Back in 1994, two men by the name of Peter Hochstein and Jeffery Tenenbaum patented a method for playing computer games over a centralised network. In 2004, they raised a case against Sony and Microsoft, believing that their patent was being infringed with PS2’s online system, and Xbox Live.

Finally, after five years, the case is starting to get going… If Microsoft lets it.

You see while most of the time these lawsuits are just people trying to make a quick buck, this one seams legit. Legit enough for Sony to settle out of court for an unpublished sum. Microsoft, on the other hand, despite being entirely able to drop a truck load of high-priced lawyers on the case, is in fact choosing to do anything they possibly can to delay it getting to court.

This has come down to tricks that should fit on a schoolyard, rather than a court of law. They held the case up for weeks in February because of a single typo, and gave the suing parties over 140,000 documents… without an index. Just two examples which are not making Microsoft shine in this particular case.

You will want to follow this, as any result in court could potentially effect the Live service completely.

If you want to read up on the case, please click here, here and here.