Worlds.com aims to sue over the virtual world of Warcraft
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 11th 2009 at 6:00PM
- Thom calls up Blizzard, Linden Lab, etc...
- Thom says "Hey, I invented virtual worlds! Pay me money since you're making money off the concept."
- Blizzard and Linden Lab laugh and hang up, assuming it's a prank call.
- Thom goes to court.
How did Worlds.com wind up with the patent to the idea of a scalable virtual world with thousands of users? Kidrin has said that they invented the virtual worlds with a product for sick kids called Starbright World back in 1997. (Though apparently the concept was thought up back in 1995.)
However, let's take a look at the definition of Cyberspace. It was first used in William Gibson's 1982 story "Burning Chrome" and again used in a few of his books, with "Neuromancer" being the most popular. Gibson's definition for Cyberspace reads:
"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data."
Now there are a few interesting parts there, in that the Gibson created a fictional representation of a world that was shared graphically with billions of legitimate operators. Sound familiar? It's exactly what WoW is: a graphical world shared by millions of legitimate operators, abstract data that is unthinkably complex, arranging lines of light in the nonspace of the mind, and teaching children mathematical concepts (ie: threat, gear statistics, etc...)
Now that's one answer to Kidrin's attempt at patent trolling.
The other, and perhaps grounded more in legal arguments, is that there is a ton of prior art available. That is going to make it hard to prove any sort of patent infringement claim. Nonetheless, we'll keep you updated on this interesting story.
I should note that when doing a bit of background research for this post I noticed that worlds.com lists AOL as one of their clients. AOL is the parent company of Weblogs, Inc., which owns and operates WoW Insider. However with that said, WoW Insider has complete editorial independence. Any relationship between AOL and worlds.com had no impact in the writing, researching, and opinions presented in this article.
Filed under: Odds and ends, News items, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
CannedBread Mar 11th 2009 4:52PM
What the hell.
That's like the creators of Maze War or Wolfenstein 3D suing Bungie, Epic, and Ubisoft for making First-Person Shooter games.
It's a GENRE, a type of product, no one holds the patent on all films, or all books.
TL:DR - This guy is a douche, and if he wins, it will further prove how retarded the U.S. patent system has become.
Arashikou Mar 11th 2009 6:14PM
It's not even like that, since those were early examples of the genre. It's like the makers of Unreal suing everyone else for making FPSes, even though they didn't even come up with the idea first themselves.
Psy Mar 11th 2009 7:57PM
It doesn't matter if he's being a douche (and he is, no argument there), he has the patent, he can do what he likes. Sue them or not, he can do it.
It's Blizzards fault IMO anyway, they should've done more research. As should any of the other developers. If they had taken the time to look deeper into 3D world patents they may have stumbled across this "gem" of a patent and may never have bothered to make WoW (which we would not be able to complain about since we'd be used to it's non-existence, as well as all other MMO's non-existence unless they pay out this guy).
To me, this guy IS a douche. An incredibly smart one. He has a legally binding patent, he can sue EVERY developer that has made a 3D virtual world. He's asking for a license, he could sue them. Either way, suing them or being paid for a license, he could end up one very rich man.
And to me, that's just goddamn smart. So yes, he is definitely a douche. A damn big one at that, but he's smart and he's going to be richer than us.
Ignatius Mar 11th 2009 8:24PM
If he has even the slightest chance of winning, Blizzard will hire mercenaries to take him out.
themightysven Mar 11th 2009 11:03PM
@psy, the patent was only granted in late 2007, early 2008 (it takes awhile) (it's also incredibly vague and could almost be argued to hold sway over IMs and Facebook/Myspace sites)
start worrying if/when NCsoft loses, they went after them first because their warchest is small and they want a judgment in their favor. (part of the judgment they're seeking is a declaration that their patent is enforcable)
they are announcing other targets now to dissuade other developers from bankrolling NCsoft's case. Worlds knows they have a losing case, they just need one ill-informed judge/jury to suddenly be rolling in it.
Eisengel Mar 12th 2009 8:07AM
Having negotiated and counter-written Non-Disclosure Agreements, studied and written papers on Copyright and digital products, and consulted pro bono for some U.S. patent search agents, I can say prior art pretty much equals 'STFU'.
In fact, some of the patent claims specifically do not apply to WoW:
#6219045
1. This line item specifically mentions limiting displayed avatars in the world, I believe anyone who has played Wintergrasp knows that WoW does not limit displayed avatars beyond a maximum nunmber, resulting in incredible lag and server crashes.
2. 3. and 4. are methods of computing 1., already mentioned.
5. Many elements here are actually too broadly worded to argue efficiently and collide heavily with prior art.
items (a)-(b) Nearly any undergraduate CompSci major could easily argue the meaning of 'object' well out of reach of this patent, as the word is not defined in the patent. The difficulty would be in trying to show the ontological concept of an code/action 'object' that Words, Inc. patented is the same thing that Blizzard coded. While simple arguments exist here, to prove it, many, many arguments can be made to break it.
item (c) describes any Internetworked client/server
item (h) in fact describes in general nearly any 3D digital display, which certainly existed before this patent.
