Forensic Chronicles. Blizzard entertainment

Many IT companies periodically delight us with the launch of new services and the release of new high-quality products. We follow some of them with interest and read news about them. Their activities are well known to us by announcements and press releases, thematic conferences, professional contests and reviews of critics and users. But invariably, the business activities of any company sooner or later begin to be accompanied by such a type of activity as judicial: disputes over exclusive rights to software, consumer complaints, patrolling by patent trolls - this and much more is part of the life of companies.

This article of judicial chronicles tells about the judicial life of the well-known producer of hits of the world of computer games - the company "Blizzard Entertainment".

Of course, the material does not cover absolutely all court cases involving this company, only the most interesting and noteworthy ones were selected. A selection of cases is based on the chronological principle of filing claims.

v. Internet Gateway, Inc

The first thing in this collection dates back to 1998, when in February 1998, Blizzard released its new game, Starcraft. A few months after this release, Mark Baysinger, a student at the University of California at San Diego, began working on reverse engineering a protocol that allowed game users to connect to their Battle.net game server using their client software.

The result of his work was successful, and Mark published his development on the Web - the StarHack emulator. After he made this publication, he almost immediately received a letter from Blizzard containing a written warning about the violation of her rights and the termination of such a violation. In response, Mark sent questions in which of his actions a violation of the copyright of the company was expressed. Having not received an answer to them, he decided nevertheless to stop developing the project, but uploaded the source code of his code under the GPL license to the Internet - this is how the open source project BNETD appeared, which supported the functionality of the official Battle.net game server on the alternative multi-user game server bnetd. org.

In 2002, Blizzard began beta testing its new product, Warcraft III. And in 2003, based on an analysis of the beta version of this game of the company and the server of the company Battle.net, a BNETD fork called “Warforge” appeared, in which the functionality of this game from Blizzard was introduced.

A few days after the release of Warforge, Internet Gateway, which hosted the BNETD project, received a similar written warning (the so-called C&D letter) from Blizzard, which meant that the creators of BNETD violated Blizzard's rights to the gaming software it created .

Since no action was taken to stop using the BNETD project after receiving the warning, Blizzard decided to go to court.

Therefore, in 2002, Blizzard filed a lawsuit against the above hoster and Tim Jung (Tim Jung). The latter was the president of Internet Gateway, one of the developers of the BNETD project and the system administrator of the bnetd.org domain (later the number of respondents was increased). Blizzard in its lawsuit, in particular, claimed that BNETD was a server program that emulated the Battle.net service, but did not check the validity of the CD key to determine whether the client software is used legally to connect to the game server or not. In addition, Blizzard computer code fragments were illegally copied and included in the BNETD server code.

In general, Blizzard claimed a violation of her copyrights, trademark rights (in relation to Battle.net), as well as unfair competition from the defendants.

During the consideration of judicial claims in 2004, the court nevertheless ruled in favor of the plaintiff, recognizing that the defendants violated the plaintiff’s copyright by reverse engineering its software and bypassing its copyright protection systems (i.e., not functionality for verifying CD keys of user client programs on its server).

The defendants decided to appeal the decision and appealed. In 2005, the Eighth Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the court of first instance on both important points, confirming the illegality of reverse engineering and the lack of a CD key verification mechanism.

In general, the case with BNETD turned out to be very significant for the industry, because at that time online services were just beginning to become popular. At the same time, the lawsuit became a kind of guide for software manufacturers on similar issues and showed a very low level of tolerance in relation to such open source projects.

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v. Daniel Mele and Blizzard Records, Inc

In 2002, Blizzard received a lawsuit from Daniel Mele (Daniel Mele) and the record company Blizzard Records, Inc. in respect of the violation by the manufacturer of computer games of the rights to the trademark "BLIZZARD RECORDS", owned by the plaintiffs.

According to the text of the lawsuit, Miles started using the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark in 1986 in relation to the promotion of music artists and the distribution of their phonograms. The beginning of the use of the trademark was expressed in the fact that the plaintiffs started promoting the Zillion rock band. In 1995, they started promoting yet another band - “Chillin 'Sun”, and in July 1997 they released their first album under the label of the label “BLIZZARD RECORDS”. In 1999, plaintiffs began selling music tracks from blizzardrecords.com. In 2000, Miles filed an application to register the name “BLIZZARD RECORDS” as a trademark for use in “computer-based online retail services selling music on CDs and audio tapes; promoting phonograms of performers through the global computer information network. " In November 2000, Miles licensed to Blizzard Records, Inc. trademark "BLIZZARD RECORDS".

