14 DAY TRIAL // Wildcat Intellectual Property Holdings, a company based in Texas, is launching a suit against Wizards of the Coast, the company best known for the creation of the Dungeons & Dragons universe, over a patent for 'Electronic Trading Card' linked to Magic: The Gathering Online.
The video game was released during 2002 and allows players to play traditional card game using an online infrastructure.
The patent, that is said by Joystiq to have been first registered on March 6 of 1995, was actually issued much later, on March 13, 2001.
The description says that the patent is used to take “the traditional trading card metaphor and uniquely updating and enhancing it for application in consumer digital media.”
Wildcat has previously used the patent to sue other companies including Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Online Entertainment, Konami and Zynga.
The wording of the patent application and the wide range of companies sued means that Wildcat is most likely a patent troll and that the suit will be thrown out.