.. and so on. I don't think this patent poses any threat.
#7181690
1. This item suffers the same problem as the first item in the above patent, WoW is not inherently scalable based on coded avatar maximums. WoW can and does crash because of this.
2. 3. 4. 5. addresses 1.
7. depends on throttling of user position information, which WoW doesn't seem to do.
8. addresses 7.
9 through 20 might collide with prior art based on the definition of 'virtual space'. If 'virtual space' is definited to be, in short, a graphical representation of client's avatars as displayed on client machines and as determined by a central server, then there is prior art reaching back a decade or more, specifically BBS online games.
Based on this really, really quick read with no actual information about Blizzard's coding practices... I think this suit is really just a wide troll hoping to force some settlement somewhere. It doesn't seem to have much traction. The really key element where there is much innovation is in the scalability aspect of limiting displayed avatars, but in my experience (and not knowledge, there is a difference), it seems WoW does not do that. They gain scalability though partitioning the world (instances, areas, realms), through hardware loading and coding practices other than limiting on-screen displayed avatars. Many of the other claims are downright laughable, and based on the date of issuance possibly even woefully negligent in prior art search.
Canth Mar 12th 2009 8:10AM
There's tons of prior art.
I coded a MUD long before 1995.
That's a virtual world where avatars can meet. Sure, it's text and not graphical, but it's the same thing in the end.
Horris Mar 12th 2009 11:22AM
@Psy
You say that as though you think the US Patent system is infallible and they never issue bogus patents.
Ha.
With the many examples of prior art, this guy is probably going to be hard-pressed to find a judge that will side with him.
Also, since when does being clever/rich make it acceptable for someone to be a douche?
Murdock Mar 11th 2009 6:04PM
Notice he's going against the small fry's first? Get them to settle since it will be costly to fight. Then with that case as precedent he'll go after Blizzard and make them pay up.
Hoggersbud Mar 11th 2009 6:44PM
Settlements aren't legal precedents, they wouldn't be binding, or likely even given any consideration were it taken to court.
Jyotai Mar 11th 2009 11:58PM
Not only is a settlement not legally binding, but even a court ruling would not be binding unless it came from a higher court and was on an issue being dealt with in the future case.
If say, NCSoft lost at the trial level, they would still have to sue Blizzard all over again. And if they didn't sue Blizzard in the same district... even a ruling from a higher court wouldn't count.
Lets say NCSoft loses in Court X. If Blizzard later gets dragged into court X, they simply respond that they didn't get a chance to argue their own defense, and so that prior ruling doesn't apply to them.
If Blizzard gets sued in Court 'W', underneath X, because X was an appeal, then -maybe- there is a precedent, and maybe not... :)
If Blizzard gets sued in court '9' - in a different federal district or a different state, Court X's opinion is meaningless as anything more than 'one guy on the street's educated guess.'
If Blizzard later appeals court '9' and ends up in court 'Y' (above both 9 and X), then whatever happens there might revise both X and 9... :)
So why sue the little guy first?
1. Some judges like listening to that 'guy on the street' when (s)he's another judge.
2. It tests the waters.
3. If all you want is cash, a settlement is easier to get from the little guy, and then you can take you're loot and ghetto-hearth yourself out of the system...
Murdock Mar 12th 2009 10:36AM
I stand very corrected, thanks for the explanations.
sickbox Mar 12th 2009 10:14PM
rofl
take the loot and ghetto hearth
worlds.com would then be considered loot ninjas and nobody would allow them in their instances anymore.
Pyornthe Mar 11th 2009 6:05PM
Just another person trying to milk the cash cow.
Tim Mar 11th 2009 6:09PM
This just in:
the US patent law is stupid.
but there's no way he'll win this.
Tim Mar 12th 2009 2:28PM
Yea, he's going to sink tons of cash into legal fees in his feeble attempts to tackle the big boys. He won't win, so he's probably just hoping they'll settle.
It's pretty much like having the people who built the internet claim to have a stake in Google's profits.
Amaxe Mar 11th 2009 8:29PM
Al Gore sued Google?
;-)
Galf Mar 11th 2009 6:14PM
Now he'll just have to explain to the courts why he wasn't enforcing his alleged patent 12 years ago when UO first opened. If Kidrin can't effectively explain other than, "I want money now that MMOs are a mainstream cash cow," he'll have a hard time convincing a court he's in the right.
Wulfhere Mar 11th 2009 6:21PM
Can he legitimately claim to not have understood what UO was or was doing? I never heard of Ultima Online before EQ was big... I think maybe back in 2003 at the earliest. Simply wasn't paying attention to MMO's. So if he can claim that he might be able to say "I had this idea, I had no idea people were making money using it until WoW got big."
ClayMask Mar 11th 2009 6:26PM
There were plenty of online text-based MUDs around before 1997, that also contained virtual worlds.