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

I'll file a patent about taking off pants before you poo.

but what if i draw a chart and pictures with penguins just like worlds . com?

From the link posted by The Meth, I found this article, which may or may not apply here.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200...17172691.shtml

The article is from October 2008, so its fairly recent. It might be the reason Worlds.com is doing this now and against NCsoft, but at the same time it might save NCsoft from having to deal with this case at all.

Great dig pumpkin pie!

On further thoughts, I find this legal action quite ridiculous technically, and even from a legal standpoint. NCsoft has such a wide range of MMO games that it couldn't apply to all their games, GW being notable for having a technology that no other MMO has (and could reasonably be patended, contrarily to worlds.com). Then you'd ask "Why NCsoft?" and people suggested that it's because of their financial situation, but I bet that the greedy lawyers behind worlds.com targeted them for technical reasons, so that they stand a chance, or the explanation that foreign companies don't stand in chance in USA court is correct (and troubling...what kind of justice is that?). But even technically, it doesn't make much sense, you don't patent scalability or networking in general, and even particular implementations of it are so diverse that they have very little chance to convince a jury in the face of technical evidence.

Then there's the idea of getting through the small door to the big houses, which makes more sense to me. NCsoft will undoubtedly get the backing of all the "majors" (Blizzard Activision, SOE, MS, EA) and they're never, ever going to let a crack in their (virtual) worlds. I bet that behind the scenes, a coalition of majors will sign a big check to worlds.com, through many hidden paths, and we'll never hear of this story again, and worlds.com neither. Meanwhile, greedy people get big bucks, honest devs get and companies got a scare, MMO player ponder on this legal action and the futility of USA patents.

This clearly reminds me of the utterly unbelievable "software patents" story, that's still going on strong in Europe. Who can claim parenting of MMOs when they come from oldies like MUDs? It's this stupid idea that you create a new kind of software and want exclusive rights on that. Patent trolling is what it is, an abheration that was possible through the cracks of the system.

Out of curiosity, if the judgement did happen to go against NCSoft and for some reason worlds said "you're not allowed to use it anymore" could they just annex Texas and continue selling everwhere else?

No it's his Oompa Loompas that will do that :P

Ps. What other patents do these scroungers have? Making a cup of tea patent, tying shoelaces in a right to left fashion patent? Bet they play GW's, they're the ones in Ascalon who are always begging for money, prolly for the past 3 years lol

Radical idea but if they lose, how about they move the all servers to Europe where US based software method patents don't apply.

Worlds.com can not win this battle I believe. They may be able to strike a huge blow against NCsoft but every MMO? No they do not have the means. The MMO is much too powerful a foe ^^

Penny Arcade has this to say about Worlds.com:

"**** you, i own virtual worlds", this is the content of an email i sent to worlds

I just hope worlds goes after blizzard, and then realize they made the last mistake they could ever make while blizzard rips them a new asshole and causes them to shutdown and lose their patent. Oh man if they go after Blizzard it will be bloody, very bloody.

I'm sure they have gotten TONS of hate mail so far, probably even death threats.LOL

Well, Ted Kaczinsky never had to leave his cabin. The US Mail did his work.

SO why exacly did Worlds target NCSoft first when they coulda gon Nexon, Activision Blizzard, Square Enix, or something else? I just can't find the answer...

Well - they think NCSoft would be an easy 1st target so they could bulk up on some cash to use when they go against "better" companies

They asked everyone in the company what are they playing and so no one was playing games published by NCSoft...I suppose that's it.

Easier target, since they don't have quite the same piles of cash laying around as the others to hire all the fancy lawyers and bury Worlds in litigation. That they recently closed up shop in Austin(in Texas) and are relatively weak from their big loss in Tabula Rasa, doesn't help.

Immersion, they sued both Microsoft and Sony. MS settled while Sony eventually lost and is paying some $90 million for that. And in a more recent repeat of that, another patent troll got around to suing Nintendo and MS, also over their controllers. MS settled again, while Nintendo lost and has to pay $21 million. That was back during the summer and last I heard they intend to appeal. Not that there isn't again another troll(or 3) suing them.

