Walker Digital LLC v. 2K Games Inc. et al
U.S. District Court, District of Delaware
Case No. 1:11-cv-00368-GMS, Filed April 25, 2011
U.S. District Court, District of Delaware
Case No. 1:11-cv-00368-GMS, Filed April 25, 2011
Earlier this year we reported on Walker Digital’s suit against Activision, Blizzard, and Zynga for alleged infringement of U.S. Patent # 6,425,828 (‘828 patent), issued in 2001, entitled “Database Driven Online Distributed Tournament System.” On April 25, 2011, Walker filed suit against a range of companies alleging violation of the ‘828 patent, and U.S. Patent # 6,224,486 (‘486 patent), issued in 2002 under the same title. These patents are related to technology that enables electronic tournament game play for multiple players and stores player information for future use.
Four companies (including 2K Games) originally named in the suit have been voluntarily dismissed by Walker. The remaining defendants are Capcom Entertainment Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Konami Digital Entertainment Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sega of America Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, Square Enix Inc., THQ Inc. and Ubisoft Inc. The complaint specifically accuses several popular games owned by these companies of infringing the ‘828 and ‘486 patents. These include EA’s "Madden NFL 11" and "FIFA Soccer 11," Capcom's "Super Street Fighter IV," Microsoft's "Halo 3" and Ubisoft's "Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood."
This suit is the latest in a slew of litigious activity by Walker this year. On April 25, 2011, Walker also filed suit against Google, Amazon and Yahoo alleging infringement of a patent for modifying and displaying a merchant's advertisement to users by associating a data pattern with the merchant. The suit claims that the companies’ advertising programs infringe U.S. Patent # 7,933,893 which had been issued the day before, on April 24, 2011. This follows Walker’s aforementioned January suit against Activision et al, and their filing of 15 different suits against 100 different companies on April 11, 2011.
According to the complaint filed on April 25, Walker Digital is headed by Jay Walker, who says his inventions have formed the basis for many companies, generated billions of dollars in revenue and created thousands of new jobs. The best-known of these companies is Priceline, which lists itself as having a market value of more than $22 billion. The suit also asserts that Walker Digital has a patent portfolio of more than 400 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, and Jay Walker was the lead inventor on the majority of them.
For further coverage see Law360
