NCsoft prepares the defense against Worlds.com
by Seraphina Brennan 
Jan 1st 2009 at 1:00PM
Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Legal, Virtual worlds
As we announced and analyzed earlier in the week, NCsoft is being sued by Worlds.com for patent infringement on recently granted patent 7,181,690 -- the system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space.An NCsoft representative recently spoke with the Korea Times, saying that the offices in Korea have not begun analyzing the patent, nor have they received the court papers yet. However, the company does look to be preparing a defense, according to Virtual Worlds News.
"We can't comment on potential litigation except to say that NCsoft takes all legal action seriously -- even if the company believes a lawsuit has no merit," an NCsoft representative told Virtual Worlds News. "We intend to defend ourselves vigorously"
For the full story, head on over to Virtual Worlds News and check out their write up.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brian! said on 1:27PM 1-01-2009
I hope they spank worlds.com
Man the patent system sucks. So many crappy patents put in place by the system for technologies that should never have been awarded one. I expecially hate companies that patent inventions that will 'one day' be invented. The company itself has no working prototype, but still claims the idea that they probably saw on an episode of Star Trek.
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Temko said on 2:51PM 1-01-2009
that is the flaw and the power of patent.
when the patent 'design' was introduced it served as a save-guard against others trying to steal, leech or usurp your idea's or products. on the other hand, companies and individuals imediatly ripped apart the system and used it for their own gain.
sadly, there is STILL no alternative system allows for inventors and creators to work/live of their work in peace, and still allows others to advance beyond the limits of patants.
so yes - the current patent system sucks and need a BIG BAD overhaul - but then again, what part of our legal system (Worldwide) doens't need that to acomodate the internet?
Mirage said on 2:49PM 1-01-2009
I think they shoulda sued Blizzard...they have the system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space, and their system has 11.5 million people...
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Jack said on 5:54PM 1-01-2009
Boring... not care for they lawsuits come to read game news here not some story about a boring lawsuit that pretty much is about some ahole that want make money off there so called patent!! Lame and boring!
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Aoide said on 6:26PM 1-01-2009
If anything, you should care Jack. In fact you should care a great deal.
To put it bluntly, ANY company that does direct work on a MMO (I,e, distributing it, creating it, etc.) not only has the possibility of being sued for a LOT of money because of this, but also if they can't pay up, they could be forced to shut down.
Worse, if Worlds.com is successful, it doesn't matter who they go up against if they've built up enough steam first. Sure it means they probably will go after WoW last, but by the time they do they may very well have enough leverage to seriously hurt Blizzard, the game itself, and possibly (all though indirectly) the players.
And yes, this has the possibility to get even worse. MMOs are just the tip of the iceberg. This actually does have the real possibility of giving them leverage to non MMO games, and possibly even mobile phones, just to name a few (after all, some guy found a way to play City of heroes on his iPhone a while back, meaning they could sue Apple for helping provide access to 'their' technology).
So by saying you don't want to hear about this stuff, you're basically saying you don't want to know why your MMO of choice may very well take a big hit money wise, or even shut down because of this. Nor do you want to know why other things that might not even be directly involved with this are taking hits that could hurt you in other ways.
Jack said on 4:20PM 1-02-2009
Worlds.com will not be successful this is not the first time this kind of people trying to make money out of the mmo business they did not go behind blizzard right away like they have some real lawers so they try with the NCsoft first and even if they win they just want money... They do not want to shutdown NCsoft or any other just is money and its all about money. If they come close they will just settle!
Verit said on 4:22PM 1-02-2009
Wierd - for some reason my reply went to the wrong place - oh well.
Ken said on 4:24AM 2-21-2009
No offence Jack, but if you don't want this kind of article DON'T READ IT!!!! This IS Game news. Just because it is not the kind you are interested in, does not change a thing.
Point is, that they are going after what they see as the weakest in the herd. IF they take down NCSoft, games you do care about are likely (almost guaranteed) to be effected.
If you want to contribute to the conversation, do so. If not, then leave us alone. We don't need trolls.
Sean said on 6:52PM 1-01-2009
@Mirage:
They didn't target Blizzard first because 1 billion dollars plus in annual revenue buys quite the legal team...
@Jack:
If worlds.com were to actually win this suit and use it as precedent to sue still other companies, you might have far fewer games to read about and play. Seems relevant to me.
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Verit said on 4:19PM 1-02-2009
Temko:
One of the big problems with software patents is they tend to be obvious in nature. For instance say you're a budding engineer at NCSoft and you are writing the client server backend for a MMO.
Isn't it obvious that the client should display messages and objects passed by the server? How else would you do it? What worlds.com is describing is your basic client/server architecture that has existed for 50 years - 3D or not - the servers main job is to pass messages (in the form of chat messages, objects, text, events etc) to the client who's job is to interpret them. Doesn't matter if the client is an accounting app, or Lineage 2 - its core architecture is the same.
There's a software patent by IBM that describes a method that when you hit the return key the cursor goes to the next line. Where else should the cursor go after hitting the "carriage return" key?
Most companies patent crap like this because they are deathly afraid of patent trolls like worlds.com coming along and trying to steal from someone else hard work. And they are stealing - lawsuits from patent trolls do nothing but leave red marks on a companies assets which sometimes have to be made up by layoffs or liquidation (yes patent trolls have killed more than one company - one could easily argue that what finally did Commodore Business Machine's in was a patent troll).
Worlds.com probably wrote this patent with good intention back in the dot.com era - as the money dried up over their startup the patent just sat there. My guess is the company fell back into the hands of their creditors who started looking at their assets and how to exploit them.
Also - ever notice that 90% of these patent lawsuits happen in East Texas? Whats up with that... A lot are successful too.
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Sirmabus said on 3:14PM 1-03-2009
Go get'm NCsoft and the rest of the MORPG game industry!
What a BS patent.
Put their by our very technical inept government.
It's obvious patent troll by a company no ever heard of until now (world$.com), that hasn't any kind of decent product that can sell a dime.
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Ken said on 4:47AM 2-21-2009
I should have read the rest of the thread before responding to the troll, then I could have gotten it all in one post:
@Jack:
There is one problem with your assumption. Worlds.Com is NOT the average patent troll. They have actually been USING the technology they are claiming to hold a patent too. This by itself makes their case stronger.
They are a REAL threat.