Worlds.com vs. NCsoft lawsuit settled originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Article One Partners, "a global community that rewards members for discovering patent validity evidence to legitimize US patents", has announced that they have turned up prior-art that may (or may not) be useful in overturning the Worlds.com US Patent 7,181,690.

It's difficult to judge on its merits. Article One receives revenue by on-selling that information to interested parties. We're not sure how much for, but the prize paid for locating the information is US$50,000, so we're expecting that the cost of seeing the inforomation is considerably more than that.

Continue reading Article One asserts prior art on Worlds.com patent

Article One asserts prior art on Worlds.com patent originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Worlds.com vs. NCSoft moves from Texas to California originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

At last week's Game Developers Conference 2009, we got the chance to sit in on Mark Methenitis' talk on How to avoid new legal pitfalls in virtual world design and policy. You may have noticed the sheer quantity of legal cases, rulings and issues surrounding virtual environments and MMOGs that have direct impacts on users and players lately.

We found the talk to be an engaging and interesting one, which certainly went a long way towards clarifying some of the past, present and future problems and we've got a tasty summary of the highlights for you.

Continue reading GDC09: How to avoid new legal pitfalls in virtual world design and policy

GDC09: How to avoid new legal pitfalls in virtual world design and policy originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As you are probably already well aware, virtual environment business Worlds.com is currently engaging in a legal action against MMOG developer/operator NCsoft for patent infringment, based on a patent that more or less covers almost every client-server based multiplayer game and virtual environment out there.

It doesn't end there, however. Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin has told Eric Krangel at Business Insider that if the suit against NCsoft succeeds, industry leaders World of Warcraft and Second Life are next. The company's legal representatives in this action, General Patent Corporation also yesterday announced that Worlds.com has been granted a third patent that extends the reach of their existing two.

Continue reading World of Warcraft and Second Life are next, says Worlds.com CEO

World of Warcraft and Second Life are next, says Worlds.com CEO originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Just to update you all on the progress of the Worlds.com vs NCsoft lawsuit (a patent suit that is pitched to spread to other MMOG and virtual environment developers/operators), the Korea Times reports on 31 December 2008, that NCsoft had yet to be served with notice of the suit.

There are essentially only two ways in which the notice can be legally served to NCsoft in the Republic of Korea to establish jurisdiction over NCsoft as a defendant. One is through formal diplomatic channels, and the other is via the Hague Service Convention. The HSC was established because of the enormous delays in using the formal diplomatic channels. There's a time-limit on the serving of notice, and formal diplomatic channels for civil suits often take quite a bit longer.

Continue reading Worlds.com vs NCsoft: Not yet served?

Worlds.com vs NCsoft: Not yet served? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

NCsoft prepares the defense against Worlds.com originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As you probably know by now, Worlds.com has filed suit against NCsoft for infringement of one of two key patents that it holds. We talked about those patents and Worlds.com's securing the services of General Patent Corporation for the purposes of enforcement earlier this month.

We can learn a few things from the suit against NCsoft, including (we think) how Worlds.com/General Patent sees its own position with respect to these claims (they don't seem to think it's as firm as it could be). You might also be wondering about prior art (which is abundant). Well prior art, in and of itself, is simply not enough. Not on its own.

Continue reading The patent that stole Christmas

The patent that stole Christmas originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Worlds.com files suit against NCsoft for patent infringement originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent," subject to the conditions and requirements of the law. So says the US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO), citing the applicable statute.

There's a lot of slicing, dicing and hair splitting over nearly every part of that sentence, and some extraordinary debates and numerous calls for reform of the patent system. Nevertheless, today we're looking at two patents that the owners appear to be keen to enforce.

Between them, they appear to cover a few simple, and difficult-to-avoid systems that underpin pretty much every graphical virtual environment, and MMOG that you can think of, from World of Warcraft, to Second Life -- and perhaps most of the online multiplayer games since the era of Doom.

Continue reading Patents threaten virtual worlds, MMOGs

Patents threaten virtual worlds, MMOGs originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.