Worlds.com Files Suit Against NCsoft - Every Other MMO Company To Follow?

Somebody hire the Bush shoe throwing guy to target Worlds.com.

LOL ^That

Anyway ROFLMAO @ Worlds.

Anet will use their superior kiting skillz to dodge the patent of doom!

Just perfect, no GW2.

http://wenderella.com/2008/05/most-r...one-right-now/

http://www.invention-protection.com/...g_patents.html

God Bless America!

I just thought Id let you know that my patent on forums has just been allowed, I therefore own all of you and you must immediately pay me damages in the form of Z Keys in game.....

Someone with a better/faster arm please I suggest Randy Johnson (did you ever see that bird he hit in pre season training?).


Actually.. thinking about this.. does this mean that all the servers are about to become Euro servers now as Anet removes itself from America and its poor patenting rules??

1. Worlds.com isn't after a quick precedent to use to go after Blizzard later. There's nothing quick about patent fights. They're hoping for a quick and easy settlement for a percentage of NCSoft's profits. If successful, they'll go after as many other "little fish" as they can.

2. Let's be a little more clear on what exactly they patented. They patented a solution to the scalability problem of virtual worlds -- how can you have an arbitrarily large number of people in a virtual world if you need to make a near-instantaneous transfer and display of information about each person to each other person? Their solution is prune the set of other people each user receives and displays detailed information on down to only those within the user's (3D) field of vision.

2a. As many other folks have noted, this feels like something that we've seen in other games for a long time -- that is something that was not novel when the patent was issued. However, I'm hard pressed to think of a game that I know for certain works like this, and I know for certain pre-dates their patent. However, some of the commenters on slashdot assert that they personally worked on projects using this methodology. Also, even if I can't name one of the top of my head, I'd bet that somewhere out there there's a commercial game using this methodology that predates the patent.

2b. I think a bigger hurdle for Worlds.com may be the obviousness of their "invention." Even if no particular game used this methodology first, it seems like a pretty obvious trick that any programmer would use to solve the same problem. Hindsight may be 20/20, but I'm pretty sure my younger self would have solved the problem the exact same way they did, as would any other programmer living at the time.

2c. I also wonder if NCSoft is actually in violation this patent (presuming for a minute its validity). AFAIK, GW does not prune the set of avatars you encounter. Rather, it divides us up into a plethora of servers and instances so that "all the other players" is never too many to handle. I've never played Lineage, so maybe someone who has should comment there.

Lol so the patent is on a method of controlling large server populations? That is so pathetic. How can you even put a patent on something like that? I think I am going to patent all of my GW builds. Anyone seen using them will get sued for a bunch of money by me.

Fail.

they were not always call worlds.com either, they change from World Chat. shame on you, Guild Wars isn't a chat program its a game !

gg.

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers --Dick the Butcher, Henry VI

What do you call 3500 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?

A good start.

You're trapped in a room with a tiger, a rattlesnake and a lawyer. Your gun has only two bullets. What should you do?

Shoot the lawyer. Twice.

Here's a question that I have (and let's hope no one from worlds.com is reading this >_>)

Why are they going after NCsoft? As far as I know they have not implemented anything like the offending patent. The developers, like Cryptic or Arenanet, are the ones that made the chat system and scalable worlds that are used in the games that NCsoft just publishes.

I fully expect NCSoft to drag out the issue until Worlds.com has no more money, and then trample them in court.

Make it happen!

i agree with Avarre, we should counter sue and get some cash for our GW2 :P

I would suspect that the reason for targeting NcSoft is, that they are a company from outside the US with a base inside the US. Or in other words they went for the easiest target from a legal point of view.
If they had targeted a company that has it's head office in the US itself, I think considering the current crisis, they would have two strikes against them for being unamerican or something.

They probably figured that if they went for a Korean target there would be less sympathy for that company and the fact that they have an office in the US makes them a legal target.
Still, I believe the patent is a US patent and not worldwide and that may be worth noting as well.

I'm not that surprised... Even human genes have been patented since early 80's, human greed shows no limit.

Like Bug John here, I am not surprised at all. People should look up medical patents for sheer greed and ridiculousness.

This reminds me of a funny story, Halliburton tried to patent patent trolling just a while back. Worlds.com is obviously infringing on their original idea and should be sued.

this

this too, it would be a nice "get to fscking work! and improve your damn sucky graphics"

Unfortunately, as mentioned, they are a foreign company being sued in Texas. With the economy, and depending on exactly where in Texas it is (there are some specificly BAD places to be sued over a patent), NCsoft is effectively guilty until prove innocent. The evidence to support them though should be enough to stop them from losing, but getting worlds.com to pay all of their lawyer's fees is a lot different (remember, foreign company, bad economy, and in Texas). NCsoft is the one who wants to get this through quickly, either by settlement or a quick and clean court visit. Worlds.com is who wants to drag it out, the longer they can convince NCsoft it will take (thereby making a court visit cost far more) the greater the chance NCsoft will just settle for a small sum of money. Worlds.com is probably hoping they can just get a small settlement out of this which would cost NCsoft much less then going to court and bitch slapping them.

