Worlds.com To Extend Virtual World Lawsuit To Second Life, WoW

FiveRings writes "BusinessInsider has a story about Worlds.com, a company that inherited the patent on virtual worlds from the Starlight Starbright Foundation and is taking it to court against NCSoft over the company's various MMOs. If successful, he will press on and sue the makers of Second Life and World of Warcraft as well. The article notes that the NCSoft case is being held in east Texas, which has been a favorable venue for patent trolls in the past."

Comments

Patent Acquisition and Assertion

[KronosReaver]

Already been done.
United States Patent Application - 20080270152 - October 30, 2008
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080270152&OS=20080270152&RS=20080270152

Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party

Abstract

Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent property against a second party are disclosed. The methods include obtaining an equity interest in the patent property. The methods further include writing a claim within the scope of the patent property. The claim is written to cover a product of the second party where the product includes a secret aspect. The methods further include filing the claim with a patent office. The methods sometimes include offering a license of the patent property to the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include asserting infringement of the claim by the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include negotiating a cross-license with the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim, where under the cross-license the first party obtains a license to an intellectual property right from the second party. The methods sometime include attempting to obtain a monetary settlement from the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim.

Prior art

[Nominar]

Patent filed in Aug 3 2000. Prior art in the form of launched MMORPGs: Dec 31 1996 The Realm Online Sep 30 1997 Ultima Online Sep ?? 1998 Lineage: The Blood Pledge Mar 16 1999 Everquest Oct 31 1999 Asheron's Call Source: http://www.mmogchart.com/analysis-and-conclusions/

Re:Prior art

[Psychochild]

Unfortunately, the creator of MMOGchart.com doesn't consider Meridian 59 worthy of mentioning, but it was launched in September, 1996.

However, the problem is that the patent is an extension of a previous patent, number 6,219,045, dated November 12, 1996. A proper defense would require that that you go after that patent as well, as I was told by lawyer I know. There's still prior art to be had, but it's not quite so easy to find it.

If you want to read more about the NCSoft lawsuit issues and patent problems relating to game development, I posted up about this a little while ago on my professional MMO development blog: http://www.psychochild.org/?p=540

Have fun.