Does Worlds.com Hold the Patent for the Virtual World?
Earlier today General Patent Corporation, a Suffern, New York based Intellectual Property licensing and enforcement firm, announced that it has retained the Westfield, New Jersey law firm of Lerner David Littenberg Krumholz & Mentlik LLP to work on behalf of Worlds.com, Inc. in regards to enforcing Worlds.com’s patent portfolio.
According to statements by Alexander Poltorak, General Patent Corporation’s Chairman and CEO, “[t]he Worlds patents represent exceptionally valuable intellectual property,” and “[w]e welcome licensing inquiries from the on-line game industry. Non-exclusive licenses are available on favorable and non-discriminatory terms.”
Worlds.com holds U.S. Patent Nos. 6,219,045 entitled “Scalable Virtual World Chat Client-Server System” and 7,181,690 titled “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space”. Thom Kidrin, the CEO of Worlds.com, stated that “[w]e are pleased to have the expertise and IP experience of General Patent and Lerner David to enforce Worlds’ patent portfolio,” and that “[a]s the number of virtual worlds and MMORG’s continues to grow, Worlds has seen the space we pioneered in 1995 validated in techniques and methodologies we believe are defined in our patents.”
Therefore, it would seem that General Patent Corporation and Worlds.com are taking the position that the above-referenced patents cover the idea of the computer architecture for a three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world systems. If so, this announcement is arguably a very thinly veiled notice to the virtual world industry that infringement suits are forthcoming for those companies who do not enter into a licensing deal with General Patent Corporation and Worlds.com.
Virtual Judgment will not comment on the enforceability of World.com’s patents. That being said, the potential impact of this announcement will definitely be worth watching for.
[[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
As a maker of EUP, a virtual worlds platform, this scares me. It is tough to decipher what they are really saying in those patents. But it sounds like they’ve patented the most fundamental common sense parts of a virtual world. I’m surprised they didn’t try to patent chat.
Their 2nd patent was file in 2000. There has got to be prior art for this one. I’ll be digging into this - but I think that we have done these things in 1999 or early 2000.
The 1996 patent is definitely before my time.
I actually used Worlds Chat since September of 1995, and it came online in early 1995. One could make their own avatar (maximum of 8 sides). So, when you moved,. depending on what pictures your avatar was constructed with others saw different representations of your avatar. And of course you could use whatever picture or pictures you wanted. The only other graphical chat at that time and it came around after Worlds Chat was The Palace which was a 2D graphical chat which did not allow movement of the avatar in a way that Worlds Chat did. I am not a lawyer, but when I saw the news on their website the first thing I thought of was lawsuits. The first patent is pretty straight forward. Worlds was and is a Virtual World Chat Client/Server System as is the second patent “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space”.. While in Worlds Chat, the system knows where you are, so you could “whisper” to someone no matter where they were in the virtual worlds. So, it will definitely be interesting to see where this goes.
This is ridiculous! If I want to create a business that involves running a virtual world, who the hell are these people to say that I must pay them service to do so?!