Lawsuit that could possibly affect ALL virtual worlds?

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/12/worldscom-files-suit-against-ncsoft.html

Any patent lawyers here?

Prior art is out there to invalidate the patent.

EQ and UO were already in full swing when the patent was filed.

It could also be argued the various MuDs or text based games are also prior art.

The 2000 application tho is a continuation of a prior one filed in 1996. This will be an interesting case to watch at least.

Looks to me as if the patent is far too broad and vague in scope. It's like someone trying to patent the concept of the Internet.

Their patent may protect the specific server code implementation that they described, but that is about it. Their flow charts and examples are for a very specific implementation, closer in function to IMVU or Webkins, where you move from room to room in a contained environment, and chat with the avatars you find there.

One for the lawyers to hash out, but I seriously doubt the case against NCsoft will succeed, nor that this would impact SL or other full 3D virtual worlds that are not constrained to pre-defined "rooms".

I am looking into whether I can patent lag! There could be a lot of money in it!
I think I invented lag in 2004 by not replying to an e-mail for 3 weeks.

It's been hashed to death elsewhere (like on /.), but it has very little chance of succeeding, especially in light of the Bilski ruling. Worlds.com is just another patent troll company who has no real product, and seeks to make their money through litigation.

They claim they are the "cutting edge 3D world developer since early 1994", yet NOTHING substantial has come from their "cutting edge" company for 15 years. Oh, they've built a handful of "private 3D venues" for David Bowie, Yankee Stadium, etc. (whoopee!) However, if they were such an innovator, where's their version of SL? Surely, with their patent portfolio and associated technology, they should have had something equivalent to SL 10 years ago.

Not only that, the claims the patent makes are simple in the extreme, and were posited in numerous papers in the 3D graphics industry years before they even started. Only a patent troll would patent the obvious so long ago, and only now get around to suing over it.

They are patent trolls going after what they perceive to be the smallest company in the U.S. with Texas offices subject to the jurisdiction of courts in the plaintiff-friendly East District. They're probably hoping NCSoft will offer them $250k to $500k in settlement to avoid the minimum million dollar legal bill it takes to fight a case like this. Then, with precedent in hand, they will turn their eyes to the big fish like Blizzard and Sony.

If any of those other companies are smart, they'll summon their own legal departments and offer their collective assistance to NCSoft to squash this before it gains any momentum.

Of course, in messing with NCsoft and Tabula Rasa, Worlds.com is also taking on Richard Gariott, the multi-millionaire who invented that game, and Ultima Online, and who recently blew several million bucks merely for the pleasure of taking a joy-ride into space... NCsoft may be a "little company", but its associates have some VERY deep pockets, and they will quite likely counter-sue...

*Munches popcorn and waits for the fireworks to develop*

The first social 3D virtual world I ever saw was "Worlds Ultimate 3D Chat," back in 1999, I believe it was. Honestly, SL today doesn't seem much more advanced than Worlds was in 1999. (The critical difference is that SL allows user-created content, which really is a great big deal.)

I think it's unfair to belittle Worlds.com; they truly were innovators in 3D Worlds. Maybe not the absolute first, or maybe not the most successful, but they were innovators.

Whether or not they win their patent fight is a different issue. I'm not expert in patent law. But I find it hard to believe that so many companies are pumping such a large amount of money developing 3D worlds when there would be a huge risk of losing it in a patent lawsuit. Surely the big companties, like Blizzard, had their legal teams do their homework on the potential patent issues out there. That would lead me to guess that this lawsuit probably a close-to-zero chance of prevailing in the courts, though it might be enough of a threat to result in some sort of settlement. (As someone else pointed out on this thread, pick the easist target first and see how it goes.)

But absolute first is the issue, Amity. You don't get to make lawsuits like this unless you are the absolute first.

From what I've read, though, it looks like they were the first to receive the patent. Whether the patent will stand (perhaps it is too broad or has other technical defects) is another issue.

It will be interesting to watch. There are several defenses that might invalidate the patent: obviousness and prior art come to mind.

A colleague who does patent litigation is out of the office this week. I did e-mail him to ask for his comments. My own guess is this real goal might be to reach a settlement large enough to pay off the costs and make some profit for the plaintiff. That happens quite often with patent suits.

In order for the plaintiff to really have any effect the case will probably have to get a favorable ruling from a US District court and then on the appeal to the Federal Circuit in Washington. The Federal Circuit appeals court hears all patent appeals, and often overrules the District courts.

