Worlds.com VW patents to be enforced?
(Visited 8569 times) Game talk
Dec 122008
Virtual Worlds News is reporting that a law firm has been retained to enforce the Worlds.com patents on 3d virtual worlds. These patents are quite old — filed in the early 90s — and center around visibility culling of avatars in various ways.
Worlds owns U.S. Patent Nos. 6,219,045 titled “Scalable Virtual World Chat Client-Server System” and 7,181,690 titled “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space.”
Together the claims describe systems for tracking the spatial relationships of avatars and objects in client/server systems and managing their interactions as well as how many can be displayed at any given time.
It will be interesting to watch what comes of this.
5 Responses to “Worlds.com VW patents to be enforced?”
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And for my next trick, I’m going to patent the eyeball.
[[Cross Posted from Terra Nova]]
Heh. Turns out this kind of thing is now going on in Europe and Asia with other attempts to enforce virtual world patents filed since the mid to late 1990s.
For the record and posterity, as a pioneer of many of the technologies in the late 80’s and early 90s and concepts underlying such claims, I am available as a professional expert witness. In the last year, I have worked on several cases surrounding bogus virtual world patent claims. Most you haven’t heard of, because we overwhelm them with prior-art and they die long before trial.
Ask Will Harvey (IMVU) how Forterra tried to shake him down by asserting that they had a patent on the 3D-word balloon in virtual worlds. I had fun providing the prior art for that one! If he’d lost, I’m 100% sure that Blizzard was next in line. [I should really write a blog post up about this one – Will, if you’re reading this, drop me a line with the latest status.] As it is, your word balloons are safe. 🙂
I’ve also referred other lame claims off to other pioneers/Terra Nova regulars, such as Brian Green.
Just today I faxed/couriered a witness statement in an international case that’s so dumb it makes my head hurt.
Here’s the deal – much of the stuff people patented starting in the late 1990s was previously created and not patented because we didn’t think you *could* patent software. Lucky thing for virtual worlds this is true.
Patent trolls aren’t going to get away with claiming *my* virtual world prior art! I’m a pack rat. I have stuff you didn’t even know existed, and I know where I put it. 🙂
Randy
Huzzah. Keep fighting the good fight Randy 🙂
Well, if someone can get away with patenting the 😉 emoticon…
[…] while back I mentioned that Worlds.com had made known the intention to sue over their virtual world […]