allowed my company to fight a patent troll and share
costs, so we didn't cave under the, "It'll cost us this much in legal fees
anyway" argument.

~~~
scarmig
There should be some kind of patent troll clearinghouse. Companies can check
it to see if other companies are reporting the same shakedown tactics for a
given patent.

Though, could a patent troll could get around that by spacing out the
trolling? So by the time any company finds another company that's been
trolled, they've already paid it up and don't have as much incentive to fight
the patent troll after the fact.

They could even offer a "discount" conditional upon mandatory non-disclosure
of the legal threat.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Most importantly, there need to be penalties for patent trolling. If you try
to enforce a patent even though you must know that there is prior art (e.g.
because you've been provided clear evidence of it), you go to jail. Not "the
bankrupt LLC is liable to pay some money it doesn't have", the actual people
behind it, behind actual bars.

Of course, the tricky part is not preventing legitimate patent litigation, but
if you word it carefully enough, it could make it risky enough for patent
trolls to not be worth it. The tradeoffs change when it's not LLC money at
risk but the participant's personal freedom, so even if only 10% of patent
trolls could be actually convicted, it might be enough to discourage the rest.

Or, of course, just dump software patents alltogether...

~~~
ebcode
really liking your second option there ... if only there were some way to
convince lawyers that their jobs were unnecessary.

------
zaroth
This patent is absurd... selling credits was invented about a day after the
concept of money itself. Accounting for those credits in a database was done
by the fucking Egyptians. What the heck does this patent actually _teach_? It
teaches absolutely nothing. It goes on for pages describing technology that
already existed at the time and for decades prior to 2000. It’s a disgrace and
an embarrassment.

~~~
cortesoft
I think credits actually pre-date currency.

~~~
kinghajj
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years)

------
mysterypie
In the PDF documents that Playsaurus has put online, the accuser's lawyers
have redacted one line, and that's in the "The lawsuit they will file if we
don't pay" document at the bottom, where it says:

    
    
      THE deBRUIN FIRM, LLC
      [Redacted]
      David W. deBruin (#4846)
      1201 N. Orange Street, Suite 500
      Wilmington, Delaware 19801
      Telephone: (302) 660-2744
      Facsimile: (302) 650-1574
      ddebruin@thedebruinfirm.com
    
      Of Counsel:
      RUBIN AND RUDMAN LLP
      Leslie L. Jacobs, Jr. (pro hac vice forthcoming)
      800 Connecticut Avenue, NW
      Washington, DC 20006
      Telephone: (240) 356-1549
      Facsimile: (202) 223-1849
      ljacobs@rubinrudman.com
      gcoman@rubinrudman.com
      Attorney for Plaintiff GTX Corp.
    

I was curious what was being redacted. Examining it with Acrobat Professional,
I was able to discover that it says:

    
    
      /s/ David W. deBruin
    

So it's just a signature.

Btw, I'm pretty sure that the redaction was done by accusing lawyers and not
by Playsaurus because the document author is "Leslie L. Jacobs", who is one of
the accuser's lawyers.

Though it's still not clear to me why the accuser has two sets of lawyers (THE
deBRUIN FIRM and RUBIN AND RUDMAN). Anyone know what might be up with that?

~~~
dragonwriter
It looks like Leslie L. Jacobs, Jr., of Rubin and Rudman is associated with
working in some manner on this case for the deBruin Firm, despite not being in
the regular employ of the firm, and hence is listed in the filing as “Of
Counsel” [0]

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_counsel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_counsel)

~~~
mysterypie
Do you suppose that the deBruin Firm did this deliberately to distance
themselves from the case, so they still get a cut of the money, but Leslie L.
Jacobs, Jr. and his firm Rubin and Rudman get the potentially bad publicity
for being patent trolls? Leslie L. Jacobs wrote _pro hac vice_ ("for this
occasion only") after his name, which makes it sound like a one time
engagement and not a frequent collaboration with the deBruin Firm.

~~~
dragonwriter
_pro hac vice_ on this kind of filing refers, I'm fairly certain, to the
lawyer not being regularly admitted to practice in the jurisdiction but being
(or seeking to be) permitted to practice for that specific case.

------
codingdave
Letters can be ignored. Lawsuits must be responded to. And that same 35K will
be offered as a deal after they file, if they file. They are trying to save
THEIR legal costs, not yours. Let them sue. Fight it in court. Hopefully win.
Counter-sue for your legal fees. Booyah.

Note: IANAL, and any actual lawyer would be less flippant. But seriously...
don't let attorneys bully you.

