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Zynga Is Being Sued For Patent Infringement
Zynga is being sued, but not for the reasons you may have assumed.
Zynga has been accused in the past of liberally borrowing ideas from other developers, but this lawsuit is over the use of patents, and deal with the inner workings and behind the scenes programming of Zynga's games.
Personalized Media Communications (PMC) is suing the mobile game developer for infringing on four of its patents. The patents in question cover, "the use of control and information signals embedded in electronic media content to generate output for display that is personalized and relevant to a user." These patents also include items like controlling access to specific content, personalizing content based on player attributes, managing downloads and networks, targeting advertising, and the purchasing of media among other products.
No reaction from Zynga on the lawsuit yet, but PMC's founder John C. Harvey said, "Many years of time and labor went into developing our inventions and securing the patents that permit their practice. It wouldn’t be right to sit by and allow them to be infringed."
[via Gamasutra]
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