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

ok i cant believe no one looked at the worlds.com clients here is the list:

IBM
VISA
Sony
MGM
Starbright Foundation
Absolute
Pearson PLC
Compaq Computer
Artisan Entertainment
David Bowie/Ultra Star
Aerosmith
Universal Pictures
WWF
Polygram
BT
Freeserve
Roadrunner
AOL

as u can see Sony is on here so that means Worlds.com cant sue them

also their graphics are really horrible. If im thinking about this correctly they are going for the domino effect which i hope stops at a big company if NCsoft loses

Im glad, and then not glad that this is the case. The reason that i'm glad is because i play Everquest 2. Why am i also upset that this is the case? Because i had hoped Worlds could attempt to sue Sony for infringement and get ruined by Sony because Sony has moneys and Worlds is a company i don't think any living gamer i know has ever heard of, that wields a patent that Not I or anyone i Know has EVER heard of so it would be extremely lolsome. But now Worlds can't sue Sony. Oh well...

But as we see... Blizzard is NOT a client. This is so juicy I can't wait to see soon: "Blizzard is SUED by Worlds.com click here to read more" a fun filled adventure awaits when this happens.

Maybe worlds is jealous of the fact that the Guildwars graphics engine kicks the shit out of what ever the hell Worlds is using.

The one about the "Method for Exercising a Cat" made me LOL.

Super lame on their part, but I guess if they feel that their patent has been illegally infringed upon then its their prerogative.

Still, harking back to the post by Isaac on the first page:
Worlds lamest riot. Picture the scene, 6m skinny spotty kids team up with 5m fat middle aged virgins to ineffectually pummel the world.com headquarters with their muscleless arms before descending into arguements about how everyone else is doing it wrong and how they each were there first and have been whacking the building longer than everyone else and so know the best way to do it.

tbh I'm sure that worlds.com won't get anywhere.

But I would LOVE to see them sue Blizzard, worlds.com would absolutely get their shit rocked.

Worlds.com started the MMO concept in 1994 with World Chat and 2D avatars. They significantly expanded their MMO concept in 1995 when they 'merged' with Ron Britvich and his Activeworlds project with 3D environments and avatars. Ron is a very cool guy.

Activeworlds allows people to populate their own worlds with their own 3D creations or build in public worlds with pieces provided by the developers. Activeworlds is where I learned 3D modeling using Renderware technology.

Worlds Inc (their name at the time) sold Activeworlds in 1997 or 1998 to Circle of Fire, one of the world developers resident in the program, and a lot of the old timers left.

It's real easy to believe one can own a patent on MMO technology. It was a revolutionary concept barely more than 10 years ago. Activeworlds and their 'citizens' were pioneers. It was quite an exciting time.

No, worlds.com did not start the MMO concept, that was started by someone else and everyone involve in online gaming business evolve from there. it started back in the late 80s with something called habitat.

Actually, it started when internet started. Roy Trubshaw

Started the concept? Bollocks.
Revolutionary? Bollocks.

Are you still working for them? If so, that would explain why you'd post their propaganda for them. If don't still work for them... wow, they must have quite an "induction" program.

would this cover any typed message also the avatar being your name

sarcasm: i am going to patent the word Mobs which was carry forward from the MUD days and then sue the hell out of the mmorpg company for tons of cash for something i didn't invent. :P

Yeah I was just coming back to reword my post because it's not the MMO "concept" they pioneered. It's their technology that they're suing over. The worlds.com concept is about 3D or VR technology, and they put the massive in massive multi-player with their technology. Until 1995, the most users the Everwinter Nights engine could hold was 50 and it was limited to AOL users.

