Posted by Juggynaut on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 - 38 Comments
Tags: lawsuit, lawyer, ncsoft, patent, second life, silicon alley insider, sue, thom kidrin, virtual world, worlds.com
Silicon Alley Insider is reporting today that Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin claims that the idea of scalable virtual worlds with thousands of users is his company’s intellectual property, and that Worlds will sue anyone who refuses to license the idea. Worlds currently has a lawsuit against NCSoft, publisher of such games as City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars, and Lineage II. Should litigation against NCSoft succeed, Kidrin ‘absolutely’ plans on moving on to sue MMO industry leaders such as World of Warcraft and Second Life.
The patents originally were developed by the Starlight Starbright Foundation, a charity dedicated to improving the quality of life for seriously ill children. They had the idea of creating Starbright World, a virtual world for the enjoyment of children who may not have been able to interact or explore due to illness. The patents cover an architecture for enabling thousands of users in a 3D space, and Worlds.com now owns the rights to those patents.
Of course, I am no lawyer, but the idea of thousands of users in a 3D space sounds like just about every MMO out there right now, save those that linger in two dimensions. Should the courts rule in Worlds.com’s favor, it will make such games more expensive due to licensing fees, which may translate into higher costs for you and me. We’ll have to wait this one out and see how things go in the NCSoft case. Check out Silicon Alley Insider for more details.
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By Convertabull@theforums ^ on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
i call shennanigans
By Fladon on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I think worlds is a huge load of bs and just want to make a couple extra bucks. because if they felt that strongly abouy it why didnt they bring it up as soon as mmogs started out?
By Andra on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Everybody together now…. ****EYEROLL****
Stoo-pid.
By Garv on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I think that it won’t go well for Worlds.com because (at least imo) they couldn’t have a patent for all virtual 3D spaces. It’s like General Motors sueing any other car company that has put out a muscle car saying that they have the patent to any two-door V8 with rear wheel drive.
By teeters on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
lmao @ “i call shennanigans” converabull XD
and i agree with fladon it is a hug load of bs!
By alex on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I personally don’t see where they have a leg to stand on. Yes they may hav the patent on the concept but it doesn’t mean that everyone that uses a simular type of concept is violating the patent rights. Then you get into the question do they have the legal right to say they own the concept of using the internet as a way to connect millions of people together a violation of this patent issue. There are tons of software out there that use 2D and 3D concepts to mak interaction between human people though the use of the public domain of the internet to do whatever they want. It would be like instead of paying taxes on the money your employers pay you then turning around and having a country outside of the US say well since you use our equiptment to do your job we are going to tax your wages too, It’s wrong in many ways. And if the courts don’t see t that way then god help us all. our 150 bucks a year to access the game WoW as an example will goto probably 150 a month.
By WML on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Gees, sounds like sour grapes or what? If this stands up in court I will eat my own face.
So according to this article(http://tinyurl.com/8t3d3o):
“Worlds.com owns U.S. Patent Nos. 6,219,045 titled “Scalable Virtual World Chat Client-Server System” and 7,181,690 titled “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space”. The Patents relate to computer architecture for a three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world system. Such systems are utilized in Massive Multi-Player Online Games (MMORPG) of the type known as Graphical Multi-Dimension (GMUD) games, which provide a graphical representation of the player’s character (avatar) wherein movement of the character in virtual space alters what the character views.”
To me that sounds rather vague. By this statement, they’re assuming that all other systems are based solely on theirs and do not contain their own unique intellectual property, which would (in my eyes) annul any claim Worlds.com have on requiring other companies to purchase a license from them. They’re acting like they invented the idea of a third dimension o_O. To paraphrase Garv, it would be like Apple and Microsoft suing each-other for use of a touch based GUI. Its a ridiculous chicken vs egg argument which will see Worlds.com buried under litigation fees, and amen to that.
By Ada on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
This is…stupid. Even if the concept was theirs, it doesn’t mean they have any right to sue everybody using it. If everybody worked like that, Ford would sue every other car company because they used an engine…
But, knowing the legal system’s ignorance to gaming, it’ll probably hold up…(although I’m hoping it doesn’t).
By Littleraven on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
OMFG LOL
this never gets old….”lets wait till something gets insanely popular and well know then try and sue them because we had a ’similar’ idea”
LOL some guys tried to do it with God of War…some company tried to say they invented a type of blu-ray in the 90s….imo all total bull…but what would america be without trying to always sue someone….
