Now that PokerStars owns Full Tilt Poker, the former is looking at steps to enforce intellectual property on both Rush Poker and Zoom Poker in an attempt to ensure that its fast-fold poker products carry “broad protection” in the area of fast fold poker.
Paul Telford, PokerStars’ general counsel, told PokerFuse.com about the company’s plans to coordinate an enforcement strategy for the two fast-fold poker games. We are doing a full review of our Rush patent applications and will cross reference these with our existing Zoom patent applications to ensure we have broad protection in the area of “fast fold poker,” Telford said.
“If necessary, we will use these patents to protect the inventive elements of the Rush and Zoom products and are working closely with our legal advisors to develop a co-ordinated patent enforcement strategy.”
Proof of the increasing popularity of fast-fold poker, which Full Tilt first introduced in 2010 with Rush Poker, lies in the fact that almost all major poker sites are already offering their own versions of the game, including Blaze Poker from StanJames, Speed Hold’Em from iPoker, and FastForward from PartyPoker.
Although the move might make sense for PokerStars given that fast-fold poker is becoming more and more popular these days, some folks have questioned the validity of such actions with Instadeal CEO Per Hildebrand even describing the patents are unenforceable. With Full Tilt Poker having been on the outs for almost two years, all the other poker companies took advantage of the un-patented product to build their own versions.
Hildebrand even took a not-so-subtle swipe at PokerStars for their attempt to patent the game, saying “their lawyers once must have concluded that the product is not patentable as they launched Zoom and now want to argue that it is.”
Should the patents do get approved and are enforced, PokerStars will have an enormously powerful intellectual property that it can show to other companies looking to set-up their own fast-fold poker game. It sounds a little