~~~
rlabrecque
Doesn't the article say this patent has been successfully used in the past and
thus there's likely precedence? :/

~~~
CodeWriter23
Yeah, 10 years ago. The anti-troll arsenal has grown extensively since then.
Personally, I'd file for a USPTO patent review and try to take the patent away
from them on the basis that it is neither novel nor innovative.

------
sli
Pretty obvious patent trolling if they're only going for this rather smalltime
developer and none of the high profile F2P game developers and big time game
developers releasing AAA games with a premium currency.

~~~
chapill
>Pretty obvious patent trolling

Not really. The patent was filed in 2000. Approved in 2007. It hasn't changed
hands. The company makes software.

Believe it or not, this is the US system working as intended.

An obvious troll is a patent holding company, with no products, who purchases
old patents, then goes on a suing spree for any company that uses printers.

~~~
TillE
Like the peculiarly specific definition of "startup" which is often used here,
I don't believe that very specific definition of patent trolling is commonly
accepted. I'm sure you could find examples from Slashdot 10+ years ago where
it's clearly intended as a more general "abusive exploitation of patents for
monetary gain".

~~~
chapill
The problem with accepting HN or Slashdot's definition is both groups are
extremely biased in this matter. The general consensus is patent troll == non
practicing entity.

[https://thelawdictionary.org/patent-
troll/](https://thelawdictionary.org/patent-troll/)

Everyone here can disagree all they want, but they're still wrong as far as
most lay persons are concerned.

------
oldcynic
Hard to decide how I feel here. I hate software patents and patent trolls, but
I also hate what f2p and premium currencies have done to gaming.

Which is the lesser of these evils?

~~~
bhargav
Not sure why this is even a question. The morality of the latter is subjective
while the former is not.

Have you seen the patent picture? They literally have a cell phone, connected
to a cloud, and other computers. How the fuck is this approved by the patent
office? That is literally how every transaction via cell phones occur.

~~~
fludlight
> How the fuck is this approved by the patent office?

Someone with a clue please go work at the USPTO and improve the situation.
They're hiring:

[https://www.usajobs.gov/Search?l=&l=&a=CM56&p=1&smin=17840&s...](https://www.usajobs.gov/Search?l=&l=&a=CM56&p=1&smin=17840&smax=500000)

~~~
gowld
Working for USPTO doesn't help. You'd have to go be the director of the USPTO

~~~
brokensegue
More like a legislator or judge

~~~
Nuzzerino
Or a single-issue, grassroots activist that knows how to organize and bring
attention to the issue. If you want something bad enough, it's yours.

------
chrismcb
Doesn't this basically boil down to "Something on a COMPUTER" and thus should
be invalidated by the Alice Corp decision? Not to mention the TON of prior
art, even prior to the 2000 patent (what does the 2007 patent provide over the
2000 patent?) I'm positive you could purchase credits on BBSes that you could
then use for ecommerce.

I haven't read the entire patent, but I fail to see the difference between the
2000 filing, and the 2007 filing. So how does that work?

------
WalterBright
Back in the 1970s, I played Monopoly on the PDP-10. The Monopoly money was
"virtual".

------
shmerl
_> their behavior to be abusive and terribly unethical._

Yep, it's called protection racket.

------
b1gtuna
Of course these trolls have no face or names. Hope someone can track the
actual owners down.

~~~
sli
[http://gtxcorp.com/](http://gtxcorp.com/)

Appears to be this company. Or they're using this company's name, but that
would be wildly stupid of them to attempt if they want any chance at all of
winning (which they already don't seem to have -- way too much prior art).

~~~
maaarghk
It is clearly this company - [http://www.gtx.com/](http://www.gtx.com/)

The inventor of the patent is listed on the register as Marvin T Ling. [1] The
gtx.com website has a press release stating the owner and founder of the
company is Marvin T. Ling. [2]

[1] [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7177838.PN.&OS=PN/7177838&RS=PN/7177838)

[2]
[http://www.gtx.com/about/press/aml_president_pr.asp](http://www.gtx.com/about/press/aml_president_pr.asp)

~~~
rs999gti
> Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce transactions using
> electronic tokens

So cam girl sites are under threat?

~~~
rhizome
Once they get some precedent under their belt. They have to do this via small-
time operators first because porn people have money.