"Habitat was not a 3D environment and did not incorporate immersion techniques. This would generally exclude it from the VR mold, and it was neither designed nor perceived as a VR environment. However, it is considered a forerunner of the modern MMORPGs which are more similar to VR-style applications and was quite unlike other online communities."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_(video_game)

No worlds.com did not put the word massive into massive multi player with their technology. someone else did. Worlds is a patent troll.

and the patent officers that allow this are idiots for approving something so broad in scope to be patented. Something that all pc gaming industries are working on and will eventually all evolve in the same direction.

mmorpg "history"

I understand lakatz's point (how ridiculous to call him a traitor, don't people read posts anymore?), because I had a discussion not too long ago with people from the Second Life community (very, very knowledgeable) and realised how diverse these "Virtual Worlds" (VW) are, both from the point of view of their aims (MMOs are games, SL is "serious" as people work and "live virtually" over there) and technology (SL looks too basic graphics-wise, but it's a User-Generated Content/UGC kind of VW which makes the technological challenge amazingly difficult but so rewarding for creators).

(side-note: the discussion on this affair in the SL mailing lists almost immediately died with people in-the-know telling others that it's not going to last long, from the opinion of well-informed lawyers; the contrast with this gaming community is striking, with most (but not all) people expressing opinions, without any deep understanding or facts, it's like anyone can have an opinion on anything and want to share it with the world, freedom of information but no accountability)

Despite all our accumulated knowledge and tools like google, people are short-sighted nowadays, because we lost the link between things, given the number of things we can access. History is a thing of the past (some call it "provenance") and I'm always very, very happy to read stories about old technos and developments. Nothing is completely new, you always built on top of old stuff, but rarely learn your lesson.

The patent system is ridiculed by story like these. When SCO launched their affair to claim rights over Unix/Linux systems, people were baffled. It's a lawyer-thing (no offence to lawyers) and we simply realise the profound gap between "correct" and "right". It's almost funny (in a cynical kind of way :/ ) to read people trying to make sense of this at "their" level.

The thing that cases like this make me realise is how ridiculous the US Patent system has become.

Time and time again, the US Patent Office has said that they do not believe it is their responsibility to check the validity of a patent application. This means that three people could potentially apply for a patent for the SAME thing because they don't bother to check whether someone has already filed. The US Patent Office expects the company filing to check that:

1) there isn't an existing patent for an identical/similar item/manufacturing process/novel techonological step/technology
2) that it is an item/manufacturing process/novel technological step/technology
3) that it is NOVEL, not just a natural progression of ideas

Just because worlds.com is associate with some big names doesn't make them right/correct/consistant with law. Having read the patent it is clear they are patenting a "concept", which you simply cannot do. If they wish to patent an "engine" then they may do so. If NCSoft uses that engine without royalties, then NCSoft must pay. However from the (albiet limited) information given on this case I would certainly say that worlds.com is just a patent troll.

The US Patent System is wide open for abuse. From what I can tell Worlds.com is taking advantage of that. They are taking advantage of the legal system that is more likely to rule in their favour.

Anyone remember the guy who patented a certian method of swing on a swing and tried to sue the parents of other kids who used the same method?

If worlds.com were trying to patent more than just a concept I'd be less sceptically of this whole media blitz.

Once upon a time when the world wasn't this huge international trading post, first to file must have been a great idea. The US Patent office must have worked really well, but in today's world it is way out of touch. It needs to be fixed.

Pumpkin Pie: Damages exist in many forms. Damages for loss of business, damages for loss of proprietry technology, the list could go on. The long and short of it though is that they can only be awarded damages if the patent is held up by the court. And the defense has the opportunity to argue that damages are negligable - for instance in this case worlds.com probably wouldn't have suddenly got all of Blizzard's business. What I'm saying is that just because WoW has 11 million subscribers, if WoW didn't exist doesn't mean they will be playing EQ2. Damages is normally where the money comes from in many cases that go to court. In this case even if they uphold the patent (which I believe to be unlikely) and order other companies to pay royalties, I doubt that significant damages could be awarded unless they come up with something creative.

Was it ever really? I mean, apparently, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone....

Here is why first to file was great 100+ years ago:

If it had been first to invent, then they would never have been able to use many of the inventions that where occurring in Europe at the time. Patents weren't at the time enforced across international boundaries. If the US had used a first to invent system then they would never have been able to patent and "protect" the technology they were bringing into the country.

