Microsoft Sued Over Xbox Live

By Luke Plunkett

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In 1994, Peter Hochstein and Jeffrey Tenenbaum patented a method for "communicating live while playing the same video game in separate locations". In 2004, they sued Microsoft, accusing Xbox Live of infringing on that patent.

Now, five years later, the case is finally starting to heat up.

See, unlike many other cases of this ilk - which are often harmless - this one may have some teeth.

Why? Because in 2004, the two men not only sued Microsoft over Xbox Live, but Sony as well, claiming the PS2's online network infringed on the same patent. And in April of this year, Sony settled with them for an undisclosed sum.

What's more, Microsoft, rather than shrugging the case off with a team of mighty lawyers, have resorted to juvenile tricks, holding the case up for weeks in February 2009 over a single, innocent typo, and dumping 140,000 documents on Hochstein and Tenenbaum without an index.

Something tells me this may end up costing Microsoft a dollar or two, if only in the form of another "undisclosed sum".

If long-winded legal documents are your thing, you can read up on the various stages of the case here, here and here. [via PA]

Rad. Tomorrow I'm going to file a patent for "teleporting from one location to another while masturbating furiously" so that when someone clears that technological hurdle, I can sue the shit out of them.

Wow, patents can be placed on really generic things.

I guess it depends on how far the patent goes.

This is old news, it's happened before and we all know what's gonna be the outcome. Whoever is sueing microsoft is gonna get a few eyebrows raised but nothing serious is going to happen. No damage will come to microsoft and in about a week we'll forget this ever happened. Move along folks. I think patcher is opening up his mouth, now there's some real news.

How have they lasted this long?

Are they a big company?

Not a shock...

Weren't these roles reversed last year? If I remember right it was about rumble capability in the controllers... Microsoft settled out of court, Sony fought and lost... The unique thing about that one was that there was something in the Microsoft settlement that entitled them to a portion of the court win against Sony.

As for petty court tricks, everyone uses them so why can't Microsoft? When you are the defendent, it is all about winning.

I thought some PC games had basic online capabilities back before 1994?

LMFAOOOOOO!!!!! Epic, just epic.

MS should sue federal legislators for making the unfounded filing of such a patent legal.

Ms didn't do anything wrong.