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Looks like a case of another big company, with lots of resources & deeper pockets, going after the little guy.
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More detailed info
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As this complaint is just one week old, no "next steps" are certain. Lawyers familiar with patent law have told GameSpot a case like this could cost up to $2 million to defend and take up to two years to fully adjudicate.
Impact on Xfire, a company founded in 2002 by Dennis "Thresh" Fong, Mike Cassidy, and Max Woon, is unclear. Likely, the company remains focused on customer acquisition over revenue growth--which makes defense of such a complaint problematic.
Yahoo!, on the other hand, recently reported it had earned $372.5 million on revenues of $1.08 billion for the most recently concluded quarter. Prospects of a drawn-out legal imbroglio, therefore, wouldn't seem to threaten Yahoo!'s well-being. Some industry sources have even speculated the lawsuit suggests a possible first step toward overtures by Yahoo! to buy out the gaming start-up.Comment
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The Patent that's being referred to.
Game server for use in connection with a messenger server
Abstract
A game and messenger client-server system is provided including a plurality of game clients, a game server, a plurality of messenger clients, and a messenger server. The game server includes logic to operate a multiplayer game using inputs from and outputs to an active game set of game clients, wherein game clients other than those in the active game set can join an active game by supplying the game server with a reference to the active game. Additionally, logic is included for coupling a game client to a messenger client to allow the game client to send the messenger client data used to initiate joining a game, whereby a message sent by the messenger client includes the data used to initiate joining a game. Also, logic is included for initiating a join of a game at an invitee client, using data received in a message to the invitee.Comment
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I don't see any way Xfire can win here.
Especially since:
XFire
Copyright (C) 2004
Build 11237
XFIRE_LANG_US Build 11237
UA_PLUGIN Build 11237
XFIRE_CONURE Build 11237
XFIRE_TOUCAN Build 11237
Toucan detection enabled
Unicode Build
Xfire is:
Mike Ayer
Tom Bazzano
Adam Boyden
Tim Brengle
Mike Cassidy
Sean Culhane
Frederic Descamps
Dennis Fong
Mike Judge
Chris Kirmse
Ryan Kiskis
Virgil Mayol
Daniel Murillo
Mike Oxford
Brian Park
Yulius Tjahjadi
Andrew Voelker
Sophia Wang
Chad Walker
Special thanks to:
Garrett Arch Blythe
Geoffrey Hyatt
David Lawee
Tony Marra
Naval Ravikant
Max WoonComment
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