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

I don't know what you think happened there, but it dragged on for years, likely cost IBM and Novell millions, if not tens of millions or dollars, and was ultimately dismissed.

I seriously doubt NCSoft could afford a protracted fight with this unoriginal losers, which is probably why they were targeted. If these goobers had gone after Blizzard, the smack-down would have been fierce and final, but they chose a smaller company with fewer resources that is more likely to roll over and give up a settlement check.

Sure looks to me like it's just an attempt at legalized extortion. Unfortunately, our patent system is so screwed up that this sort of thing is often an effective way to make money without ever actually producing a product or service.

In my perfect world, a single NCSoft lawyer would go into the court room with a copy of Ultima Online, slap it on the judge's bench, and leave without saying a word. Then, the judge would turn into a 500 foot long cobra and bite every rep from "Worlds" in half. This would be televised live as a warning to other lazy bumpkins who can't be arsed to go get a real job.

That would be awesome.

^That


World.com won't get anywhere. C'mon I bet even Blizzard, Microsoft ect will back NCSoft up. They may be competitors, but if NCSoft is actually beaten World.com will go up to the bigshots.

Oh well, I don't expect much...

(assuming that infringements on the patent are occuring)

What I don't quite understand is how you can file a lawsuit about such a broad patent against only one company out of many that might possibly be infringing upon the patent. Everyone is saying that worlds.com is going after NCSOFT first and will then go after the bigger fish if they achieve a precedent but my question is, in purely theoretical terms...

Is it logical to be able to select who to file such a broadly scoped lawsuit against? It seems like a catch-all situation to me, if you find grounds to take one party to court over this infringement then surely by logical extension you must take all such parties to court?

I dont understand the logic behind being able to choose who to accuse first. I can understand it in relation to the practicalities and the fact that worlds.com might prefer to set a legal precedent before facing the bigger fish but it seems like a gross exploitation of the legal system.

If this is a serious lawsuit it should surely be analysing all potential infringements at the same time? Under what objective reasoning should one party be tried before another?

Who decides whether its the small fish who get punished before the big fish? Is it really the party who brings the lawsuit to court who chooses?

what the f*** was that person thinking handing out a patent like that? and who is world.com anyway??

oh good luck with that lawsuit, hope they have about an extra billion dollars set aside so they can tackle sony, microsoft, [fill in with BIG NAME company], etc.

This reminds me of two things:

1) An australian man that patented "fire" and "the wheel" abusing a quick-patent system (I don't remember the details, I remember reading about it at the Annals of Improbable Research homepage).
2) A man that sued George Lucas for making the Star Wars series, as the title sounded too close to his own porno movie "Star Balls".

If these people are dumb enough to try to go after Blizzard, I'd love to see the lawyer-hounds they release. Blizzard has so much money they can hire the slickest, fastest talking lawyers to wipe the floor with this lawsuit!

Reminds me of "The tattoed teenage alien fighters from Beverly hills" Yes, there actually was a show once that had this name.

How can they patent something that MMO's from before 2000 were already using?

The USPTO doesn't believe it's their job to review patents for validity. You apply for a patent, it basically gets granted if you can pay the fee. The USPTO seems to be of the opinion that it's not their problem if you file a patent you can't defend in court and you lose it. In some cases where it's absurdly obvious that you're full of ***t they'll reject it, but that's not common.

Unfortunately, this opens up the market for legalized extortion like this where "patent trolls" can basically just file all sorts of frivolous nonsense, wait for the approval, and then spread lawsuits all over the place and see who pays a settlement to avoid a protracted court fight.

The entire U.S. patent system is a ridiculous disgrace. Worlds.com probably doesn't expect to win (at least I'd hope they don't). They probably expect NCSoft to figure it will cost them less to pay a settlement than to defend themselves.

Actually, that Out of Jimmy's Head lasted 2 seasons, had 20 episodes. And stopped there because of the America's Guild of Writers strike. And the dubbing was included in Episode 8. But it was one of the reasons it was "not renewed" by CN.

slashdot commentary on the sute
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl.../12/30/0016221

Somehow I knew this joke of a story would come from Kotaku...

