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Zynga owes IBM $45M after using 1980s patented technology for hit games (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Whomp whomp

Many mediocre games were purchased by Zynga and ruined.

[–] freshcow 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Does anyone else find it a little absurd that a tech patent should last that long?

[–] finestnothing 1 points 4 months ago

The lawsuit started in 2014, Zynga basically flipped off IBM and kept using the patented tech even during litigation, even making more games that use it. It's not even that they couldn't use the technology, they just refused to pay the license fees to use it in order to maximize their profit.

I'm a big supporter of FOSS software, but if a company invests billions of dollars to make some technology, I don't think it's unreasonable to charge a license for other companies to use it for their own profit