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patently ridiculous

The title should be read to the same beat as "magically delicious."
Sega is suing a mess of companies over the gameplay of Simpsons: Road Rage being too similar to Crazy Taxi. What's craziest is they have apparently been granted a patent on the gameplay. Patent reform... Really. Please, someone show the patent office the light...
Lawyers from Sega of America have filed a patent infringement suit, claiming that The Simpsons: Road Rage was designed to "deliberately copy and imitate" the basic concept and gameplay from Crazy Taxi, to which it holds a patent. The suit names publisher Fox Interactive, distributor Electronic Arts and developer Radical Entertainment.
Road Rage was widely criticised at its time of release for being a blatant Crazy Taxi clone and indeed the company is using several such reviews as part of its evidence. If successful the move could have a huge impact on the game industry, which since the earliest days of Pong and Space Invaders has seen successful titles being ‘cloned’, copied and adapted by other companies.
(see gamasutra news)

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