Advertisement

PalTalk takes patent infringement suit on the road, sues MMO devs

PalTalk Holdings is feeling pretty zesty following its legal victory over Microsoft this past March, so it's decided to take its patent infringement suit against a few major players in the MMO market. Turbine, Sony, Activision Blizzard, Jagex and NCSoft are all staring down the barrel of PalTalk's litigation cannon -- which, after forcing Microsoft to come to a settlement earlier this year, now has a substantial amount of precedent supporting it.

PalTalk purchased two patents from a company called HearMe in 2002 for technology which shares data between networked computers, allowing users to see the same virtual space as they interact with one another in real time. One could construe that to mean PalTalk owns the patent on online multiplayer altogether -- but we're sure Activision's beefy legal team will have a few arguments to the contrary up its sleeve.