Patents were, at the time, about protecting the technology WITHIN the borders of the US. It cost a lot of money for some of these people to go overseas and acquire the technology, it was a good idea to be able to protect their ventures by being able to patent it when they got home. The fact that (for certain) many technollogies were patented many times in various countries meant nothing.

Unfortunately this doesn't work in the world we live in today because we work on a global scale. Ugg Boots are a perfect example of this.

Ugg Boots is a term long used in Australia to describe sheep skin boots. That even stretches to the fluffy synthetic slippers we wear around the house today. Back in the 50s (I think) an American visiting Australia thought it was a quiant idea and went back home and patented/trademarked the good old ugg boot. Push forward in time nearly 50 years and the company established which manufactured "Ugg Boots" demanded it be removed from the Australian vocabulary because they had the rights to it (as filed in the US). The US courts upheld the rulings but it was eventually dropped. Why? Because it was stupid. Australians have been using the term for ages, and changing it because they were first to file (in the US, not Australia) was stupid. The saga continued with the company trying to file in Australia, they were told they could not because it was a common part of the Australian language and society.

First to file is a ok/good idea in a country trying to protect imported technology. In a country isolated from the rest of the world. But that is not the case today, where the market is international.

this

if they had the patent for such a long time, why didn't they use it earlier?

Why doesn't worlds.com pull the stick out of their butts? Because if they don't, Anet will and beat them with it.

This could affect ALL MMO's. I'm pretty sure Microsoft, Sony, Blizzard and hell even Runescape will be more than happy to help.

Worlds.com just announced, "Hey, I have this patent that gives me the right to sue every MMO!"
Every MMO company will say. "What is worlds.com?"
Worlds.com will reply. "I'm going to target Anet first!"
Anet will say. "What is worlds.com?"

Lol! I just love how everyone gets sued these days...it's pretty ridiculous.

It's the American way, don't you know?

1) Having a patent on a virtual online world is redicilous. Having a patent on a game, ok, but having a patent on a concept is just redicilous. (Gamewise anyway)
But then again, the world is a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up place, so I gues the patent IS ligitimate, AND WoW and GW ARE in fact breaking it.

2) NC soft, nor any company doesn't really want negative publicity. Any publicity = good publicity doesn't go here, as I can see headlines read:
"Company sues NCSoft for STEALING their idea"
or something along those lines. Even if they manage to win, which is very likely, they will still have to invest alot in their lawyers, aswell as the counter-publicity.

3) I can see where it's easier for a comany such as NCsoft, or Blizzard to simple "pay them", and avoid any further fuss, depending on HOW MUCH they are asking. If that number < the total cost of lawers, publicity, etc... then it would make sense to go for this option.

4) It's America, anything is possible.

I can definatly see the company take NCSoft down, unlikely but plausible. At the same time, I can see them getting payed by NCsoft. And last but not least, I can also see NCSoft crush them with the help from Blizzard, etc...

Either way, something interesting for tought for the next few weeks/months...

Ultima Online (UO) is a graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), released on September 25, 1997,[1] by Origin Systems, Inc.

Unless one of worlds.com's clients is OSI then there patent means jack shit.

Sorry, but, it doesn't matter when something is 'released' all that matters is when the patent was 'applied for'. Many people have lost millions because they didn't apply for a patent or a copyright because they didn't know any better or didn't think it was necessary. So, once again a wouldbe lawyer like Bowstring doesn't know what he's talking about.

I just served on a case of infringement in Marshall Texas and I know the procedures and I know how most jurors think. We awarded the plantiff 1.3 billion dollars in restitution and the major(s) that infringed are the ones that got jack shit. hahahahaha NCsoft is going down.

Wouldn't it be possible for the Judge to dismiss the case until such time that Worlds.com included other possible defendants that may have violated the patent also (ie Blizzard,Microsoft,et al) so as to allow no precident to be set.

