Leading Mobile eSports Company Strengthens Position with New IP

Skillz, the worldwide leader in mobile eSports, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company two new patents: U.S. Patent 8,882,576 and U.S. Patent 9,349,246. Skillz has exclusive rights to both patented technologies.

U.S. Patent 8,882,576 covers the mathematical algorithm that enables Skillz to evaluate how much of the outcome of a given game depends on skill vs. chance. This is a key component of qualifying a game as a sport and ensures fair competition, which is a fundamental building block in the intellectual property of Skillz.

Skillz worked with Peter Winkler, William Morrill Professor of Mathematics and Computer Sciences at Dartmouth College, to develop the algorithm. Winkler said, “Historically, people have used intuition to determine to what extent the outcome of a game is determined by skill vs. chance, but it’s harder to do that with online games. There was no reason that probability theory couldn’t be channeled to create an easy-to-use mechanism to determine this consistently, but no one had tried. It was an exciting project to work on and I’m gratified that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has recognized it.”

Before Skillz, the primary option game developers had was to hire a lawyer to give them an opinion on their game. As part of bringing eSports to everyone, Skillz created a mathematical model that would provide a free and consistent outcome for developers of all sizes.

U.S. Patent 9,349,246 covers the integrations portal, which allows developers to implement the Skillz Tournament Management System entirely through self service.

“One of the key components of the Skillz business model is making our tournament technology available to everyone in a completely free, self-service way,” said Andrew Paradise, CEO and founder of Skillz. “We built the integrations portal to give developers total control over their games and tournaments. It’s essentially the setup and control panel for the Tournament Management System.”

By creating this portal, Skillz gives developers access to technology that would cost a prohibitive amount of money and time to develop on their own. Making a mobile game into an eSport gives players a reason to invest time and effort to improve their skills, leading to better retention and average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) for developers.

Skillz was previously awarded two other patents related to eSports and skill-based games, making the company a leader in terms of intellectual property around mobile gaming and eSports.

For more information on Skillz-enabled games and implementing mobile eSports competitions, visit www.skillz.com or email launch@skillz.com.

About Skillz
Skillz is the worldwide leader in mobile eSports, having hosted more than 70 million tournaments for players in over 180 countries. Skillz allows game developers to seamlessly integrate eSports competitions into any mobile game, making eSports accessible to the world’s 2.1 billion mobile gamers. As the eSports provider for over 1,600 game studios, Skillz accounted for more than 20% of all eSports prizes awarded in 2015. Founded in 2012, Skillz has offices in San Francisco and Boston and has raised over $28 million in funding from investors including the owners of the New England Patriots, Milwaukee Bucks and New York Mets. To learn more, visit www.skillz.com.