It just begs for whole bag of lag-based issues (turn around, watch things appear out of thin air, lock back where you were looking, stuff is gone untill it is fetched again, no more quick scan of surroundings, unacceptable). Besides, players usually want to interact with stuff out of their vision (i.e. GW people would invite trading stranger to party to be able to spacebar to them without having to locate them visually, ever popular dots on minimap)

As such, if their technology works the way you say (data sent to client based upon field of vision of player), everyone can be calm, because I highly doubt that any developers would use this approach. Maybe with exception of non-games where people just sit around and chat or hold huge virtual conferences.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ng-patent.html

so i bet someone from worlds.com used doubleclicking to make their stupid programs. they can be sued too!

i think i would be better of patenting triple-clicking now before its to late!

Will we here from Anet anytime soon? I would be nice to here their side of the story.

There isn't any 'ANet's side of the story' ... it is pretty clear that the patent in question doesn't apply to GW and since GW is ANet's only published game they are free to /shrug and continue as usual. I'm not familiar enough with the full repertoire of NCSoft to say whether there are games to which the patent applies. Worlds.com clearly thinks so but that's not a very good indicator of the veracity of the claim. If Worlds.com is by now just a front end for a general purpose patent troll firm they may not have enough technical knowledge to make a sensible decision.

Who holds the patent for the original no-graphical MUDs. Cause those probably fall into this so-called category as well.

And, technically, we're all interacting in a virtual "world" right now, using client (IE/FF/Opera)- Server (web-server) technology. Was there a 3D requirement in that patent? If not, all RP message boards surely fall into the so-called patent as well.

Clearly, this is a case of a retard, or a retarded establishment, not understanding what the hell they're doing in granting this patent.

Ridiculous as the patent may be, it is still a patent. That means a trial and that means expenses. I can't remember where I read this, but expenses on defending against patent troll claims often cost $1-2 million to get through and win a trial. Even if NCsoft wins the chance of getting their expenses back is probably small because worlds.com is simply enforcing their patent (a perfectly logical and reasonable thing), the point of fault lies at the patent office itself and whatever morons decided it was patentable.

Not a very good idea to sue MMO's...the addicts out there will find Worlds.com (seeing as their address is on their website) and you never know what might happen o.O

That would involve them leaving their houses and...yeah, not gonna happen.

This is all pretty humorous, but I still have one major question: who the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO is worlds.com?

What about umbrellas? You take an umbrella = your eyes don't burn from non-HDR sun = you can go and wtfpwn earths.com headqua... I mean, crapshack and throw some Molotovs at them.

Good luck sueing Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony, EA Games, NcSoft, and much more from this stupid patent crap.

Lol Microsoft will send Bill Gate's ninjas and kick www.worlds.com off the web

I did kind of think, wait till he ([email protected]) tries it with Sony. I can see his head exploding like a water melon already...

interesting.

But if Worlds get their way, that would open up a monopoly position.
I don't see that happening, for obvious reasons.

You make perfect sense but. GW was out before the patent was officially issued. As were many other MMOs.

As long as NC Soft's lawyer and the jury aren't retards NC Soft should win this.

You know, this is America.


...We are lost :[

Assuming NCSoft doesn't settle, this case would almost certainly be decided on summary judgment by a judge. No jury of biased hicks involved. And, while there may be a few biased hick federal judges in Texas, appellate review of summary judgment is done afresh by the appellate court.

Once issued, a patent is considered effective from its date of filing, or, in the case of patents that follow-up another patent in specific ways, effective from the filing date of the parent patent.

The Suit
NCSoft's Reply
These are the no good lawyers
many other patent related to server chat systems so, if everyone of those patent holder were to file suit .... rofl

a chat client suing a game client?

hrmz, does not look good for NCSoft...

the patent '690 part has a precedents.

worlds.com is a patent troll lol

according to "text of '690 patent", and whoever they are does not seem to be the same people as Worlds.com formerly called worlds chat

Worlds.com needs money, and the lawsuit is a nice mask which it uses to ask NCSoft for cash. Simple as that

Let's hope NCSoft got enough $$

Shutting down WoW would bring massive chaos from the 11 million ppl who play (and i just got it)