I for one hope that NCSoft does not settle because anything gotten in a settlement is yours reguardless of what happens afterwards.

http://gwpoll.tk/ be sure to vote

Hi Fril...

Very cool... you were able to empathize with the mood of the mid-90s when all this 3d immersive innovation was happening. It was a very exciting time.

I read the abstract of the patent and looked at the notes and images, and it's very interesting that the people named in the patent don't include Ron Britvich... probably because they parted ways when they sold Activeworlds to COF. But their first application for a patent was in 1995, and that's the year they partnered with him to develop AW. I'm curious to know how why he's not named.

If you google Ron Britvich, you'll find a few sites online that attest to his brilliance. My favorite compares him to Neil Stephenson (Snowcrash), William Gibson (Neuromancer) and Tad Williams (Otherland). The author says:

"If I were to nominate candidates for the Virtual World Innovation Award, there would be only three true Metarati: Neil Stephenson, Tad Williams and Ron Britvich, the guy from WebWorlds." http://blog.mindblizzard.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

Anyway, if anyone benefits from this patent, I believe Ron Britvich should as well. He was integral. But he's also very humble and easy going. He's more likely to talk about how much fun an amusement park is than about his own innovations and shrug his shoulders at the thought of making the fortune that's potential in this lawsuit.

You mentioned the SL mail lists. When I was googling for stuff on the patent I found some posts on the Activeworlds forum that were rather entertaining, though I don't believe the likes of my juvenile protractors would find them so. For example, "The whole worlds.com thing makes me laugh. I'm waiting for them to try and sue someone who matters." http://forums.activeworlds.com/showthread.php?p=100936 Ouch, not a lot of love there for NCSoft. lol

Anyway, I'm thinking of renewing my citizenship with AW after an exhaustive search for opportunities to display my Maya work in a 3D immersive environment. SL will let you upload nurb-based objects of limited data to use for building larger projects, but that's something I can't do because it becomes a huge waste of data. AW is the only place I've found in my search that will allow me to upload clean polygon-based models. They even have a public world now that allows people to upload their own models. So once I get going, I will send you an invitation to come see my work.

Until then...

Ciao for now.

The way I see it, two fundamental criterias for awarding the patent have NOT been met: new and non-obvious. You would be surprised how many crap patents are awarded every year, this is probably one of them.

no one should be able to exploit this patent, its something that everyone was and is working on/towards and has started since the 70s believe it or not.

Excerpt from: MMORPG History on wikipedia
Islands of Kesmai
Maze War
Plato
Neverwinter Night
The Shadow of Yserbius


by the way, if anyone know, sending of informations from client to server and back, is that somekind of math's formula?

Because this is what it is, isn't it? Sending of informations from server to client and vice versa. for instant this forum, it is also sending and receiving information and vice versa from a client to the server, and this has been happening since the begining of internet, everyone has been sending and receiving informations between servers and clients, and servers around the world already can handle many clients ? anyone?

actually the wording is different today from yesterday. In the old days it was host computer. Today they call it servers and that is a big difference.

No, it's not math, it's the most basic distributed software architecture, taught in schools, thus un-patentable. But this has no bearing at all on worlds.com's claims on their technology. At this point, we'd better leave it to the lawyers, thus outside of this thread and forum, and then get back to it when there's news on the patent front.

It's the same story we saw countless times before: soon we'll have companies taking actions, a few good lawyers publishing review of the patent, people taking side, and then only the suit may begin. Until then, let's not make a big thread about something so far from our understanding.

NCSoft has 20 days to reply after the suit.

and no, this is the first time i've seen someone actually wants to patent something that practically everyone is using and the stupid patent office actually let them patent it.

The way I read the patent, it's actually about occlusion culling not just for graphical optimization, but also using it for networking optimization.

Sounds like a straightforward combination of two long existing concepts, i.e. a natural progression of ideas, and thus an invalid patent.

what about this?

the technology of MMORPGs

Algorithm


worlds.com claims
"deliver HTML, audio and video content all within the 3D Worlds Website."
their technology is for use with a web-browser. am i reading it correct?

