Software Patents need to stop. Its funny they didnt come out until the first generation of software pioneers had been royally screwed. Anyone know what became of the VisiCalc poeple? (for example) Microsoft and Lotus took the spreadsheet concept, under cut them on price, moved to more platforms, (visicalc, was an apple 2 app only) and drove them off...

Shouldnt these guys file for patents, and get microsoft, IBM and corel?

This is another reason Creative needs to die. I wish Nvidia would allow someone to place their sound chips on a PCI card and watch Creative's market crumble.

This is completely ridiculous. John Carmack needs to patent "Carmack's Reverse" (yes, it IS different from the technique patented by Creative; probably different enough to warrant its own patent - besides, it's named after Carmack, not someone at Creative). Then all of this stupidity would stop.
Hopefully, if that doesn't happen, Creative will just force game developers to use EAX Advanced HD (I'm pretty sure iD could just make it part of the game engine).
Of course, they will probably just do the dishonest thing and milk this for all the money it's worth.

Hmmm, funny how Creative played down the D3 licensing issue when it came to light and was a big deal. I remember reading a PR snip that mentioned how this wasn't Creative abusing a trademark, it was just 2 companies reaching an agreement...

Gotta agree with #1, though. Hopefully Creative will piss off EA or some other monster software house, and get buried in court costs...(i.e., what they did to Aureal)

Just bought an Audigy2 on ebay for $39. Mostly for the firewire. Upgraded sound a nice bonus. Taken out of a refurb'd Gateway system so Creative doesn't make any money on it.

Cool music: http://www.arovane.de/audio/amine.ram

After hearing this, I will stick with my on board sound. Screw Creative. Any good alternatives to Creative PCI sond cards?

#7, many, M-Audio, Turtle Beach, Hercules.. to name only a few.

EP

Did Carmack tell us if a stipulation of their blackmail by Creative involved protecting all companies that license ID's Doom3 engine from legal threats by the likes of the Creative?

The line "More may be on the way, because id Software has already licensed DOOM 3 technology to loads more development teams." of the news post makes me think that everyone who uses ID Software's engine is fair game for their attack lawyers. This is not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.

#1, I am a happy M-Audio user, but I agree completely. nVidia would make a killing because they have such a huge following in one market as it is, regardless of their audio products being top-notch or not (which they really are.)

Ok, this shit needs to stop. There's prior art on this one, and Carmack and id need to do the right thing and call Creative on it at the Patent Office. Their refusal to fight Creative's strong-arm tactics has now put other game developers at risk. And who really expected a piece of shit company like Creative would actually sit back and NOT enforce this patent? They're like a retarded Rambus.

Since there's noise going around that D3 is the best selling game EVAR, they should have no problem pumping some of those profits into a good lawyer.

Creative is evil. The US patent system has problems. News at 11