Worlds.com Goes Sue-Happy
Rumors of it have been circulating around for a bit now, but Worlds.com have now said they pretty much intend to sue any virtual world developer (I.E. MMO) who refuse to negotiate a licensing deal with them.
Already, Korean gaming firm NCSoft, maker of City of Heroes and Guild Wars, has been sued by Worlds. (In East Texas no less, a jurisdiction infamous in intellectual property circles for plaintiff-friendly rulings in patent cases.)Thom told us if he succeeds in his litigation, he "absolutely" intends to pursue follow-up suits against industry leaders Second Life and WoW.
Apparently they inherited the patent (or so they claim) from a group of patents used by Starbright World, a social networking site of sorts for terminally ill kids that was sponsored by Steven Spielberg in 1997.
Should worlds.com somehow manage to win their case against NCSoft (whom I can imagine have a rather good legal team), I hope they're willing to spend a lot of cash, because if they think a lawsuit against Blizzard is going to be cheap, they've got another thing coming. This will be a legal battle to watch.
Worlds.com CEO: We're 'Absolutely' Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft [CNNMoney]
Sgt. Sausagepants
Posted to MMOs, Video Games on 12 March 2009
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: copyright, lawsuit, MMO, WOW
I'm pulling for worlds, finish off this MMO curse.
I never heard of Worlds.com, just went to their site though. Funny! They ripped off the I'm a Mac and I'm a PC commercial :) Maybe Apple should sue them?
I hope Worlds wins tbh. I play WoW but I hate how Blizzard aren't even trying any more. Hope this ends up as the fall after the pride.
This is getting insane. It is like every other day we hear about a new vague bulls*** lawsuit in the gaming industry. Is the recession so bad that the indusrty is starting to cannibalize eachother? Jesus.
Blzzard are gods among men. Even if this gets through NCSoft, who I really hope stand up to these patent trolls, Blizzard will tank rush them so hard, they won't know what's what. This is not lawsuit in space!
Ugghhh, Worlds? That was the first "MMO" I ever played. David Bowie world was the coolest and Virtually making out with guys was fun, but otherwise, this lawsuit is totally frivolous. It's like Nintendo suing every developer who ever made a platformer.
I see they've updated their site- JUST IN THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS. I was feeling nostalgic and I check the site out last year some time and there was nothing there. The site looked like it hadn't been updated since 1997.
I'm officially calling shenanigans on this lawsuit.
Shenanigans!
You hope worlds wins because you hate WoW hahaha yeah yeah shyaddup. Software patents hurt everyone, as do most patents. U.S. citizens and businesses too really need to say enough is enough and fight their existence. These stupid troll companies battling that these stupidly OBVIOUS ideas on what is simply ART (software is art and ideas, very very different from normal patents), which have all been around for forever. Oooh you made a program that communicates with other programs over a network??? WHAT AN AMAZING IDEA, HERE'S YOUR PATENT.
im horrible for saying this, but the drama here should be fun! Like with Midway, this a train wreck that I can't look away from. Accept in this case, one train is made out of wet newspapers.
Blizzard shall bring worlds a winter of discontent!
o, i made a funny :