The USPTO does that all the time and lawyers have to correct their wrongs (since the USPTO, as said before by Ctb, doesn't consider checking most patents their job). Companies do that all the time, patent is used by business to make money, not protect themselves from idea thieves. Last, but not least, patents are written in a very different language from the one we use, don't try to decipher it unless you're technically very versed in the topic and have a law baggage with you. It's like trying to read Hieroglyph when you know nothing about it (I used to be able to do it ).

if everyone have the attitude of don't read cos one can't understand, then one never learn. Because of this thread I learn 2 phrase/terms, prior art and declaratory Judgement.

You didn't read my post properly: I didn't say "don't read", I said "don't talk about it" (the part on Hyeroglyph was more on decyphering than simply "reading", as in read between the lines and discuss the meaning). In this age of google and wiki, we may think that we know a lot at the tip of our mouse/keyboard, but we don't. Feel free to discuss anyway, it's only my opinion and I'm only me, a noone in the see of everyone.

Hehe, that comment from the activeworlds forum made me laugh. Do they not realise the reason they are going for NCSoft first so that they can then go after the Blizzards of the MMO world.

First they go for a small company and win, setting a precedence, making it almost impossible for any other company that they might decide to sue to defend themselves.

The laws a bitch.

The best thing that the MMO world can do is rally behind NCSoft and make sure worlds.com don't win, otherwise say bye bye to fee-less MMOs and hello to even more expensive pay-2-play games.

Hi Morgan...

You made some very good points here.

The AW forum post I quoted made me laugh too. I hope you heard the mirth I was feeling when I wrote that post. If you followed my link to that thread, you found other reasons to laugh as well. It's pretty humorous. But then so are many posts in this thread... whether intentionally or not.

Your assessment of the best approach is also my best guess as to what's going to happen. Many unions do collective bargaining because there is power in numbers. And the film and television industry long ago formed the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers to negotiate with them because there is power in numbers. Same thing.

One thing to note is that Worlds.com started the application process in 1995. I'm very curious to know why it took 13 years. One of the many possibilities is that the patent office wanted to make sure it was an enforceable patent. If it weren't for the fact Worlds.com doggedly pursued these two patents for 13 years, I'd say this suit was more a vehicle for publicity than anything else.

Something else to consider is that BT once tried to sue Prodigy over their use of the hyperlink, and they lost. It's a precedence of sorts, but I don't know if a patent was at issue. I'd need to research it more. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

One thing I think some readers of this forum should pay attention to is this patent is not just about MMORPGs. I see posts repeatedly referring to MMORPGs. It's about ALL MMOs... much more far reaching than just games. There's many more applications of 3D immersive technology than just games.

hehe NCsoft is goin down and hello pay to play GW2 woooohoooo. Say bye bye to the 8 year olds and attitudes and play for free and go bam bam and pew pew in the game and on forums hahaha I can hardly wait for the outcome.

You actually think if a game is p2p, there are no kids? Quite contrary - students (or just anyone in high school or older) has no money/time/both to play p2p, adults have better things to do... and kids can just beg their rich parents "MOMMY PLX PLX I WILL BE BETTER AT SCHOOL JUST LEMME PLAY NOW KTHXBYE".

Just give a game rules hard enough so small kids won't understand.

Lakatz.
I thought its 2 patents one apply 13 years ago.
One which they re-wrote the patent description and apply it once more and was awarded the patent in 2007.

So I ask again why did they re-write the descriptions? And bother to re-apply for another patent if the one that was awarded 13 years ago can be use to cover whatever technology they claim to have created. See, this come back to that the patent is not suppose to be patent-able, and if they wants to patent things revolve around 3Ds, shouldn't 3D programs producer have more claim to that then them?

The patent of 13 years ago is even more ridiculous, it is basically in my understanding, communication between server-client. How do you patent that, the internet is sever-client, client-server. right?

Fril Estelin,
If I don't talk about it, how am i suppose to ask about things I don't know and don't understand?