The Supreme Court ruling which might be good for gamers as well

Well, at least for US gamers for now:

"“Patent exhaustion” isn’t exactly a thrilling pair of words. But that was the crux of a case the Supreme Court ruled on today that answered one incredibly important question for consumers: Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it?

Happily for consumers, the Court’s answer is, basically, “nope.”

The Court heard the case, Impression Products, Inc v Lexmark International, Inc, in March and issued a final ruling on the matter today.
However, companies can still use contractual language, and sometimes copyright protection, to restrict your ability to modify, sell, or even fix the things you buy.
The key question at play in the Lexmark case was one of patent exhaustion. Precedent has held that a patent-holder’s rights are used up — legally, exhausted — at the moment that it sells the thing it has a patent on to someone else. But in the modern era of microchips and DRM, some usage restrictions are suddenly enforceable long after an original item is sold. So question the Court was setting out to answer was: Can the company that sold you something it holds the patent on determine what you do with it after you’ve bought it, or do they exhaust their patent and therefore relinquish control?"

https://consumerist.com/2017/05/30/...-toner-cartridge-case-is-a-win-for-consumers/

Fina-fricking-lly!

So what does it mean to "sell something" in order to lose their patent on it?

What kind of buying and selling are we talking about.

How does this affect software? Is this ruling in re: to software?

Read the article. It makes it pretty clear.

No wonder certain usual scammers in gaming industry started to call their software - services.
So you're not buying a videogame any more, no sir, no mam, you're paying for service.

A service is not a done_deal product so the court ruling above doesn't apply of course.

As usual, expect plenty of my posts on certain future releases:
"advertised as service = scam = no buy"

It was obvious that corps would try to find a loophole, but I don't think that such an obvious ploy will work for long (if at all). It could be argued that computer's OS (or a MMO) is a service but a game? We will just have to wait and see but it's a good beginning.

The conversion of products to services has started in earnest about 8 years ago. You can expect this "loophole" to remain open and a point of controversy for some time. Currently there are fairly few regulations governing services partly because the assumption is you can simply stop usimg the service and the company is under no liabilty because there is no "product".
I can't blame companies for wanting to make mkney, but I can blame people for supporting it. Of course this is a generation happy to lease/rent everything including furniture so they can have it NOW for a lower initial price point.

Wisdom said:

I can't blame companies for wanting to make mkney, but I can blame people for supporting it. Of course this is a generation happy to lease/rent everything including furniture so they can have it NOW for a lower initial price point.

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That's my wife. "Pay less now, pay MUCH more later"...

Lucky Day said:

So what does it mean to "sell something" in order to lose their patent on it?

What kind of buying and selling are we talking about.

How does this affect software? Is this ruling in re: to software?

Click to expand...

zahratustra said:

Read the article. It makes it pretty clear.

Click to expand...

Its not clear at all in re: to what I asked

The Consumerist said:

But more importantly: It means, ultimately, that patent law recognizes that when you buy a thing, it’s yours, and the entity that made it doesn’t get to control it or you in perpetuity.

Of course, patent law isn’t the only law in play. Companies use copyright law and DRM to control your purchases after you make them all the time, from digitally-distributed books, movies, and music to much more tangible goods, like your car. And, as the Supreme Court points out several times, contract law — terms and conditions you agree to — is still enforceable, apart from any patent exhaustion restrictions.

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that's about the closest thing it says, a point the author of the article makes that is not in the ruling itself (note: I haven't read the actual full ruling and I am trusting the article that it quotes the chief justice accurately)

But this ruling is about a tangible product. The most I can infer about this ruling is a possible right we have to resell software that we already bought. Several years ago Dhruin posted an article on how courts, and it really showed the judges' bias IMO, went back and forth on the issue of EULA.

Regardless, the EULA is not a patent.

In fact, this WP article on it points out that the ruling does not affect single use agreements to return the products in exchange for discount.

Article includes a link to PDF of the ruling itself.

zahratustra said:

Article includes a link to PDF of the ruling itself.

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You said the article is "pretty clear", you didn't say the whole ruling. And you're not addressing my comments. Which is fine.

But to the rest I will just say the opinion of John Roberts contradicts the threads title because though this affects the prevention of the resell and reuse of patented objects, his opinion on this upholds agreements.