Doesn't bode well, ridiculous as it all seems.

Lawyers should be shot.

EDIT: Wow, this worlds.com website is pretty shitty... I think a giant "whoru?" is in order.

Sure. But I'll demand you pay for your own ticket to get to me. Any you pay for the bullet. Thank you.

Any idiot can sue anyone over anything. Whether he succeeds or not is a different matter and subject to the legal system.

The problem with this method, as far as my cursory look at it allows, seems to be that the patent is so broadly worded and so simplistic in nature, that I fail to see what about it is radically new, where the innovation is that patent law is supposed to be protecting. MMORPGs are after all not a thing of yesterday.

They don't have a case, and even if they do they would be suing literally the WWW community, neopets, gaia online, runescape, Gw, EVERYTHING. The lawsuit would rage for longer than the patent exists and be thrown out of court, you can't sue the world wide web...NOT TO MENTION the size of the lawsuit against every MMO would take the entire US judicial branch generations to finish. So really, what case?

Penny arcade wins Yet again. gg this and this alone is the sole reason i keep going to pax....

I'd only be worried if i had made a mmo based on penguins

Not only those online communities but even FPS games, those are virtual worlds with interacting players too, FPS not only on PC's but consoles too, oh man Halo 3... (Microsoft) Worlds would not stand a chance for a second against Microsoft.

Here's the bottom line.

Worlds.Com f***ed up. They had a chance to grab MMO's from the start and make money by letting them use their patents for a fee. What happened? Well for one they patented the most ridiculous thing you could possibly patent, which is like patenting the use of speech for f**k sake, and secondly they didn't make the patent clear enough. The f****d up and they lost, 3D virtual worlds make the world go round and they can't stop companies that run them.

At http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~swc/ngbib.html anyone can find a lot of texts that describe what "that company" claims to be their "invention" (I tend to LOL every time I write this)

There are texts that describe network topologies, avatars, communication, virtual worlds, etc, etc.
My favorite text is this one:

[Funkhouser, 1996]
Thomas Funkhouser. Network topologies for scalable multi-user virtual environments. In Proceedings of the Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium 1996 (VRAIS '96), pages 222–229, Santa Clara, CA, April 1996.

And this was just a random search.

Once again... what did those patent office gurus where thinking (drinking) when they issued that (and others I suppose) patent(s) ?

Did Worlds even try to stop other companies before NCsoft from infringing on their patent? And how isn't Blizzard and EA and all the other big guys now supporting NCsoft for the trial?

The way i see it, Blizzard could spend a little money to ensure that the Worlds doesn't get past NCsoft and therefore have the cash to try suing them in turn where they would lose a lot more.

I wonder if even this forum infringes the patent?

It is a virtual place were people interact through avatars. The worlds patent does not mention a time factor as far as I can see which means that the interaction does not necessarily need to be simultaneous

Could NCSoft counter-sue for anything?

Easy, NC-Soft files a patent in Korea and sues World.com over there, let's see who wins that one.

If the suit is so completely devoid of merit that (in the judge's view) no one could reasonably believe it had a legitimate purpose (ie enforcing a valid patent), but instead was intended solely for an illegitimate purpose (ie intimidating NCSoft into settlement), NCSoft could ask* the judge to impose sanctions on Worlds.com, or their lawyers, or both** under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. That's a hard standard to meet, but it happens.

There may also be sanction or fee-shifting rules built into the patent laws, but I wouldn't know about them.


(* If extremely irritated, the judge could also impose sanctions without NCSoft asking, but he or she must first give Worlds.com a chance to explain themselves. This happens only rarely.)

(**But, in the event of a totally bullshit legal claim (as opposed to a totally bullshit factual claim), only the lawyers could be sanctioned.)

