Article One asserts prior art on Worlds.com patent
by Tateru Nino 
Jun 8th 2009 at 6:00PM
Filed under: News items, Legal, Virtual worlds
Article One Partners, "a global community that rewards members for discovering patent validity evidence to legitimize US patents", has announced that they have turned up prior-art that may (or may not) be useful in overturning the Worlds.com US Patent 7,181,690.
It's difficult to judge on its merits. Article One receives revenue by on-selling that information to interested parties. We're not sure how much for, but the prize paid for locating the information is US$50,000, so we're expecting that the cost of seeing the inforomation is considerably more than that.
Article One's phrasing is as cautious as you might expect:
"Importantly, only a U.S. federal court or the U.S. Patent Office can invalidate a U.S. patent. While Article One's research is validated by actions such as this past week's grant by the U.S. Patent Office of the request for re-exam of Merck's Singulair drug (filed by Article One Partners in March), Article One is announcing only its own conclusion based on its analysis of the prior art for purposes of determining winners to its Patent Studies. A court or the Patent Office may disagree with Article One's conclusion."
And of course, they're right. The existence of prior-art alone is not sufficient grounds to invalidate a US patent claim. As yet, any suggestions that this weakens the Worlds.com '690 patent are premature.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
slimj091 said on 6:17PM 6-08-2009
this still makes me laugh.
"system and method enabling users to interact in a virtual space"... did they just try and patent the internet?
maybe i should patent "biological system that enables a mammal's intake of oxygen from the atmosphere" and sue anyone that has lungs.
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UltimateQ said on 6:53PM 6-08-2009
Brilliant.
rhys said on 6:46PM 6-08-2009
I would be surprised if NCSoft hadn't already located sufficient prior art. I cannot wait for this lawsuit to get shot down.
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Adric Antfarm said on 6:52PM 6-08-2009
testículos de acero
I would like to take this chance to call blogging about Second Life as mine and ask that Massive just cut me a check to make this go away.
Please?
fine..
I know I got "massive" as a trademark. Oh yeah. Just pay me.
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Plastic Rat said on 10:01PM 6-08-2009
Every time I read about this horse shit, my first reaction is "What, are they STILL waffling on about it?"
Seriously, this is a prime example of how our legal system is so screwed up. A functional and practical legal system would have laughed in this things face, drank its milkshake and booted it out the door in the first five minutes. Yet it's still going on how many months down the line?
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ScytheNoire said on 11:23PM 6-08-2009
No, this is yet another example of how the patent (and copyright) system are broken. This has nothing to do with the legal system, but with systems that stifle creativity and innovation. Both copyright and patents have been abused for many years now, and it's actually become a business for many companies and lawyers who do nothing but sue over patents they own, not creating any products, but simply suing others who do the work and do become successful. That's not what the copyright and patent systems were suppose to be about, yet, it's what they have become.
Hardy said on 12:07AM 6-09-2009
Yup. Patent and copyright systems are a joke now, but it involves too much money and most political groups won't touch it.
I mean some organics are patented. Corn for example.
It's only a matter of time because some judge allows a human to be patented. Only then would patents and copyrights finally be looked at, but then it'll probably be too late.
Graill said on 10:59PM 6-08-2009
I commented on this garbage the first time it came out.
If anyone has been through the patent process or registering anything having to do with intellectual property, imaginary or physical (i have on 2 occasions, both are great stories), You know the following to be true, backdating with "proof" is your friend, that and they take money orders and "notorized information" that makes it just all legal now eh?. Money talks, money buys you ANYTHING in the way of backdated proof, the registries are full of examples. Money will get >anything< filed. Get someone to vouch and get something notorized and guess what, the combination of words you just created, but actually back dated a decade ago are now worth millions, shame on those using them now. (insert PIP lawyers and ambulance chasers)
The big question is this, when that first MMO came out, a good portion of us remember what it was, nothing was done for over a decade. Excuses aside, we then move to the last quarter of 2007, does anyone recall the lawyer that started this? (now bring it all up to date, 2008, 2009 still going) Something or someone definately needs to go to court, and it aint about the penguins.....
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