~~~
kelnos
If most or all the small-time operators settle, that doesn't set precedent,
though, right? A judge isn't going to look at a future case and say "well, all
these other companies settled, so seems like the patent is valid". That would
be absurd.

~~~
chrismcb
Settling doesn't set precedent. Doesn't matter how many settle.

------
vadimberman
> EDIT (March 2, 2018): It appears that there are multiple "GTX Corps", so I
> want to make it clear that the ones going after us don't have much of an
> online presence

IANAL, just was curious about the identity and did some amateur sleuthing.
Results below...

The GTX Corp in Wikipedia seems like a real trading company but there is a
couple of odd things about it. It's a public company made of 7 (seven) people;
they have tracking products and 80 patents. Theoretically, it could be that
they supplement the legit business with patent trolling. But yes, it's not
very likely.

So I went to look up the patent info instead. If you google "US patent
7,177,838", you see that it's somewhat of a holy grail for the patent trolls.
It was used to sue Amazon, Apple, Visa, News Corp, Starbucks, and the whole
alphabet of multinationals. Many of these settled, as the lawyer of Playsaurus
mentioned. The name of the suing entity was Actus, LLC
([https://www.socialgameslaw.com/2010/06/actus-sues-for-
virtua...](https://www.socialgameslaw.com/2010/06/actus-sues-for-virtual-
currency-patent-infringement.html),
[https://www.law360.com/articles/124471/apple-amazon-out-
of-a...](https://www.law360.com/articles/124471/apple-amazon-out-of-actus-
patent-battle), [https://www.law360.com/articles/165880/visa-m-t-bank-
resolve...](https://www.law360.com/articles/165880/visa-m-t-bank-resolve-
actus-e-payment-patent-spat)). They don't seem to have any presence online,
although there is a website for Actus
([http://www.actus.company](http://www.actus.company)) but even though it
looks like a front for foreign intelligence operations, it does not seem to
have anything in common with that Actus.

The patent public record is here:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US7177838B1/en?oq=7%2c177%...](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7177838B1/en?oq=7%2c177%2c838).
It contains a history of assignments, giving a clue to what GTX actually is.

The first re-assignee was GTX Corporation (Arizona). The current one is GTX
Corporation (California). Between that, it was PayByClick and Actus, which is
when the mega-suits were filed. It seems improbable that the two GTX companies
are completely different.

The search in the California register turned nothing meaningful
([https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/CBS/SearchResults?SearchTy...](https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/CBS/SearchResults?SearchType=CORP&SearchCriteria=GTX&SearchSubType=Keyword)).
It's either the entities are named somewhat differently or dissolved.

The search in Arizona, on the other hand, produced interesting results. This
is the right GTX:
[http://ecorp.azcc.gov/Details/Corp?corpId=F00380025](http://ecorp.azcc.gov/Details/Corp?corpId=F00380025).
Founded in 1987, business type: technology. Details below.

The patent was filed by Marvin Ling on Jan 26, 2000. Already in May it was
reassigned to GTX. A family or an acquaintance? Let's see: the current CEO is
Andrew Ling. From the foundation until 2008, however, the president was Marvin
Ling, including the year 2000 when the patent was filed and reassigned. Andrew
Ling appears to be a lawyer in Arizona; his LinkedIn profile confirms that he
is the right person:
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlingattorney](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlingattorney).
And the website actually exists where it's supposed to be, just not liked by
Google:
[http://www.gtx.com/about/press/aml_president_pr.asp](http://www.gtx.com/about/press/aml_president_pr.asp).

The patent itself was reassigned to Pay By Click (sounds like an entity
materially interested in the patent) in 2002, after which the annual report
filing became irregular. In 2005, GTX received a notice with a threat of the
license revocation; same happened in 2013 and 2014. It became better after
that which coincided with the reassignment of the patent.

Summary. It looks like it's not a proxy set up by lawyers to sue. It appears
to be an old family business which was dormant for a while and now wants to
capitalise on an old patent that either someone else or a different structure
used to shake down a few giants.

While the GTX is registered in Arizona where its owners live, it seems to be a
Delaware corporation. I don't understand why they hired a law firm in Boston
to threaten a company in California. The guy is a lawyer; does it mean he is
not serious about the lawsuit? Does he expect you to haggle and offer, Russell
Peters style, $34,500 as the last price?

Good luck.

------
45h34jh53k4j
Id like to see worse. Let every patent be stripped from these predators. They
also advertise:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US7016536](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7016536)
which surely has plenty of prior art in image processing.

------
Oblouk
I have a feeling the accuser simply googled "premium currency" and found the
article posted by Playsaurus about abandoning F2P. They probably just took the
top 10 results skimming for smaller companies that were F2P. I guess this is
what you get for self publishing a game.

------
codecamper
I hope this message reaches you over all the noise here.

GTX Corp. may be a corporation whose securities are traded publicly.

However, they ARE NOT legitimate.

They are pure scum on another level beyond what they are doing to you.

They have had their stock promoted. Pump & Dump.

Have a look over these articles on Seeking Alpha for more.

[https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GTXO/analysis-and-
news](https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GTXO/analysis-and-news)

I'm not sure how I would go about handling these guys if they came after me
for something. I don't think I would be so polite.

------
danschumann
According to their flow, they collect user information after displaying a
policy. My point is, if you re-arrange their flow chart, do you "invent
around" the problem? (thereby negating their claim that you violate their
patent(since their patent still relies on a specific process)?

