Worlds.com vs. NCSoft moves from Texas to California
by Jon Shute 
Apr 27th 2009 at 1:30PM
Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Legal, Virtual worlds
Intellectual Property lawyer Ross A. Dannenberg has reported on his website, Patent Arcade, that the patent dispute between Worlds.com and NCSoft will be moved from the Eastern Texas district to the Northern California district as of 4th May 2009. Worlds.com is persuing NCSoft over alleged infringements of patents that it owns.
The eastern Texas district has acquired a reputation for being the ideal court for this kind of patent due to favorable attitudes to plaintiffs, resulting in a practice known as forum shopping being used to maximize the chance of a successful outcome. On December 5th 2008 the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling that severely limits the discretion available to a trial court to determine if a case should be dismissed if an adequate alternate forum exists. This should result in cases that have little or no ties to that particular area of Texas being forced to be heard in a more appropriate court, which is likely to be the case in this instance.
You can catch up with all of our coverage on this action here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Verit said on 4:37PM 4-27-2009
This is certainly good news for NCSoft :). And I agree - cases that don't have anything to do with Texas shouldn't be tried in Texas.
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DoctorParadigm said on 7:28PM 4-27-2009
“If I owned Hell and Texas I would rent out Texas and live in Hell” -Philip Henry Sheridan
I love that quote.
Plastic Rat said on 10:05PM 4-27-2009
Wow, is this little pantomime still continuing? I actually thought it would have been thrown out of court ages ago.
I'm so hoping Worlds.com gets reamed to the point of extinction for this utter idiocy. This suing for profit bull has to stop somewhere and I can't think of a bunch of idiots more deserving of being made into an example.
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CindyL said on 10:44PM 4-27-2009
I'm hoping all of that too and I'm sure most of the gaming world is as well, just for the simple reason that this could get seriously ridiculous if NCsoft loses.
No wait, it already is. :/
steve said on 1:11PM 4-28-2009
can not wait for Northern California district to throw it out, i mean look at them you can tell they are a little worried
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