Blizzard vs. The World: WoW-Creator Targeted in Patent Dispute
Blizzard vs. The World: WoW-Creator Targeted in Patent Dispute
Posted 03/13/2009 at 12:11am
| by Nathan Grayson
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We’ve always taken issue with the Internet’s highly malleable list of steps for rocking ultimate. "1) Do a thing, 2) Do another thing, 3) ???, and 4) Profit" are all well and good, but our generation’s best and brightest seem to have omitted the final step: Get sued by a tiny, opportunistic company over some patent that holds about as much water as a shattered snow globe.
Worlds.com, currently in the process of suing NCSoft -- while almost assuredly sliding its fingers down a bountiful mustache and readjusting its monocle -- has voiced its diabolical intentions: First NCSoft, then the World… of Warcraft. Then the world.
Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin said as much when he told Silicon Alley Insider that his company “absolutely” intends to send the gavel crashing down on games like WoW and Second Life if its suit against NCSoft succeeds.
Apparently, the conspicuously convenient patent arises from a collection of Starbright patents, which provide “an architecture for enabling thousands of simultaneous users in a 3D virtual space.” Worlds.com now owns said patents and decided they might – like an errant $20 bill in a recently washed pair of jeans – be useful.
So, where does mean old man Jenkins’ money-grubbing plot fall apart? Let our good friend and super sleuth Thomas McDonald explain it for you:
“This must be news to Steve Colley. Back in 1973, he and some other young programmers interning at NASA created MazeWar… Not only did you navigate a maze, but each player was represented by an avatar (an eyeball), people could shoot each other, and the whole thing was networked, complete with online chat!”
“But MazeWar wasn’t Colley’s work alone. Others had inspired him, and subsequent people built on his work, drawing on the potential of new technology to forge the entire gaming industry. No one person or company can claim ownership of these ideas.”
So there you go.
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Geeksquadmyss
March 16, 2009 at 3:33pm
I think this exposes a larger problem of patenting ideas that are very general. These people are not actually creating anything only the idea that is so broad that they can make money off it one day. Hell you could argue that the internet is in violation of there patent or any other multi player game.
Jox
March 13, 2009 at 8:22pm
Patent law in the US is so out of touch with reality as to be almost completely worthless.
Let's see.... perhaps I'll patent a system wherein users can obtain sustenance and create social networks while suspended in a vacuum, riding a blue ball which circles a larger, yellow ball that provides heat and light to the smaller blue ball. I'll call it "Closed System Reality" and every person in existence can pay me royalties for using my patented idea.
Pay me, or I'll sue you into a different reality.
-Jox
Morichalion
March 13, 2009 at 7:09am
... I'd likely be smart enough not to wait untill my product or idea became mainstream before filing lawsuits.
The world was ruled by religion, and they call it "The Dark Ages"
Velcrow
March 13, 2009 at 7:26am
But there's no money in that. IF Worlds.com was bringing in mad cash they would have filed sooner. I think we can assume they aren't. So they wait until the MMO market is making billions, then drop the hammer. Sleezy tactics, to be sure, but financially sound. heh
mps725
March 13, 2009 at 3:24am
Did Steve Colley get a patent? no. from the way it sounds in the original post he does not. What if you tried using one of microsoft's patented technologies in your own work, do you think they wouldn't sue your face off?
Obviously, anyone would feel some malcontent towards a company claiming to have a patent on technology that has been in mainstream for a long time now. While it is silly of them to sue after all this time, I don't think they are necessarily wrong ASSUMING this patent is the real deal.
Velcrow
March 13, 2009 at 7:13am
Not so fast. In this case, you have to take the context in which the patent was given. Was the patent office aware of pre-existing technologies and ideas that related to this patent? It would be like me getting a patent on the automobile because the patent office has never heard of one. Does that make it enforcable? That's up to a judge, after all the facts are shared. My thoughts are that it is highly unlikely. Even though Worlds.com might not have been aware of existing tech (not sure how, considering their own idea had to start somewhere), they might get nothing from these court cases except a good education. In history, patents, and finance.
AntiHero
March 13, 2009 at 8:13am
I second this. They have basically no case. All they have is lawyer bills on their hands. Suing for the idea of a graphical world...not viable especially if the patent (In question i feel) was over 30 years ago. If i were the judge on this, i would say "well have you taken any action prior to this current course, or were you just ignorant of something that is on tv, plastered on the internet, all over malls in most stores that sell games, and many other mediums. The fact of it is, waiting to take action, almost makes it seem like you don't care about the patent enough to sue right away or have something done to protect your copyrigthed material." They can't say they didn't know, because i can mention Warcraft to ANYBODY without a pc, or whom doesn't game, and they know what it is. Go to mmosite.com, there's hundreds of these 3d mmorpg's around, the free video game world is FLOODED with them, of all variants. They waited too long for them to have any really sustainable effort to shut it down, it's too late. Suing won't do any good, Korea spits like 10 of these types of games out a month. MMO's feel like they're their own industry (or can at least count as one)
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