Acceleration Bay LLC v. Electronic Arts, Inc.
U.S. District Court
for the District of Delaware
ded-1-15-cv-00282
Filed March 30, 2015
Fresh off their complaint
against Activision Blizzard, Acceleration Bay has filed a new complaint
alleging that Electronic Arts is infringing several networking patents in
regard to their realm-spanning multiplayer in FIFA 15, NHL 15, Tiger Woods PGA
Tour 14, Crysis 3, and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. Plaintiff
Acceleration Bay accuses Electronic Arts of infringing the same patents as the
Activision Blizzard complaint, which was filed three weeks prior on March 11,
2015.
The complaint alleges that Electronic Arts uses peer-to-peer
networking in their games, e.g., in FIFA’s Pro Club mode, which paragraph 30 of
the complaint alleges allows “individual players from different locations to
interact and communicate with each other inside FIFA 15’s gaming environment.”
As in the Activision Blizzard case, Acceleration Bay will likely have to
overcome an argument that the claims are directed to an abstract idea, and will
have to show that the peer-to-peer networking alleged to exist in the games
matches the specific mathematical models claimed in Acceleration Bay’s patents.
We’ll continue to watch this case for any interesting
developments.
