Rebirth of America, this is my time

After Ethan and Evelin sat down in the office, Barbara then talked about the reason why Milova wanted to go to court.

"In our country, there is a "Federal Rules of Civil Procedure", Article 11 of which stipulates that when the plaintiff submits a complaint to the court, the receptionist needs to review the format of the complaint, including the plaintiff or plaintiff's The signature of the attorney, and it is necessary to ensure that the attorney is qualified to practice law in the place where the litigation takes place.”

“Because each state in our country has its own laws, if a lawyer who is qualified in California represents a case in New York State, he may make some misjudgments due to unfamiliarity with the laws. This is irresponsible to the client. , therefore, in order to protect the interests of the parties, the federal government requires the court to review the qualifications of lawyers."

"Although this article protects the interests of the parties involved, it also prevents some companies that clearly have legal affairs from using their own lawyers to sue, which adds a lot of litigation costs for no reason."

"However, Mirova is not actually within the scope of this clause, because they were originally a company in California. They only moved their headquarters after Philips filed for acquisition last year. In this case, their company's lawyers are actually all With a California license, for example, when Mi Luohua and Atari were involved in a lawsuit, Mi Luohua was the one who directly sued Atari."

"Now, instead of letting the company's internal lawyers sue you directly, they entrust an external law firm to provide benefits to those who sue. This approach can only prove one problem. They don't care about compensation."

"That's why I said, you probably have to go to court. After all, it's not easy to take a high-dollar case like rights protection. If it's a risk agency, they can charge even more money."

Speaking of this, Barbara laughed directly, "So, I now suggest that you recall whether you have offended Mi Luohua in any way, so that a company would rather give money to a law firm than use its own money. lawyer."

"Especially you, Ethan, you are a former employee of Mi Luohua. I think Mi Luohua is here for you."

Although Barbara smiled and spoke in a humorous tone, trying to lighten the atmosphere, Ethan was still a little surprised.

Didn't he expect that in litigation, there are so many rules for the selection of lawyers?

The point is, Barbara can analyze to a certain extent the plaintiff's starting point for filing a lawsuit just by looking at the plaintiff's appointment of lawyers?

This is crazy——

You are worthy of the name of a mage!

While Ethan was dazed, Evelin, who had been depressed for a long time, also found an outlet.

"Oh Barbara! You are so right! We also feel that Mi Luohua is deliberately targeting us!"

"Look, this is what the complaint says. Milova said that our "Snake Game" infringes on Milova Odyssey's patent. This is obviously impossible, right? Because video games cannot infringe on the patents of game consoles. Patent!"

"To put it simply, video games are software! Home consoles are hardware!"

"Software infringes on hardware patents? What kind of person can come up with this idea!"

"Barbara, I have discovered that what you said before is true! Those people in the court do not understand technology at all!"

Hearing the endless complaints, Barbara smiled and nodded.

“Oh Evelin, don’t get excited, this should be a small matter.”

While comforting Evelin, she took the indictment.

"Let me see what these lawyers wrote in the complaint."

Open the document bag and read the words on the paper.

At first, Barbara was smiling.

But as she kept reading, one dark cloud after another continued to creep up on her face, making her frown.

She flipped through the seven or eight pages for a full twenty minutes. When she raised her head again, doubts flashed in her still clear eyes.

Such a situation made Ethan's heart skip a beat.

"Teacher Barbara, are we really infringing the law?" he asked cautiously.

Ethan's words made Evelin purse her lips, her eyes filled with curiosity.

Under their gaze, Barbara directly put down the copy of the indictment in her hand, stood up, and rummaged through the information cabinet behind her. At the same time, she also asked: "Ethan, the copyright issue of "Snake Game" How did you solve it?"

"Uh... as you said, we applied for a provisional patent." Ethan said.

The next second, he immediately realized something was wrong.

"Teacher Barbara, are you saying that our provisional patent conflicts with theirs?"

As soon as the words came out, he felt that there was something wrong with his guess.

"That's not right, we are making arcade machines and they are making home game consoles!"

"I remember you said before that the two cannot be mixed? It is precisely because Milova Odyssey is a home game console that Milova was unable to sue Atari for product infringement in the first place. Involving "Pong" in a copyright lawsuit through patent means?"

"Don't worry." As soon as Ethan finished speaking, Barbara, who was looking for something, immediately said: "Go home now, find me the receipt of the provisional application, and then go to the patent office in San Jose to wait for me."

"Evelin, help me go to the office next door and ask for four agency agreements. I want to sign the agency contract with you. Why exactly? I will tell you later. What we have to do now is to go to the patent office to see their Odyssey patent filing. !”

Although Barbara gave instructions, Ethan felt that something was wrong.

Because before, when they asked Barbara about legal issues, Barbara had never looked so serious as now.

But at the same time, Ethan also knew that now was not the time to ask, so he returned home according to Barbara's request, dug out the temporary patent application receipt for "Snake Game", and then hurriedly came to San Jose. Patent Office.

When he walked into the hall, Evelyn and Barbara were already waiting.

After seeing Ethan, they didn't say much. Barbara pointed directly to the agency agreement in front of her, and then stretched out her right hand.

"signature."

"receipt."

