Zynga sued for patent infringement
Agincourt Games cites numerous Zynga properties for violating prize redemption patents
Zynga is being sued by Agincourt Gaming for patent infringement, Bloomberg reports.
Agincourt filed the lawsuit in a Delaware federal court, citing Zynga's history of imitating other companies' products.
The patents relate to processes for credit card payments and online prize redemption, with Agincourt seeking damages and a court order preventing Zynga from using its practices.
"Agincourt's patents cover the most lucrative aspects of online social gaming – including those comprising the bulk of Zynga's revenues – as they contain the crucial 'link' that allows for global, interactive prize redemption over the Internet," said Bill Carmody, senior partner at Susman Godfrey, the law firm representing Agincourt.
The offending games span the entire Zynga portfolio, including Mafia Wars, FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille and Empires & Allies. So far, Zynga has offered no comment on the matter.
Zynga is currently preparing to make an initial public offering valued at $1 billion, and recently acquired mobile developer Astro Ape.
Is this another case of a business method being patented? I'm not seeing how you can patent prize redemption*.... If they can win against Zynga then the whole of the online business is on shakey ground since you could equate many different things with "prize redemption" in the gaming space.
*Looking especially at the CC payment quote above.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by James Prendergast on 18th August 2011 11:45am
Posted:A year ago