~~~
OrganicMSG
Perhaps teach an expert system to automate selecting a flowchart on the fly
for each user, that will accomplish a given set of requirements and also not
be found in a search of the existing patent corpus. Don't forget to patent it
though.

~~~
danschumann
Oi, an AI that automatically generates patents? Sounds awful! It would just
attempt to patent every current idea but in a different order.... oh man,
please no.

~~~
OrganicMSG
I think it is called IBM.

------
Ecco
How is the price settled upon? I mean, why ask $35k specifically? Why not 3.5k
or 350k?

~~~
josaka
That's about what it costs to draft and file a 12(b)(6) motion to kill the
patent at the start of a case for lack of subject matter eligibility under
Alice v. CLS Bank.

~~~
gowld
$35K simply to file a statement that the patent is BS?

~~~
Viker
Well... That is saying like... 35k simply to design a logo and a website?

------
tabulatouch
I think that a real statistic on previous trolls actions and settlement or
litigation outcomes would greatly simplify the reasoning. Would the open data
from thetrollingeffect website be of any use for building a model?

------
natch
Unfortunately they may have more tricks up their sleeve. That is, once they
get payment for one patent, effectively getting an implied acknowledgment of
the merits of the (meritless imho) patent, they might then reveal their other
related patents, and offer to license those for even more money.

I wonder how many of these can be invalidated with trivial filings? These
patents all have PayByClick Corporation as the assignee:

7,676,432: Methods and apparatus for transacting electronic commerce using
account hierarchy and locking of accounts

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,676,432.PN.&OS=pn/7,676,432&RS=PN/7,676,432)

7,376,621: Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce
transactions using electronic tokens

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,376,621.PN.&OS=pn/7,376,621&RS=PN/7,376,621)

7,328,189: Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce
transactions using electronic tokens

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,328,189.PN.&OS=pn/7,328,189&RS=PN/7,328,189)

7,249,099: Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce
transactions using electronic tokens

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,249,099.PN.&OS=pn/7,249,099&RS=PN/7,249,099)

7,249,060: Systems and methods for distributing on-line content

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,249,060.PN.&OS=pn/7,249,060&RS=PN/7,249,060)

7,177,838: Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce
transactions using electronic tokens

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=7,177,838.PN.&OS=pn/7,177,838&RS=PN/7,177,838)

6,876,979: Electronic commerce bridge system

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=6,876,979.PN.&OS=pn/6,876,979&RS=PN/6,876,979)

------
zerostar07
Can american patent trolls equally easy bully companies outside the US?

~~~
mchannon
Probably not. US Patents are the cheapest patents to get.

If, say, a German company infringed on a US Patent by selling to a customer in
France, that would be completely legal, unless the US Patentholder also had a
French patent, which is often not the case. They'd have to prosecute in French
court as well, which, given the size of France's market vs. the US, would be
Pyrrhic (with a capital P) at best.

The calculus for being a patent troll requires a bizarre confluence of factors
(size of market, expense of litigation, certainty of litigation, cost of
patents, venue procedures) that are likely to limit the phenomenon to the US.

~~~
Kelbit
Other countries also have a loser-pays-costs rule for lawsuits, so the risk to
NPEs are much higher if they lose an expensive case.

------
l3
has someone tried patenting making money buy being a patent troll? that of
course would make one mega patent troll to deal with.

~~~
bskari
Yes:

IBM:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837)

Halliburton:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080270152](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080270152)

------
walrus01
one example of prior art that has virtual currency in a multi-player game:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Wars)

------
devit
Looks like software patents can actually benefit society in some cases.

~~~
apthnz
Not sure I follow - I think you're saying the way the patent is worded means
the game dev is protected, but if there was no patent at all there would be
nothing to attack them with in the first place?

~~~
wooly_bully
They're taking a jab at in-app purchases.

------
yohann305
This might sound stupid but hear me out. Can you sell physical rubies that
people can print on a paper or you could ‘ship’ them to the buyer? Meanwhile
users can use their digital equivalent just like a gift card works. This would
bypass the system.. brilliant isn’t it?!

------
chapill
This is hating the player, not the game. The only way to win is not to play.
Relocate to a country with no software patents. I hear Estonia is great. Do
all your filing online. Be a remote working foreign contractor for your own
company :P

~~~
ericd
Moving to Estonia just to avoid software patent trolls is an extreme case of
letting the tail wag the dog.

~~~
chapill
50% of the companies in the US incorporate in Delaware. Is that also tail
wagging the dog?

[https://www.delawareinc.com/corporation/](https://www.delawareinc.com/corporation/)

~~~
crusso
One doesn't move to Delaware simply to register a company there.

