On Christmas Eve, Worlds.com filed a complaint against NCsoft for infringing on its virtual world and MMO patent. Worlds.com, which was one of the early virtual world developers from the ’90s, made waves earlier this month when it announced that it had selected an intellectual property firm to defend its two patents related to scaling virtual spaces and enabling users to interact and chat in 3D environments.
Specifically, the suit claims that NCsoft has infringed on patent 7,181,690, “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space” through its games, including City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II, and Tablula Rasa.
The complaint seeks to recover damages for the infringement and asks that NCsoft be prevented from infringing on patent 690, which covers scaling. Based on NCsoft’s headquarters in Austin as a source of the infringement, the complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.
Worlds.com Inc. v. NCsoft Corp is Civil Action No. 6:08-cv-508. You can download the PDF of the complaint here.
So basically, can you claim a patent you filed in 2000 on every MMO made after that date? Even though there were MMOs before that date?
Comment by nanyea — December 29, 2008 @ 9:27 pm