Another week full of lawsuits. Poor, beleaguered company Midway came under fire once again, and this time it was from a very unlikely direction: the guy behind the Mortal Kombat movies is suing them in order to "protect his IP rights", which is a better way of saying that he wants to keep milking the MK franchise for as long as possible. Square Enix also got served with a class-action lawsuit for "deceiving" Final Fantasy XI patrons regarding fees. Not everything was bad, though. Read all about 'em after the jump in this week's Warrior recap.

These patent infringement lawsuits really are getting out of hand. This time, Sony, Nintendo and Nokia are being sued over a patent for an invention that will "allow an operator to distribute messages having aural or visual content that is generated by the operator using handheld apparatuses such as mobile telephones."

I'm wondering why they stopped at three companies. They should sue every major electronics company while they're at it.

A series of lawsuits filed by Activision has led to speculation that the world's biggest video game publisher is now employing tactics similar to those employed by the RIAA to crack down on file sharers. However, Karin Pagnanelli, Activision's lead attorney, has denied that the
lawsuits had anything to do with file sharing. More after the jump.

Last week brought us news about epic game releases, and possible troubles for the DS homebrew community through the R4. This week isn't that much different, however: just add a few more much-awaited (but some quite unexpected) sequels, and more bad news for the R4. Read this week's Weekend Warrior for your dose of DS news round-up!

Another lawsuit against Nintendo has cropped up once again, this time over the touch-screen capabilities of the Nintendo DS. John Martin of Illinois claims that the popular handheld has infringed on his patent, that describes a electronic game device that has "an improved method of operating a touch screen." More details in the full article!

Long-standing lawsuit filed by WWE against THQ and Jakks Pacific concerning racketeering and bribery was finally put to rest by a US district court judge last December 3rd. More details about  the allegations made by WWE against THQ and Jakks Pacific and the lawsuit in general at the full article.

From the old 16-bit days to the current generation of gaming, the quest to make games more realistic has been the golden fleece of just about every developer. Game makers, however, need to slow down as an article in Game Daily warns that lawsuits can arise from this aspect of creative exploration.

The First Amendment has recently been put to the test against laws barring the emulation of people and landmarks for commercial use. Lawsuits have been filed against Sega and Rockstar Entertainment for alleged violations of identities and trademarks. Courts ultimately decided to favor the developers, but not without a heated court debate for each case.

In the litigation involving Rockstar, East L.A. strip club PlayPen complained that the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series depicted a very similar club in a very similar location with a very similar name in one of their titles. The club in the game? The PigPen.

In the same manner, Sega got into a bit of trouble with Kierin Kirby of the 80's pop group Dee-Lite. Kirby claims that the Japanese publisher created a game called Space Channel 5 with a main character that resembled her. The Space Channel 5 heroine, Ulala, has a similar dress motif, hairstyle and dance repertoire to the real-life performer, thus ushering a litigation.

Sega won by the power of freedom of expression. The court ruled that there were substantial differences between Ulala and Kirby in terms of hair arrangement, dresses and body frame, ending the dispute.

Lawyers assured the public that this isn't the last of these cases and offenders will be taken to court whenever the need arises for litigation.

Tag this under general WTF-ery. During slow news days, and you need to get stuff, you start looking for the weird. This bit of "news" basically ties in with anything relating to copyright, intellectual property rights, and piracy. That means this touches upon anything you download online, from game demos to and homebrew goodies... well sort of.

Get this: Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn a patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies, music, and other material on the internet. What does the patch look like? Look at the image on the right.

The scouts will be instructed on the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyright works and three ways copyrighted stuff can be stolen. Activities for the scouts include visiting a movie studio (to see how much money employees lose due to piracy) and creating public service announcements urging others to be good copyright observing people.

So will kids carrying PSPs that have questionable media in it or gamers with mod-chips in their consoles start saying "Run! Here comes the boy scouts!" ...or something like that?

We know, we know, there are arguments as to whether or not things like mod-chips, hacks, emulations, homebrews, and even plain YouTube videos infringe on intellectual property rights. It just came to mind that given recent news - the ones about console companies filing lawsuits left and right on grounds of infringed intellectual property rights - perhaps instead of them spending money filing law suits, they could just send creepy Boy Scouts to the offending party to "weird them into submission."

Ergh. We should stop eating bad pizza before. I'm ending this before anyone thinks I'm drunk.

Antigame activist lawyer Jack Thompson is back! This time he is suing Florida’s legal regulatory association for conspiring “against his rights as a citizen”. This after he lost a court battle with game-industry players, including the makers of Grand Theft Auto. Thompson believes “the Bar has been collaborating with opposing lawyers in his lawsuits over Grand Theft Auto and Howard Stern, encouraging them to file Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) complaints against him for over a year and a half.” For those of you who missed that episode of Law and Order, SLAPP complaint is a lawsuit “intended to discourage a party from expressing a certain point of view by intimidation and the burden of legal costs associated with defending oneself against the complaint.” Thompson has been leading a crusade to stop violent video games. Depending on which side you’re on, he’s either a hero or a jerk. Gamers recently came up with the "Jack Thompson Toilet Paper."  At least we know where they stand.