Igrodel Blizzard took a position in the lawsuit according to which its activities did not violate the plaintiff's rights to the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark. Moreover, Blizzard claimed that by the time they registered their own BLIZZARD and BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT trademarks, plaintiffs no longer used the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark in any way.

During the trial, the court found the following:

In 1986, Miles registered in Buffalo, New York, a legal entity of the Blizzard Records Company. In the same 1986, plaintiffs began to promote the Zillion group. In 1987, the last performance of this group took place, in connection with which its promotion was stopped. In 1995, the plaintiffs resumed their activities: they started promoting the group “Chillin 'Sun”, and in 1997 the label “BLIZZARD RECORDS” released their first album. In 1999, plaintiffs launched the label's website at blizzardrecords.com and began using it to sell music tracks from various artists.

In turn, Blizzard started using the BLIZZARD and BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT trademarks back in 1994 and filed the relevant applications for the registration of these trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark Office regarding the class of “computer programs for video and computer games and documentation implemented with the programs. ” This trademark registration did not cover classes such as music or soundtracks. Blizzard users for the first time gained access to game soundtracks outside the framework of the games themselves created by the company in December 1995, and users were able to download soundtracks in 1998. In 2002, Blizzard filed an application with the aforementioned Bureau to extend the previously acquired rights to its trademarks in relation to new classes,

Therefore, the court, in order to resolve the dispute between the parties, had to determine:

• have the plaintiffs really stopped using the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark, and if so, during what period has there been such termination of use?
• Do the rights Blizzard acquired in connection with its registration in 1994 of the BLIZZARD and BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT trademarks extend to the distribution of the company’s own game soundtracks by selling CDs and downloading from corporate servers? And if so, from what point is the beginning of such distribution to be considered: from 1994 (that is, from the period when Blizzard registered its trademarks, and the plaintiffs stopped using their BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark) or since 2002 (t .e. since Blizzard filed an application with the Bureau to expand the number of classes for which Blizzard trademarks will be applied, and, as is obvious, after the plaintiffs resumed using the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark)?
• Is there a violation of the rights of the plaintiffs caused by the above Blizzard activities to distribute their soundtracks separately from their games?

The resolution of the issue of the fact of the termination of the use of the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark by the plaintiffs was significant in the case, since according to US law (see the so-called Lanham Act), the non-use of a trademark for three consecutive years without the purpose of its subsequent use in the future creates presumption of refusal to use a trademark. If the person holding such a trademark does not prove the invalidity of the presumption, then it loses the right to it.

In the course of the trial, the court concluded that the plaintiffs' use of the BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark was discontinued in 1987 due to the cessation of the promotion of the Zilion group, and was resumed only in August 1999, when the plaintiffs launched the blizzardrecords website. com. At the same time, the court examined the facts on the activities of the plaintiffs and the evidence presented by them regarding the work with the Chillin 'Sun group and their promotion, but came to the conclusion that in the course of such cooperation with the Chillin' Sun, the plaintiffs nevertheless have their own trademark did not use.

It should be noted that the plaintiffs in principe had serious problems with the evidence base during the whole trial: the distributed CDs of the groups promoted by them were not branded by their trademark, the label was not known to the public practically throughout their history, the plaintiffs did not even corporate documentation containing company branding. Here is one example from the case: for example, during the trial it turned out that in 1985 (even before working with the plaintiffs), Zilion entered into an agreement for recording and promotion with another label - Ax Killer Records, so it was found that the public associated the Zillion promotion with Ax Killer Records2, not Blizzard Records.

As a result, in relation to Blizzard, the court ruled that in 1994 Blizzard did not receive legal protection for its trademarks in relation to such a registration class as music, but received only for those classes that it claimed when registering its trademarks. In this way, the plaintiffs obtained music class rights in relation to trademarks previously Blizzard.

However, notwithstanding the foregoing, the court concluded that Blizzard’s use of the BLIZZARD trademark was not a violation of the plaintiffs ’rights in relation to their own BLIZZARD RECORDS trademark. Moreover, the use by the parties of the case of their own trademarks does not lead to misleading consumers of the products of both participants, as Blizzard consumers are gamers, i.e. people who are well versed in relation to manufacturers of computer games and the music they produce for them. Due to their awareness, misleading them with the products of the parties to this lawsuit is not possible in reality.