I think the patent covers interaction through "avatars" in a 3D world, so i think we're safe here.

Hahaha, this just made my day

/win thread

Thanks for this knowledgeable answer Chthon. What do you think of the following paragraph taken from this blog article:

? Oh and what's an amici curiae brief?

The more I read about this "affair", the more it looks like worlds.com is going to be ridiculed by the "prior art" clause of patents. I heard rumours from very serious lawyers in the USA that it's going to be a very short-lived affair. I wouldn't want to be a honest, sincere MMO player on one of their games.

I was under the impression that it was because GW's is Korean and that some states in the US are racist?

Hello no. It's because NCSoft is weak right now, through the reorganizing of NC West, the closing of Tabula Rasa and the departure of Richard Garriott. The economy has not be kind to NCSoft and the opportunistic bastard lawyers at Worlds.com see that.

I just want to know how Worlds.com would see MMOs operating outside of the client-server structure that they "patented". I also really wish that the US Patent System had a "use it or lose it" structure so that it makes patent-squatters like world.com either force companies to pay royalties much earlier on (like when MMOs first freakin' came out!) or lose the patent. And whomever actually allowed this patent through is a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing moron. /endrant

Here's the patent btw:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=wv5-AAAAEBAJ

If anyone didn't see this yet.

You're welcome Fril. Glad to be of service.

The writer is muddling two concepts together: (1) whether the patent is valid, and (2) whether the patent has been infringed. The article is correct that an issued patent is presumed valid. However, the article incorrectly concludes that the burden of disproving infringement falls on NCSoft. The correct distribution of burdens is that NCSoft has the burden of proving the patent invalid (if they choose to assert a "the patent wasn't valid in the first place" defense), and Worlds.com has the burden of proving infringement of the patent (that NCSoft used something covered by the patent without permission).

As for the burden to disprove the validity of the patent, I don't think who has it makes much difference in this case. As is, NCSoft will present evidence that Worlds.com's "invention" was already known and used by programmers before they filed their patent, and Worlds.com will try to refute that by presenting evidence showing that their "invention" is somehow different than what came before (or, rather, they will try to put on a good show to that effect). If the burden was reversed, Worlds.com would put on the same evidence to establish the validity of their patent, and NCSoft would put on the same evidence to dispute it. They'd both make the same presentation anyway.

(Also, there's some question as to whether a recent case makes Worlds.com patent invalid without any need to even look at the evidence.)

As for the burden of proving infringement, I half expect Worlds.com to fail. (Btw, I 85% expect NCSoft to prevail on the invalidity of the patent.) GW is the only NCSOft game I've played, and I don't see it as fitting cleanly into the "art" the patent describes. Perhaps they're after another game I haven't seen.

As for the assertion that the court in Texas is going to be biased against NCSoft: (a) US Federal Courts tend to be professional and no more biased against foreigners than any other court in the world. That is, they're biased, but not badly so. (b) You have to keep in mind who the plaintiff is as well. They too are a faceless corporation, and they're patent-trolling scum to boot. It's easy be biased against a faceless foreign corporation in favor of a hometown widow or orphan or somesuch; but to be biased against a faceless foreign corporation in favor of a scummy faceless corporation that just happens to be American is a different matter.

That's Latin for "friends of the court." ("Amicus" is the singular form.) They're legal arguments on paper (that's a "brief" means) submitted by non-parties who have an interest in the case -- usually trade organizations, public interest groups, government regulatory agencies, state governments, etc. Judges usually don't welcome (or read) them unless they see the case as particularly important with a precedential impact much greater than just the two parties actually in court. You see it a lot with Supreme Court cases. Not so much with lower courts.

As for this case, unless the judge has already made up his mind that the patent is a total joke, I'd expect him or her to allow amici briefs. If I were Blizzard right now, I would be very vigorously petitioning the judge to accept an amicus brief from me.

US has this First-to-invent versus first-to-file systems


by the way this is quite ridiculous too lol not that it has anything to do this this case but... be carefull next time you use the page up and down ...