By Virago on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
It’s obvious they’re doing it for the money, not to protect their idea. Otherwise they would have sued a long time ago >.> Besides, they could be sued for using the term virtual world too then, if we really want this to be a pointing system
By Illithian on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
I can’t wait to follow this lawsuit. I think it’l go down in flames.
By Nalamin on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
They have no case period end of point you cannot patent that sort of tech.
By Rey on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I facepalm’d so hard I’ll prolly have a mark in my face for the rest of the day.
By Rayl-Drenden on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
This is Retarded….how can they just sue for no real reason.
By Shaun on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
i call shenanigans also
By Bluebob on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I dont think this lawsuit will work too well. Wont this make it a monoploy then? Which as i recall, are illegal
By Malstrum on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I know for a fact the WoW has been online now for more than 4 years. I, also being no lawyer, think that this must be out of there statute of limitations, and if i am correct then even if they are at legal, right they waited to long to try to prosecute.
By Aesino on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 12:47 am
They are full of BS. If they not only win thier case against the NCSoft they can then sue any company that had made an RPG that has acess to the internet which includes gaming consoles/systems ( Xbox, PS2, 360, and so forth)… Its really retarded imho
By Bizzle on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 4:17 am
/facepalm… why would they bring this up now? Blizzard isnt the first or the last.
By Sean on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 4:58 am
If this is the case, surely whoever owns the original rights to “VR” can sue Worlds and anyone with any idea of an alternate reality? >_>
Stuff like this annoys me.
By Pontusferum on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Damn… this sucking f*cks and f*cking sucks… how much more BS this could be o.O Bastards need money and they’re taking up on games now…..
By friskydingo on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 5:45 am
IMO i think that if this goes through, everyone who plays these games should sue worlds for emotional and mental damage, and all the nonsense people sue others for now days. Kind of show them, that when you mess with something popular (especially us mmo fools) you get F***ed.
By Atlas on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 5:53 am
if they end up winning and the companies refuse to use their liscences and shut down all the sick kiddies they try to help will keel over.
By Majaj on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 7:02 am
srsly… can someone lend me a plane and a huge bomb?
By Deadtree on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 7:31 am
I can’t wait for hackers to get up in arms and crash the world for a month. Teach them that they are not just fucking with companies but with people play these games too.
HACKERS UNITE BURN THE WORLD!
By Eric on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 8:20 am
AAAMMEEERICAAAA AMEEERRIIICAA!!!
By Davo on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 8:39 am
They have no case. Otherwise NASA (ex.Mazewar) which pretty much invented the FPS Genre should sue all the other FPS Franchises, including Sierra games, ID Software, Activision, and countless others. It’s Worlds.com failed attempt to make money in an economic downturn.
By Shala on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 10:32 am
To Worlds.com,
Your only hope is Johnny Cochran using “the glove defense” to win this one.
But let’s be real here, this will never make it trail. The gaming industry in whole would be the true target. Besides that, wouldn’t it be the graphics engine developers that really “broke” the patent? (granted a lot of game developers are the engine developers too but still.)
By Manuss on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I agree with many of you on here because it is not in rights to sue a sucessful company. I guess it is just unfortunate that people do not want to spend free time playing games like, “failed wars!”
And i am most certian that blizzard has some kind of license to publish this game we know as WoW so i fell also…. they have no case.
By Ante on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Hahahahahaha, that fails bigtime!
Worlds.com, Wannabe rich how cute!
keep dreaming…
By Smalls on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
did this company just get the patent or are they just now realizing MMOs exist?
By Nick on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
so they are suing blizzard for having an mmo? WTF? every single game has a world and every single game is 3d. so now there can be no video games?
By Dumdrakk, Executus on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
WOW….. it seems everybody is trying to sue these days! “you lost my modded xbox 360! Im suing for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!” wtf?!?! People are just so F***in lazy they cant go make the money themselves!
Anyway, they wont win… that is retarded!
By Hatell on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
/target Worlds.com
/facepalm
By Dyra on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Has April Fool’s Day moved ahead of schedule? As this is the biggest joke I’ve ever heard.
By Jack on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
SHENANIGANS!!!!!!!!!!! Everyone grab your brooms lets go beat the crap out of World.com
By conchuir on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 am
epic fail, worlds.com. shame on you!
By Egma on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Lets go sue (fill in restaurant here) because they sell pre cooked food and that was (fill in another restaurant here)’s idea…. then again if someone can win a lawsuit for spilling hot coffee without a pre warning of the coffee being hot and actually win who knows what can happen.