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v. MDY Industries, LLC

In 2004, Blizzard created her cult game, World of Warcraft. And soon after that, the Arizona-based company MDY Industries created the game bot “Glider” for this game, which allows users to complete the initial levels of the game in a fairly short period of time, while under normal conditions of the game it would take users several weeks to complete. Sales of the bot began in 2005, and by the time the lawsuit was filed with MDY, it had already sold more than 100,000 copies of its bot.

In 2006, Blizzard filed a claim with MDY that its activities violate the rights of the company, and if it does not stop it, Blizzard will go to court to protect its rights. MDY rejected the claims of the igrodela and decided to obtain a court ruling that the sale of Glider does not violate any Blizzard rights, and the use of this bot expands the gaming experience for users. MDY positioned itself as an innovator, and Blizzard's actions towards it were unfounded.

In response, Blizzard filed a lawsuit for the presence of a number of violations committed by the actions of MDY: in particular, they indicated a violation of copyright, violations of the terms of the contract, unjust enrichment, violation of trademark rights.

Following a review of all materials submitted by the parties, the court ruled in favor of Blizzard, finding MDY Industries violated the rights of the plaintiff. The court, in particular, determined that the users of the bot were not entitled to use it, because according to the provisions of the World of Warcraft Game User License Agreement (EULA WoW), users were prohibited from using bots or other third-party software that modifies the WoW game world. Since users thus violated the terms of the license agreements between them and Blizzard due to the use of MDY software, MDY was held responsible for such breach of contract. In addition, the provisions of the DMCA were violated, as the bot bypassed the Warden program, which was designed to protect the game server from unauthorized use.

MDY appealed the decision to the court of appeal, in which the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that MDY was not held liable for copyright infringement by the plaintiff, but MDY did violate the DMCA’s provisions using Warden’s defensive circumvention technology.

This decision was also quite significant for the industry and for judicial practice, as it addressed rather controversial issues regarding the responsibility of a third-party software manufacturer regarding the copyrights of a software manufacturer, as well as its contractual relations with its users, who simultaneously use both original software and third-party software created to interact with the original software.

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v. Scapegaming, LLC

In October 2009, Blizzard decided to sue Alison Rees, the owner of the Scapegaming game project, and five individuals whose identity Blizzard had not identified at the time she filed the lawsuit (but who, according to the plaintiff, were related to Scapegaming) .

Scapegaming, previously available at scapegaming.com, was a private gaming project created for commercial purposes and allowing its users to play a modified version of World of Warcraft on one of its five servers. This project was not under any management or control by Blizzard, and for access to it the players paid (from 1 to 300 dollars) directly to Scapegaming, and not to Blizzard.

Blizzard claimed in its lawsuit that the defendants carried out their activities, fully aware that they were in violation of Blizzard's rights. Blizzard calculated the actions of Scapegaming:

• violating the provisions of EULA WoW and ToU WoW,
• infringing Blizzard’s copyrights on their own game software, which was subject to defendants of improper modifications and reverse engineering (the results of which, in particular, made it possible to roll back to previous versions of the game to bypass the protective mechanisms built into Blizzard in new versions of client game software), and also due to the fact that Scapegaming servers did not check running copies of the game for their legality,
• unfair competition with respect to Blizzard,
• Intentionally obstructing the contractual relationship between Blizzard and its users.

According to Blizzard's own estimate, Scapegaming earned approximately $ 1.5 million through its portal.

Interestingly, Reese decided not to file an objection to the lawsuit (the co-defendants, whose identities were not identified - naturally, too), therefore, in 2010 the court ruled in favor of Blizzard as the plaintiff due to the lack of objections to the claim from the defendants, awarding more than 88 million US dollars in compensation to Blizzard: $ 3,052,339 in lost profits, $ 85,478,600 in damages and $ 63,600 in legal costs.

Blizzard herself commented on the court ruling as follows: “In addition to last year’s ruling in the case against MDY Industries, the creator and distributor of cheat software, the Scapegaming ruling further confirms our efforts to vigorously protect our intellectual property rights.”

True, the answer to the question of whether Blizzard managed to recover the compensation awarded to her by the court from the defendants, could not be found in open sources.