Also hope this is a case of Prior Art hrmz ... sticky.

everyone knows this is all about money, if Arena Net Settle, and pay for the licensing, we may not see a free to play in Guild Wars 2 curse you worlds.com.

PS: MarlinBackna, they have two good reasons to file suit in Texas, read post #50 the other reason is Texas has been known to side with the plaintiff in many previous patent cases.

actually found a number of other reasons in my search:
Habitat Chronicles
Broken Toys

Club Penguin

and Active Worlds probably should file suit against Worlds.com ...

I here by claim the Patent on "Existing," anyone or anything that exists without paying me will be sued.

hehe.... yeah. I hereby claim the patents of using the bathroom, walking, driving a car, using a telephone, and the most important thing, making babys!!!

This is correct only in the US I believe. In Australia, and the rest of the world I believe, it is first to invent rather than first to file.

NCSoft was first targeted most likely because they are a foreign company and they are less likely to win a case on US soil.

Nonetheless I wouldn't be alarmed. They are basically sueing over a concept, no matter how much detail they went into regarding client-server interaction. This is a slippery slope and any judge would be aware that in the IT industry precendent is not a good thing to set.

Worlds.com would have to prove that:
1) There was no client-server interaction of any sort prior to their filling for it, *cough* internet *cough* irc *cough* MUD *cough*, OR
2) That THEIR idea was a NOVEL step on top of what already existed, OR
3) They have to buy the judge (and jury?) out.

They can't prove the first two. Why not? Well there was a thing called text based MUDs which functioned in the same sort of way they described, they then advanced to 2D pics and then to 3D. In short not only did the client-server system exist fairly widely before they applied for the patent, the progression of the technology is such that the development of a 3D avatar was only natural and in no way novel.

Another matter which needs to be mentioned is that patents last for 20 years, and that the first patent that would have been issued is a "protective" patent. This lasts usually no more than 3 years (of course my knowledge of the patent system is not US based) so in theory because they did not file and have a full patent issued in the intervening time they loose it.

In order to be awarded damages, worlds.com would have to prove that they LOST BUSINESS due to all these other MMOs out there. Once again they can't prove this. All NCSoft would have to do is drag 11 million WoW players to the stands and ask them what they know about worlds.com. I believe that would probably be 11 milliion "huh?"s.

I don't think it can be won. I think they are just patent digging, something which the US patent system is well known for. Aussies will well remember the US company that tried to erase the word "ugg boots" from the Australian vocabulary to refer to anything but their own "patented/copyrighted/trademarked" product.

Finally, if it does actually go to court without being thrown out before it sees the light of day, it wouldn't suprise me if NCSoft suddenly found itself in bed with companies like, well Blizzard. MMO companies will be watching this carefully. They don't want it to set a precendent so I imagine they will do everything to ensure it does not. Even funding a competitor's lawsuit.

NCSoft did not make any money from the server interaction technology, they sell a game not even a chat specific game, and the usage of servers is free, for Guild wars Exteel and Dungeon Runner, if i remember the latter 2 are free to play forever, and Aion isn't even out yet, tabula rasa is closed, what else is there? am i correct thinking that if you do not make money from using something, there can be no damage claim? what if ncsoft has a set of totally different technology? and how come the patent definitions of worlds.com are different, the one file in the year 1996 and the one file in 2000? why did they have to change the descriptions of the patent in the later ones?

IMO, as a non laywer base person, the best thing to do now could be this: get other MMO developers to join forces, because if a precedent is set, worlds is sure to go after the rest of the MMO developers.

also found this Meridian 59 the precursor of all MMORPG if not mistaken, it started as a 2D online multiplayer game into a 3D online multiplayer game, and the whole online gaming world evolve together, from text to 2D to 3D , much like any gaming and programs. How do you sue someone over something that evolve into being?

According to the history of MMORPG, Worlds.com isn't anywhere near.