The clean words made Ethan quickly comply, and then he saw Barbara taking a photo of her lawyer's license, agency agreement, court summons and copy of the complaint in front of the front desk staff, "I want to check 'US3728480 A' All the filing documents of the patent are being retrieved for me, and the temporary application files for "Snake Game" are being retrieved for me."

Ethan was a little surprised by the domineering words, but what made him even more surprised was the performance of the staff.

After checking the information submitted by Barbara, the two staff members got up and took them upstairs to the archives room on the third floor. Let them wait in the rest room for a while, and then the two people went into the archives room to search for information for them.

After about ten minutes, two brown paper bags appeared in front of them.

As Barbara opened it, the patent application form for "Snake Game" filled out by Ethan himself appeared, and then, a patent 'US3728480 A' consisting of eleven drawings and forty-six pages of description. The simplicity and briskness jumped into Ethan's field of vision.

‘Fuck! Can something like a patent be viewed this way? ’

Ethan couldn't understand it, but he was shocked.

Evelin beside him gave him an elbow and muttered: "Don't be surprised. Barbara told me on the way here that our country's patent copyright law stipulates that if a patent If a certain patent in the patent office is related to litigation, as long as the litigation materials are submitted to the patent office, the defendant can see the entire content of the patent in accordance with the law, and even...can get a copy."

‘! ! ! ’

What kind of bullshit law is this?

Ethan suspected that his ears had heard wrongly.

"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully, "If that's the case, wouldn't a patent be like a nightclub, where anyone can visit?"

Evelin curled her lips and said, "I didn't believe it just now, but Barbara told me an example."

"What?"

"Coca Cola."

Well, Ethan believed it.

Because Coca-Cola has been complaining about the U.S. Patent Office’s patent protection, which is really rubbish.

Perhaps because everyone had a bad premonition, neither Evelin nor Ethan looked at the patent content.

While they were communicating, Barbara was frantically flipping through the documents in her hands.

Maybe it was because there was too much content, but maybe it was because the technology was very complicated, so she watched it for half an hour.

Just as Ethan was wondering whether Barbara was stumped by technology, Barbara, who was still quiet, suddenly slammed the table and shouted angrily——

"Oh! Sxxt!"

“Who approved this patent?”

"Are all the reviewers a bunch of idiots?"

Barbara's roar startled Ethan.

Evelin also looked surprised, moved closer to Barbara, and asked: "Barbara, what's wrong? Is Mi Luohua's patent detrimental to us?"

"Of course!" At this moment, Barbara's chest could not stop rising and falling, pointing at the document and said: "See for yourselves!"

Following her instructions, Ethan and Evelin immediately cast their gaze over, and then they saw these two paragraphs of text——

[This patent relates to an apparatus and method for use with standard monochrome and color television receivers for generating, displaying, manipulating and using symbols or geometric figures on a television screen for training simulations, game playing and other activities 】

[The present invention is a combination of a circuit and a standard television. The circuit is synchronized with the horizontal and vertical synchronization signals and can generate a control unit of a 'dot' signal manipulated by the participant on the standard television screen.]

When these two paragraphs appeared, Ethan Jones immediately frowned!

The next second, he picked up a copy of the complaint and carefully looked at the name of the patent!

When he discovered that the official patent name of Mirova Odyssey was ‘Television gaming and training apparatus’, he instantly understood why the San Francisco Court accepted this outrageous case!

"The patent for a home game console is not a home game console?"

“Patents for home game consoles are video games and training devices?”

"Is this a patent application based on the method of expressing video signals?"

"WTF! How did you apply for this?"

At this moment, Ethan suddenly felt that he was in a bit of trouble!

Although arcade games are public art, electronic arcades still use TV screens!

If the patent for a home game console does not frame the device as 'home', but confirms it as being on 'TV', then...

Whose special code does not infringe?

Note: ① There are ways to solve the cross-state practice problems written in the article. The first is a formal examination, and the second is a mutual recognition agreement, that is, mutual recognition of practice licenses between two states, but there are restrictions. ② It is true that Nintendo went to the patent office to check the patent in the name of litigation, and Nintendo personally confirmed it. ③The patent for home game consoles is indeed called TV games and training devices. It directly limits the TV set. As long as the game device uses a standard TV set, it is infringing. This is also the key to Milohua's ability to earn 100 million through litigation ( This is the money earned from the lawsuit, not counting licensing fees). Among those sued, the big guys include Nintendo, Sega, Emerson, and CBS. This patent seems a bit outrageous, but the reality is actually very outrageous. It was so outrageous that Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi couldn't stand it, so he went to the United States to file a lawsuit and asked the court to annul this patent. It was mentioned in Nintendo's complaint that this patent covers The scope has exceeded the technology itself owned by the patent, because it can not only control the TV game consoles made by pure circuit boards, but also the TV game consoles made by CPU (as mentioned earlier, the Odyssey game console does not have a CPU). Hiroshi Yamauchi feels that since your product does not involve the use of CPU, it can only control arcade machines and consoles with similar technologies, but cannot control home machines with CPUs. Or, you can manage home machines, but you cannot control other things. , but unfortunately, Nintendo spent millions on the lawsuit but failed to win. In the end, the patent naturally expired in the 1990s.