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v. Benstar Limited and ANO RSIC

This lawsuit was in 2009 in Russia and concerned the domain name worldofwarcraft.ru. The defendant (Benstar Limited) registered the domain name worldofwarcraft.ru with the domain registrar ANO RSIC and was its administrator. The domain was used for the fan site of the Blizzard game of the same name: it contained various walkthrough guides, descriptions of the game and characters, tasks, etc.

Benstar Limited at one time even received an official letter from Blizzard, according to which the copyright holder recognized this Internet resource as “the official Russian-language website of fans of the game“ World of Warcraft ”.

However, after a certain time, Blizzard decided to get this domain for herself. It is not known for sure whether any claims were sent to Benstar Limited or not regarding the transfer of the domain, but Blizzard filed a lawsuit in the arbitration court, starting the trial in case No. A40-22747 / 2009.

As a justification for the violation, it was stated that the plaintiff owns the registered trademark “WARCRAFT” (including for goods of class 09 MKTU and services of class 41 MKTU), and the domain name worldofwarcraft.ru is identical to the plaintiff’s trademark in sound, graphic, and semantic features, and also fully includes in its name the trademark of the plaintiff.

Blizzard submitted a notarized evidence protocol to the court, according to which the user was provided with a graphic image on the worldofwarcraft.ru website with text, including links: “All WOW News”, “World of Warcraft”, “General Information”, “About World of Warcraft ”,“ Video Guides ”,“ World Map ”,“ History of the World of Warcraft ”,“ Main Forum ”,“ Game Mechanics ”,“ Servers ”,“ Other Forums ”,“ Screenshot Competition ”,“ Role Play ”, "Translations", "Terms of Use of the site."

The defendant’s arguments that he did not use a trademark similar to the degree of confusion with the plaintiff’s trademarks, and that the plaintiff officially recognized the worldofwarcraft.ru domain by sending the defendant an appropriate letter recognizing the resource as “the official Russian-language website of World fans of Warcraft, ”the court was rejected.

As a result, the court found the defendant’s actions violating Blizzard’s rights and ordered him to stop using the WARCRAFT trademark in the worldofwarcraft.ru domain name and to pay compensation of 10,000 rubles to the plaintiff.

As for Blizzard’s attempt to recognize as the defendant the registrar of ANIC RSIC as well, the court rejected this plaintiff, pointing out that a declarative registration procedure has been established in the .RU domain zone, and ANO RSIC is not an administrator of the worldofwarcraft.ru domain name and therefore does not use the trademark of the plaintiff.

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v. Bossland GmbH

The German company Bossland GmbH is the creator of game bots, including Blizzard games: Honorbuddy and Gatherbuddy (for World of Warcraft) and Demonbuddy (for Diablo III).

Blizzard, believing that the actions of Bossland are a violation of its own rights to gaming software, filed a lawsuit in 2011. Blizzard considered Bossland’s business to be unfair competition, a violation of Blizzard’s copyright and trademark rights for the following reasons:

• By creating and offering for sale the Honorbuddy and GatherBuddy bots, Bossland provokes users of the WoW game to violate the WoW Game Use Rules (WoW EULA);
• The use of cheating software (bots) significantly affects the game balance, which gives unfair advantages to the players using them over honest players;
• The use of bots accelerates the onset of users the moment of saturation of the game process, which reduces the subscription period for which the game is usually purchased by users;
• Bots are programmed in such a way that in their work they bypass the Warden program - the Blizzard defense mechanism for their game;
• Bossland infringes Blizzard's World of Warcraft and WOW trademarks, including them in their product names;
• Using bots violates the plaintiff’s copyright, because due to caching the software in the computer’s RAM, each player using such Bossland software creates a copy of the game that infringes Blizzard’s copyright. And although such copies are made with the consent of the players themselves, due to their violation of the WoW EULA provisions, such consent of the players is seen by Blizzard as illegal actions.

Separately, Blizzard in the lawsuit indicated that the use of bots by users of the game is prohibited in accordance with the provisions of Section III of WoW EULA.

Bossland did not acknowledge its liability for any of the breach points identified by Blizzard in its lawsuit. So the last word remained with the court.

The Hamburg District Court in May 2013, after examining all the materials in the case, decided that Bossland is prohibited from distributing game bots in Germany related to World of Warcraft. Moreover, the company is also prohibited from distributing its bots under the names “World of Warcraft Bot” and “WOW Bot” in the European Union. In case of non-enforcement of the court decision, the company may be fined in the amount of EUR 250,000, and its general director - criminally liable.

