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NCSoft sued, Worlds.com owns all MMOs
Scooter
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/12/worldscom-files-suit-against-ncsoft.html
I was going to post this in the CoX thread, but NCSoft does have a whole lotta MMOs, so. Apparently Worlds.com is arguing that all 3D MMOs which limit the number of characters you see based on where you're looking, and load amounts, are in violation of its patents. This includes just about every MMO, including Everquest which predates the patents.
So, just how crazy is Worlds.com?
I was going to post this in the CoX thread, but NCSoft does have a whole lotta MMOs, so. Apparently Worlds.com is arguing that all 3D MMOs which limit the number of characters you see based on where you're looking, and load amounts, are in violation of its patents. This includes just about every MMO, including Everquest which predates the patents.
So, just how crazy is Worlds.com?
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Since when is code patent material? Moreover, since when is code which basically allows any large scale online game that isn't a MUD patent material?
We actually discussed this kind of stuff in my legal ethics class this fall (taught by a CS prof-slash-lawyer). Apparently you can't patent mathmatical algorithims, which makes patenting software tricky as arguably all code is based on mathmatical algorithims. But the amount of work and different styles and what not would indicate that programs should be patentable.
However, for a long while the patent office refused to hire computer scientists as it didn't consider them real scientists/engineers (my prof was one of the ones that couldn't get hired). They didn't think the whole computer business would really take off. So when it did in the 90s, and they started giving patents on stuff....the patents were being given out by examiners who didn't know shit about programming or software. And there's all sorts of overly broad patents out there for basic stuff.
I like how the complaint was filed in a law office in the town I live in, though. Because this town is retarded enough as it is.
I'll let Lum the Mad explain.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Those dirty fucks.
So basically, East Texans are too retarded to understand technology and will just go in favor of the plaintiff.
I hate living in retard-central.
Esh. I was thinking they were about to go out of business, looked at their assets, and decided making claims on some of their patents was their last chance to make some money.
But now they're looking a lot more like predatory dicks.
Between this and the Fox/Watchmen case, I'm starting to get the impression that the system is set up to reward companies that don't actually produce anything.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT7028023
I uh, I have books that predate this by decades.
Also, the worlds.com patent is largely a bunch of diagrams to "how you could do this in theory" rather than "This is how it's done."
Apparently it's a continuation or something of a 1996 patent, although there are still some older games according to the Lum comments.
There is not enough lime in the world for this.
Keep it together, Monsty. You can do this!
Drink more pop!
(But seriously, how the fuck can you patent a double linked list??)
The fact that the government itself is being twisted to do this makes it worse.
A foreign national outsourced by a company that makes RAID controllers could argue that it was a highly original design implantation based on their current firmware and architecture.
Mister chong wang probably thought he was a genius olol wut.
"You mean we can go forward and backward?! GENIUS!"
Anyway, I'm going to laugh and laugh if they're also going to sue Blizzard. :P
My armchair view of this (I'm a law student, and I've taken patent and IP classes) is that this is a nuisance lawsuit, plain and simple.
Patent litigation is hideously expensive. Hideously. This sort of thing is, sadly, common. I remember when I first took my patent law class, the professor showed us a figure - I believe it was from AIPLA - that showed something to the effect that if your patent's worth $20 million, you should expect to spend about $5 million defending it in court.
Recent case law - In Re Bilski - has basically gutted software patents. The case hasn't been tested, yet, but a common interpretation of the ruling is that, in effect, you can't patent software anymore unless it's tied directly to some specific piece of hardware. E.g. the microcontroller that monitors your car's four-wheel drive might be patentable, but Microsoft Office isn't. You can read more about it at Groklaw, here and here.
Without reading the complaint, this seems like nothing but a patent troll. The company has a bad patent, which never should've issued in the first place, and they're going to hope that because patent litigation is so damned expensive, that they can get NCsoft to settle, because it'll be cheaper for NCsoft to settle than fight back an invalidate their piece of garbage patent.
Sadly, this works rather often. Patents are just too expensive to prosecute.
EDIT: As to why this patent was granted in the first place, well... there are so many failings of the patent office and the patent system as a whole, and so few people who have the will or understanding (or money) to fix it, that it's likely that... well, the whole thing's a train wreck.
EDIT 2: That Lum the Mad article seems to be referring to the same AIPLA figures I talked about. I can't seem to find them on their website right now, though.
OH CRAP THEY PATENTED COLORED RECTANGLES, FUCK.
To be fair, Amazon has its own very controversial history of acting on its own patents.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfO9JUNXN7U
Of course, just like J.T. being banished to the moon, that would never happen.
"Lick it clean you scrub"
SOE will not help out anyone with a suit against Worlds.com because SOE is one of their clients, probably from a similar settlement done years and years ago.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Lawyers are bastards.
I wouldn't be suprised if Blizzard / Mythic / etc. get involved in some sort of friend-of-the-court brief, basically saying that the suit is obvious patent trolling that prior art exists everwhere.