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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWorlds.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: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 8)
Ugkul Mar 11th 2009 11:38PM
I wouldn't worry too much about it anyway. I hope the NCSoft lawsuit goes on for years and bankrupts Worlds.Com.
Tateru Nino Mar 12th 2009 9:17PM
The actual legals are being handled by General Patent Corporation. They have a lot of money, may be handling fees on contingency and they specialize at winning with these sorts of patent battles.
GPC is really quite a formidable opponent. I wouldn't feel comfortable laying any bets just yet.
Justin Mar 11th 2009 11:47PM
What a strange and horrible world. People should not be able to patent bullshit things like this. They should be able to patent products and specific technology, but not broad things like blogs or virtual worlds or whatever, since they usually arent even using these things, just taxing the people who do.
Actuality Mar 12th 2009 12:50AM
It's curious that he took so long to do so...
are there any laws surrounding a time limit on this? Like, has he waited too long to take action?
Tateru Nino Mar 12th 2009 9:25PM
There are certainly legal principles that are relevant. 'laches' is an active defense (which means the defendant needs to do the hard work to prove it) but may be effective in this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)
"The person invoking laches is asserting that an opposing party has "slept on its rights", and that, as a result of this delay, that other party is no longer entitled to its original claim. Put another way, failure to assert one’s rights in a timely manner can result in claims being barred by laches. Laches is a form of estoppel for delay. In Latin,
Vigilantibus non dormientibus æquitas subvenit.
Equity aids the vigilant, not the negligent (that is, those who sleep on their rights). "
Grimshod Mar 12th 2009 12:58AM
I am not a lawyer, so I may be completely off base here. But I've done a little reading about patent law from time to time (hey, I used to work in a law library and had a lot of time on my hands). People have mentioned the prior art issue, and that's important here for sure. But patents require a couple other things as well.
One requirement is that the invention must be Novel. If it was already known to the public prior to the patent being filed or if it was described in a publication more than a year before the patent was filed, the invention isn't considered novel and the novelty requirement isn't met.
Another requirement is Nonobviousness. That means that the invention must (in addition to being nobel) be a nonobvious improvement over the prior art. Now, others have mentioned MUDs, MUSHes, and other non-graphical or graphical 2D virtual worlds (I myself did a fair amount of MUSHing back in the day). One could argue that once graphics improved to the point that they could be used for these sorts of virtual worlds, at that point they -would- be used for them. It is sort of obvious and inevitable, especially considering that writers such as William Gibson predicted this would happen many years before.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, so this may be way off base. But that's my take on why this patent is weak. That said, this douche does already have the patent (even though he obviously should not have). I have no idea how difficult it is to challenge a bad patent like this one.
The Observer Mar 12th 2009 1:38AM
Well I'll be damned.
So THAT'S where all my underpants go...
zack Mar 12th 2009 2:03AM
Lets just kill him.
jbodar Mar 12th 2009 3:43AM
To quote Peter Venkman: "I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! LET'S DO IT!"
sleeptastic Mar 12th 2009 2:08AM
The patent is for an invention that is not novel (lots of prior art) and not nonobvious (MUD + graphics = his patent).
He's going to lose and the patent is going to be invalidated
Kalandrah Mar 12th 2009 2:22AM
> Worlds knows they have a losing case, they just need one
> ill-informed judge/jury to suddenly be rolling in it.
Which just shows how much is wrong with a) the US patent system and b) the US judicial system.
It's a miracle anyone takes it seriously anymore... (oh, wait).
Angrycelt Mar 12th 2009 3:08AM
I remember playing Faceball back in 1988, using 8 networked Atari computers. Yeah, it was just chasing 7 other smiley faces through a maze and shooting dots at them, but it sounds like this otherwise forgettable game beat this guy's patent by a good 7 years (since I believe he filed for one of them in 1995).
And since it also appears he patented this years before their contribution to the Starlight Starbright project, if all they did was patent a concept, then it'll be hard to enforce with the mountains of games produced long before his "idea".
Now that I'm thinking about it, the "scalable client-server chat system" sounds like multi-line BBS chat rooms and MUDs from back in the day. And the users interacting "within a virtual space" could be any multiplayer game with graphics, of which there were many long before this.
I'll be watching, and laughing as he goes down twisted. The law may support him at first, but someone will use some logic and shut him down.
Angrycelt Mar 12th 2009 3:19AM
Ok, so I just went to worlds.com's website. Was good for a laugh.
For being the supposed patent holders to all things virtual, they sure aren't doing anything innovative with them. The avatars they feature on their page and the images of their creations are pretty unimpressive. I've seen better graphics on commercials at 3am for video game programmer colleges. You know which ones I mean.
jbodar Mar 12th 2009 3:47AM
Yeah, I just lost what modicum of respect I still had for Aerosmith too.
Ilya Mar 12th 2009 5:33AM
Yeah, I just checked the Worlds.com site too out of sheer boredom. Avatar graphics suck. Too many polygons, in my opinion.
Then there's their slogan... "ITS A WHOLE NEW WORLDS" Yeah, my experiences in Trade chat on WoW kicked in here...
First, drop the caps. Second, get the grammar correct. Say "It's a whole new worlds". Third, 'whole new WORLDS'? I realize it's a play on your site name, but... but damn... if you're going to sue Blizzard for making a virtual world without your licensing, at least make sure your slogan doesn't look like something a Chinese gold farmer in the aforementioned virtual world would probably use...
I haven't even gone past the main page yet, either...
Beo Fraser Mar 12th 2009 1:27PM
His patents have issues. I think they'd be invalidated under any re-examination, and can certainly be thrown out if he goes through with a lawsuit. For one thing, these patents have 103(b) (obviousness rejections) stamped all over them. For another, the recent Bilski decision makes prosecuting any kind of computer software patent that doesn't have a Bilski type claim a bad move right now as the law is still rather soft here.
His earliest priority claim is November 1995, however, so he does go pretty far back. His second patent application went through a huge slog of rejections however, and in fact the last substantive rejection of the second patent seems ripe to go from a 102 (anticipation) rejection to a 103 (obviousness) rejection. He doesn't have a chance.
Kierachel Mar 12th 2009 3:45AM
Uh...I might be wrong on this but surely Meridian 59, released in 1996 would have been in development before this guys stuff?
Tateru Nino Mar 12th 2009 9:25PM
Sadly, lots of things get patented *after* they're in use, when they're obvious, and not novel. And (it still boggles me as to how this comes about) some of those patents actually hold up in court battles and under challenge.
Patent law and challenges constitute some pretty tricky stuff. A half-cocked opposition can strengthen your patent, rather than weaken it.
One day, I'm sure, someone will set up a dummy company they can sue just to get the win in court that makes their patent nearly unassailable.
BrunoSz Mar 12th 2009 4:18AM
Not sure how big headed America is... but I'm pretty sure that their wonderful little 'knowledge property' patent laws aren't applicable overseas.
I've got no idea how all of this works: but couldn't blizzard just move their Official HQ to the France offices?
Angus Mar 12th 2009 9:47AM
Not the point.
And France is in bed with the idiots trying to get IP locked down so that they don't have to innovate or adapt to the new century, anyway.