Following the announcement of the court decision, Blizzard made a security payment of 650,000 euros so that the preliminary execution of the court decision began immediately after the court.

What is interesting to note: after the trial, Bossland on the page of each of its bots made corresponding notes that the use of a particular bot is not an offense, and the use of Demonbuddy is not an offense anywhere other than the territory of Germany.

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v. Ceiling Fan Software, LLC

In December 2011, Blizzard decided to file a lawsuit against Ceiling Fan Software LLC, the creator of the next WoW game bot called Pocket Gnome (pocketgno.me). The owners of the company and unnamed persons (by analogy with the case against Scapegaming) were involved in the co-defendants.

Defendants sold the bot at a price of $ 25 (a one-time payment for the entire time of use), $ 6.99 (per month for a half-year period), 8.99 (for 1 month). According to Blizzard, the defendants sold hundreds of thousands of copies of their bot.

According to Blizzard, the defendants' actions resulted in the following violations:

• Intentionally interfering with a contractual relationship (between Blizzard and users of its game and service)
• violation of the provisions of EULA and ToU (because users, according to the provisions of these documents, cannot “use cheats, automatic software (bots), hacks and any other unauthorized third-party software created to modify the game process”), including by extracting commercial profits from Blizzard games and services
• unfair competition

In her lawsuit, Blizzard asked the court to recognize the defendants as having violated her rights, to stop selling Pocket Gnome and other similar software, and also to pay the plaintiff monetary compensation.

Later in court it was determined that in addition to “Pocket Gnome”, the defendant also sold the “Shadow Bot” bot (on shadowbot.net). Bots allowed the player to earn virtual currency, artifacts and experience for his character without the direct participation of the player himself. These bots were designed to interact with the plaintiff’s game and could not be used for any other computer game.

Ceiling Fan Software not only sold its software, but also distributed instructions for their effective use (including videos, manuals, FAQs, etc.), and also used the plaintiff’s trademark “WoW” as a keyword in the Google AdWords advertising network and advertised its software by placing banner ads.

The defendants even had such a question-and-answer pair on their website in the FAQ section:

Question: “Is Pocket Gnome a violation of the Terms of Service?”

Answer: “Yes. Pocket Gnome is definitely a violation of the Terms of Service. You do not need to have excellent knowledge of the English language in order to fully understand how this contradicts. If you are caught, you may be blocked. Therefore, be careful not to get caught. ”

And there was such a disclaimer on the site of the bot manufacturer:

“We acknowledge that Blizzard is against using bots in their programs and does not allow their use in their TOS / EULA ... You may be blocked from using our software due to violation of such TOS / EULA provisions."

According to Blizzard, the correspondents on their own forum provided technical support to users and gave tips on how to avoid situations in the game being detected in the use of the bot.

According to the defendants, their bots were not detected by the Blizzard gaming system, the bots themselves could not be played in the computer’s RAM, so they could not be detected by standard means.

Interestingly, the defendants had their own licensing agreements for the use of bots, in which there was a clause stating that they reserve the right to terminate them with those users who used the bots improperly or transferred their bots to other users who did not acquire a license for their use by defendants. True, the defendants have never terminated the license agreements with any of the bot users for this reason.

The defendants decided to take the answer and filed a counterclaim against Blizzard.

As a result, in September 2013, the court ruled in favor of Blizzard, finding the defendants' actions a violation of Blizzard's rights, as they were unlawful willful interference in the contractual relations of the plaintiff, unfair competition, violation of contractual obligations.

The court also issued an injunction on the further activities of the defendants in the sale, distribution, licensing of its bots. Plus, the court awarded compensation in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of USD 7 million (interestingly, the defendant did not have enough money to cover their expenses for compensation, so they even turned to their own users to help them pay the rest of the compensation).

At the moment, legal.ceilingfansoftware.com is opening via pocketgno.me and shadowbot.net with information that the company is prohibited from distributing the created bot, and a link to a court decision.

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v. Benjamin bell and christopher spellman

In 2012, in California, two gamers (Benjamin Bell and Christopher Spellman) filed a class action lawsuit against Blizzard because the company did not inform users that additional elements of the game should be purchased separately, after the acquisition of the game itself to ensure information security stored in game accounts of buyers. According to the plaintiffs, such silence on the part of Blizzard was a misleading consumer of Blizzard products, and its carelessness regarding the protection of user confidential data compromised millions of users (we are talking about the events of August 2012). Blizzard should not pass on its user data security costs to the users themselves by selling them similar protections.

