Zynga sued for patent infringement
Luke Stratford February 13, 2012 - 8:22 pmAlready buried under a pile of legal proceedings, IP development house Personalised Media Communications adds to Zynga’s woes by suing over patent infringement.
With a reputation for infringement that would put most kleptomaniacs to shame, Zynga finds itself under fire from intellectual property developers Personalised Media Communications, for, it alleges, the infringement of four patents made by the company. Currently, according to Gamasutra, PMC is suing Zynga via the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The patents, which PMC claim were infringed by a number of Zynga’s more popular titles, including CityVille and FarmVille, deal with areas concerning ‘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.’
Speaking on behalf of PMC, founder John C. Harvey defended the developer’s move to sue Zynga, explaining, ‘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.’
In addition to the blanket overview given, other aspects of the patent infringements made include ‘controlled access of media content, personalized content based on individual attributes, management of downloading technologies, network management, control of targeted advertising, and purchase of media and other products.’
Zynga has yet to comment on PMC’s legal action against the studio.