I seriously doubt that it will have any real effect on SL or LL except for some additional expense to them (which could be better spent improving their service or buying new servers).

So stay tuned. It might get interesting, but it might just go away quietly.

There is one other thing to keep in mind too. Even if the patent is rock-solid and legitimate, no judge is going to want to make the ruling that brings a huge, worldwide industry to its knees. If the lawsuit does have such potentially catastrophic consquences for the internet, every judge is going to be searching for that one un-dotted "i" as an excuse to deny the lawsuit.

(And, according to my little, and admittedly out-dated, Intellectual Property nutshell book, "Alleged infringers have been quite successful in attacking patents. In the United States' Courts of Appeal, litigated patents have been found invalid more often than valid."

First I have heard of it.



Innovators make things and capitalize on them via making a superior product. Losers patent the obvious (and patently unpatentable) in an attempt to bring the market down to their level of incompetence. Worse, they take other people's ideas, claim them as their own, and patent them.

There are tons of prior art well prior to their inception as a company in 1994. Not only do they stand to lose on prior art grounds, but also on patenting the obvious ("we only render avatars that the camera is facing" -- well, duh) and, with the Bilski ruling, patenting processes/software without passing the machine or transformation litmus.



Actually, it is HIGHLY detrimental to do patent research before development. If it can be shown that you were doing said research, losing a patent lawsuit under such evidence can multiply the damages 10x, because it potentially falls under "willful infringement". The argument goes something like "there's no way you could miss it, so you did know about it, but chose to infringe anyway". It sounds ridiculous, but there are numerous cases where exactly this has happened.



Well, that's the whole MO of a patent troll; find someone who has more to lose by fighting than giving in and paying the extortion, because then it gives the patent more weight in future cases. The problem is that the legal climate is changing, and patent trolls are finding that their hoards of patents are fast becoming worthless liabilities. At the rate we're going, we may see the effects of the State Street decision, which opened the floodgates to these useless, innovation-stifling business/software method patents, reversed and/or nullified. I would expect a MASSIVE amount of amicus curiae briefs in the case from many sources, against the patent troll's case.

If the patent is good, I think that the Federal Circuit will uphold it even if the District Court does not. First, as much as I like SL, I don't think a judge would consider virtual worlds to be as important to modern life as, for example, MS Office. Second, they know that I patent loss will not stop LL or their competitors, only cost them money. And the amount will be negotiated.


There are pros and cons to doing patent research before and during the early development. You cite the con. However, many companies do it. One colleague of mine, a patent attorney experienced in patent searches just joined a patent department in a large company doing software development. He will be one of many at the department. Not only can they head the engineers away from infringement, they will be able to identify patents that they might want to license, and patents that are not (or no longer) valid.

My totally untrained and gut feel is that the patent has no merit but that the plaintiff is looking for a settlement to keep it out of court.

And Amity s correct. Most patents are not upheld. They patent holder frequently loses at the appeals (Federal Circuit) court.

Mary

Nope. Richard Gariott left NCSoft over a month ago. Tabula Rasa is going offline in February.

Worlds.com is indeed a patent troll. It has strategically selected what it perceives to be the weakest of the MMORPG companies and also deliberately chose the date to file the action in a bid to secure a favorable first case to strengthen it's patent claim.

I hope that NCSoft adopts the smart response and gets the bigger companies to join in the case and pool their resources to help put World.com out of business with an aggressive multi-million dollar defense with counterclaims that invalidate the patents. That is all that patent trolls deserve.

Based on what I hear from colleagues involved in patent law, that is not ALL that patent trolls deserve. But professional ethics and common decency prohibit me from making other suggestions.

Well I'm going to join Dungeon Runners™ game at ncsoft to show those idiots at worlds.com that all they are giving is PR to the other guys.

In general I predict that a secret out-of-court settlement will be reached in where they will grant ncsoft a license for an undisclosed amount of money. This way worlds.com will have a feather in there hat to go after real money.

even a patent filling date in 1996 is going to save then from prior art clauses since there were still 3d games with chat before then.... granted chat wasn't their purpose, but it was there. someone didn't think this through (or maybe as noted they are going after the little /troubled guy in hopes that their legal dept is a bunch of morons)

PS. but it is a great example of everything that's WRONG with the patent and IP processes right now.