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

[Mr.Sam]

Let the court cases against every major MMO begin...:rolleyes:

90's virtual world developers Worlds.com has fired the first shot in what could be a game company-spanning battle as they file suit against NCsoft for infringing on their patent for multiplayer virtual environments.

The patent at question is 7,181,690, "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space", which was file in August of 2000 and finally issued in February of last year. Reading over the patent, it basically covers the client/server-based system every single MMO on the market uses to allow multiple players to view and interact with each other in a virtual world. The suit, filed on Christmas Eve, claims that NCsoft has infringed on this patent across all of its MMO titles, from City of Heroes to Guild Wars to Dungeon Runners. After reading over the patent, it looks like they've actually got a pretty solid case on their hands.

Worlds seeks damages from NCsoft, as well as assurances that the MMO publisher will not infringe on their second patent, 6,219,045 - "Scalable Virtual World Chat Client-Server System".

Mark my words here - NCsoft is just the beginning. Their patent pretty much covers every instance where users with avatars interact in a virtual space. From Second Life to World of Warcraft, PlayStation Home to Anarchy Online; everything massively online and multiplayer falls under this patent. This should be interesting, folks.

http://kotaku.com/5119944/worldscom-files-suit-against-ncsoft-+-every-other-mmo-company-to-follow

[H0BJ0B]

Wow. Now if only I was one of those developers, then I could pay you all lots of money.

[Mr.Sam]

Well you can expect Blizzard and Sony to help NCSoft to fight this case, the last thing they want is worlds to get a foothold so they can take on Blizzard.

Malicious of worlds to file the lawsuit on Christmas eve forcing a rather rushed response from NCSoft.

[GommeInc]

The patent should be scrapped. They shouldn't allow patents on something as broad as MMOs in the first place. "Virtual worlds" means alot - Patents on such virtual worlds should be done on the topic or theme of the virtual world, not virtual worlds in general.

[Callum.]

what did worlds actually make? cus i dont understand to well.

[Jordy]

I'm guessing that Habbo falls under this too judging by their patent, however they're probably going to go after the richer companies first. There's regularly court cases like this, just last week the computing firm 'Psion' is now going to go after everyone making money out the word 'Netbook' cause they reckon they came up with it in 1999 :S

It'll probably come to nothing and common sense will win, but hey, worth a try :P

[Niall!]

Haha WoW players

Sucks to be you.

[Mr.Sam]

The patent should be scrapped. They shouldn't allow patents on something as broad as MMOs in the first place. "Virtual worlds" means alot - Patents on such virtual worlds should be done on the topic or theme of the virtual world, not virtual worlds in general.
Blame the American patent system.

[amen]

Wow this is ridiculous, if this actually goes through then Worlds.net will have millions of angry gamers at their front doors in the morning haha.