The problem with patent is you don't have to invent something to patent it.

Case in point being Microsoft filed and was awarded several patents on the iPod, which we all know Apple created. They simply got there first. Many legal battles later Apple got the patents, however it cost them some cash and slowed down development on newer iPods for a time.

This won't effect NCSoft in anyway for several years before the real litigation in court happens, they won't stop new development in anyway either. There is no reason to, yet.

Granting this lawsuit and allowing this patent to hold would be a huge mistake by a judge that could cause disaster among video game developers, so it wont happen.

About 12 years ago a guy sued a Pro sports team for a refund on season tickets and other game related expendeures because the team fail to preform as advertised. Though the Judge agreed that the team did not perform as they advertised he also threw out the case stating that it would set a precedent that would collapes pro sports AND any tickets sales for anything where a customer felt dissatisfied.

Just as "settlement" is a cost related issue where you weight cost vs expense, so would be the judgement in this case. The damages would be too high to the economy, it would not happen.

The odd thing about patent owners is that companies usually wait until the copyright infringement is successful before they sue, so that they can get more money.

They missed the mark by about 10 years.

Okay... you realize that Worlds.com ask for an injunction against NCSoft...

This lawsuit is all about the enforceability of the patent. Realistically, they win here, they know have a foothold with precedent to pick on the next dog up the list. At that point they can hit alot of the other companies. The idea is to get NCSoft to sign them a check, without fighting, simply based on the injunction being a real threat.

If the judge doesn't throw that part out, there will be a scary time for MMO companies.

You don't HAVE to file suit against someone for copyright infringement. They're filing against NCSoft individually in an attempt to create a precedent that will allow them to go up against the stronger companies with better authority.

To answer your purely theoretical question, I throw out some more rhetoric: Is it logical to force someone to sue someone else?

For all we know, Worlds.com has some extremely powerful evidence against NCSoft that they're keeping quiet until they absolutely need to inform the defendant of it.





tl;dr

The moving party [plaintiff] makes the decisions, because you can't force a person to sue any other party.

Lyynyyrd is correct IMHO. They specifically chose NOT to sue the largest MMO, and they will probably have the advantage in court in Texas. They are looking for a precedent. Even if a settlement is reached, they consider it a win. It costs lots of money to defend these lawsuits, and the real culprit is the US patent system. Why are obvious patents allowed?

*sigh*

OK, lets make some money !!!!

What is "that company"s' shares worth now ? 0.19$ a share ?
Arghh are they a joke or what ?
Buy them out and let's move on !!

Is this is the company that NC$oft will have problems with ?
What a LOL !!
Is this the company that will go against M$, or $ONY, or anyone else after NC$oft ?
What a double LOL !!

This info seems to be valid.
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=102490



Just in case "that company" turns out not to be a LOL ...

What will "that company"s' shares worth if they win this ?
Gazillions !!!
BUY NOW, play your favorite MMO later !


OK, just thougths......

I would very much like to be audience to that lawsuit trial and listen to "that company"s' lawyers claim that, all the MMO developers out there, could never have made their games/game engines/virtual worlds/etc without "that company"s' amazing "System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space" pattent. That would be the LOL of the millenium.

Unfortunatelly that's not the point. The point is that "that company" will propably claim that "we may not be the brightest devs out there (look at our site and products for proof of that) but we surely have sneaky managers that claimed the patent for something that everyone else took for granded and that's that. So pay us up now."

The USPTO became a rubber-stamp agency when they stopped requiring working models/demonstations of the invention/idea.

Now they just require the paperwork and the fees. They search to see if a patent has already been granted, and if not, you get your patent. They have decided to let the courts decide the validity of a patent.

Ideas can be patented and defended, such as Apple's long-running lawsuit against Microsoft's piracy of the Mac's "look & feel." That lawsuit came to an end when Microsoft finally bought off Apple by investing in the faltering company.

I must reiterate what I said in my first post on the topic: An eleven million player game (or multi-million, simply using WoW as an example) may not have been "obvious" in 2000.