In turn, Blizzard considered the lawsuit meaningless, because it was about such products as the Authenticator (us.battle.net/support/en/article/battlenet-authenticator) - a technical solution to increase the level of security of user accounts by generating passwords, which can be purchased as a mobile application or device and which is an optional product that allows you to use your account on Battle.net even if your username / password has been compromised. The cost of such a product at the time of filing the lawsuit was only 6.5 US dollars.

The case lasted for 2 years, and ultimately, in May 2014, the parties to the case entered into a confidential dispute settlement agreement between themselves, after which a corresponding application was filed with the court, on the basis of which the judge of the district court dismissed the case.

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v. Worlds, inc

March 30, 2012 Worlds, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Blizzard for violating the last in their games “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft” of the American plaintiff's patents NN 8,082,501, 7,493,558, 7,945,856 and 7,181,690, entitled “System and method that allow users to interact in virtual space”.

They cover technologies and methods related to architecture scaling for three-dimensional multi-player game systems, which allow the user to interact with the environment recreated in game systems using his game character. In essence, such patents give the company a monopoly on the technologies that make up the core of most MMO games.

I note that Worlds, Inc. is a typical patent troll, because the activities of this company are reduced mainly to licensing their patents and litigation against those who violate the rights to patents and do not want to license them.

On October 3, 2014, a court session was held in which questions were considered regarding the wording in the claims, in respect of which patents were granted. Consideration of the claim will take place in the foreseeable future.

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v. DOES 1-10

And in this 2014 case, Blizzard is already the plaintiff. The fact is that the defendants created and sold copies of the AliantChaos MapHack software and other similar software, which was essentially a cheat code for the Blizzard StarCraft II game: it removes the so-called "Fog of war", allows you to monitor the movements of the opponent’s units and receive other information that is not available to the user in the normal game mode. According to Blizzard, the company suffered significant damage from the actions of the defendants (including reputation).

This is the name of the defendants, since Blizzard itself does not know and could not establish the names of real people involved in the production and sale of such software. As stated in the lawsuit, the creation and use of such software is:

• violation of the terms of the contracts, namely: the Rules for using the Battle.net service and StarCraft II EULA
• copyright infringement of a company on its game product
• the application of measures to bypass intellectual property protection [in the US, this is a separate type of violation]
• intentionally interfering with contractual relationships between other users and Blizzard

In her lawsuit, Blizzard demanded to stop these violations, give the company all copies of materials that violate her rights, provide her with all the reports on the sale of such software, pay her compensation for the violated rights, as well as reimburse all legal costs incurred by her.

Since the identities of the defendants have not been established, and the deadline for providing a response to the claim by the defendants has already expired, in accordance with the procedural laws of the state of California, the decision was made in favor of the plaintiff on all the points stated in the lawsuit.

The case remained small: you just need to determine the identity of the defendants and bring them to justice in accordance with the court decision.

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v. Via Vadis LLC and AC Technologies SA

The latest Blizzard lawsuits currently in this collection, as The lawsuit was filed 2 months ago - in August 2014. Plaintiffs (Via Vadis and AC Technologies) sued the game maker for infringing their own patents. The first of the plaintiffs is known for having simultaneously filed a lawsuit not only against Blizzard, but against a number of well-known companies: Amazon, D-Link, Skype, Netgear.

The subject of the lawsuit is a violation of the rights claimed by the plaintiffs with respect to patents 7,904,680 and RE40,521 and 8,656,125, all of which are entitled “Data access and system management, as well as a method of data access and data management for computer systems” (information about them can be found on Google Patents).

These patents are directly related to distributed storage technology and peer-to-peer networks (including BitTorrent protocol).

The lawsuit states that Blizzard uses these technologies, which are covered by the plaintiffs' patents, creating, selling, offering for sale, distributing its products, including using the BitTorrent protocol. The lawsuit refers to such products of the defendant as the games "World of Warcraft", "Starcraft", "Diablo".

The plaintiffs said they wanted to obtain from Blizzard monetary compensation for violation of the rights to these patents.

Blizzard has not yet spoken out publicly regarding this new lawsuit. But in general, this case seems interesting - the troll against the igrodelo.