Its these kind of nuances in law that loopholes are made of.
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Here's an old article (old!) we had on related subject re: Abandonware

https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=745&highlight=eula+court

Look, there's Alrik! I didn't even know he was missing .

Maybe we will be able to resell our steam games? Who knows

I think one things many seem to forget is that companies are not necessarily some evil entities who do everything to rip off players. Yes, maybe some are. But I guess the majority want to make enough money to keep operating and a healthy profit.

So if a game right now costs 1.000.000$ to make. Guess how much it will cost to make this game if everyone could resell the game. Yeah...it's still 1.000.000$

And if they want to keep making these games, there is no way around making enough money so that the cost is justified.

So if the income drops down due to reselling - they have to gain money from other sources. In fact that's one of the reasons many are already switching to "services". No matter if you bought your game "normally" or via a shady reseller - you got to pay some money on the platform of the operator directly. But only bigger companies can do it that way.
On the other hand they could just go back selling physical media again. So you have to have a disc or a module in your pc. Yes, you could also resell these. But it is much, much harder to do so.

So in the end, being able to resell games will only have a very short time span of "profit" for the customers. It might mean the death of some companies.
In long term it would lead to:

-More game as a service. Decreased cost for the original game, increased cost on the developers platform
-Small and middle sized Developers will have problems to deal with this as they dont have own platforms

-Might result in more physical games again
-Small and middle sized Developers which bloomed due to steam will have problems witht his as well

So in the end it will have slight impact on big companies, and big negative impact on smaller companies which make most games we love on RPG watch. Unless they are so small that they can survive by donations alone.

So cheering about such a ruling might mean that you are finally able to happily saw off the branch on which you are sitting.

Kordanor said:

I think one things many seem to forget is that companies are not necessarily some evil entities who do everything to rip off players. Yes, maybe some are.

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The certain word needs to be removed there.

Other than that, when it comes to things being evil, please…


@Azarhal, bonus XP question: this still is from?

zahratustra said:

Well, at least for US gamers for now:

"“Patent exhaustion” isn’t exactly a thrilling pair of words. But that was the crux of a case the Supreme Court ruled on today that answered one incredibly important question for consumers: Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it?

Happily for consumers, the Court’s answer is, basically, “nope.”

The Court heard the case, Impression Products, Inc v Lexmark International, Inc, in March and issued a final ruling on the matter today.
However, companies can still use contractual language, and sometimes copyright protection, to restrict your ability to modify, sell, or even fix the things you buy.
The key question at play in the Lexmark case was one of patent exhaustion. Precedent has held that a patent-holder’s rights are used up — legally, exhausted — at the moment that it sells the thing it has a patent on to someone else. But in the modern era of microchips and DRM, some usage restrictions are suddenly enforceable long after an original item is sold. So question the Court was setting out to answer was: Can the company that sold you something it holds the patent on determine what you do with it after you’ve bought it, or do they exhaust their patent and therefore relinquish control?"

https://consumerist.com/2017/05/30/...-toner-cartridge-case-is-a-win-for-consumers/

Fina-fricking-lly!

Click to expand...

Thanks!

My understanding of this is:

A persons patent can be sold to multiple entities now instead of a single entity.

Click to expand...

Is that the extent of this?

No. This is:
“We conclude that this well-settled line of precedent allows for only one answer: Lexmark cannot bring a patent infringement suit against Impression Products to enforce the single-use/no-resale provision accompanying its Return Program cartridges. Once sold, the Return Program cartridges passed outside of the patent monopoly, and whatever rights Lexmark retained are a matter of the contracts with its purchasers, not the patent law.”

Notice that it only concerns patents. Contract laws (terms and conditions you agree to) stay the same.

zahratustra said:

No. This is:
“We conclude that this well-settled line of precedent allows for only one answer: Lexmark cannot bring a patent infringement suit against Impression Products to enforce the single-use/no-resale provision accompanying its Return Program cartridges. Once sold, the Return Program cartridges passed outside of the patent monopoly, and whatever rights Lexmark retained are a matter of the contracts with its purchasers, not the patent law.”

Notice that it only concerns patents. Contract laws (terms and conditions you agree to) stay the same.

Click to expand...

So because it is a physical product it can be resold?

Sounds to me like printer companies fighting against printer cartridges being made by other companies.
The printer companies usually take pains to ensure no-one's elses cartridges can be used in their printers.