Anyway, sorry for getting a little sidetracked there, the whole point is that this intellectual property patents law is a crock.
Would you spend years and millions of dollars to develop a drug or software if the second you published it, someone else could copy it and prevent you from recovering your investment?
Or let's put it in simpler terms: would you buy a house if other people could come in whenever they wanted and eat out of your refrigerator, sleep in your bed and crap in you toilets whenever they wanted?
You make a good point, but so does consortitude. IP patents are needed, but they also have been abused. But of course, this is a reacurring theme in our patent system...
Anyway, sorry for getting a little sidetracked there, the whole point is that this intellectual property patents law is a crock.
Would you spend years and millions of dollars to develop a drug or software if the second you published it, someone else could copy it and prevent you from recovering your investment?
Or let's put it in simpler terms: would you buy a house if other people could come in whenever they wanted and eat out of your refrigerator, sleep in your bed and crap in you toilets whenever they wanted?
You make a good point, but so does consortitude. IP patents are needed, but they also have been abused. But of course, this is a reacurring theme in our patent system...
The patent system, like any other government system, has flaws and is therefore subject to abuse. But the biggest flaw in the system is our jury system -- where 12 people who can barely tie their own shoes get to decide whether a patent covering sophisticated technology is valid or infringed. If the average American was better educated, or if the decision of patent cases was taken away from clueless judges and juries, we might see less abuse.
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Anyway, sorry for getting a little sidetracked there, the whole point is that this intellectual property patents law is a crock.
Would you spend years and millions of dollars to develop a drug or software if the second you published it, someone else could copy it and prevent you from recovering your investment?
Or let's put it in simpler terms: would you buy a house if other people could come in whenever they wanted and eat out of your refrigerator, sleep in your bed and crap in you toilets whenever they wanted?
You make a good point, but so does consortitude. IP patents are needed, but they also have been abused. But of course, this is a reacurring theme in our patent system...
The patent system, like any other government system, has flaws and is therefore subject to abuse. But the biggest flaw in the system is our jury system -- where 12 people who can barely tie their own shoes get to decide whether a patent covering sophisticated technology is valid or infringed. If the average American was better educated, or if the decision of patent cases was taken away from clueless judges and juries, we might see less abuse.
lol, oh so true. I actually have a decent grasp of the tech stuff that goes into coding computers and games, I can't follow the patents that have been listed here for beans! The jury system in our country actually works well for most things, this is one of the few times were it just fails miserably. In this setting, a jury of your peers should consist of technical experts and patent lawyers. It would make these trials fairer and faster, imo.
This reeks of market manipulation.... Sony Online has lots to earn if this succeeds: their online games wouldn't be penalized where most others would, Playstation Home would become a market singularity (i.e. say goodbye to your Mii's and Live Avatars--as these are 3D avatars able to interact in networked instances).
However, we are lucky there are a number of ways that this suit could fail. The easiest way is to show prior IP art, and thankfully as many others in this thread have pointed out, it is out there.
The second way is to show concurrent development of technology or IP. If any company can show that it had technology being developed before the filing date on the original 1996 patent, then it stands a good chance of the court overruling the infringement claim, even if World's patent holds up for some unholy reason. This means all NC has to do is show that Lineage was being developed before the file date... and it stands to reason that since Lineage was released in 1998, and assuming the original developers followed a 2-3 year production plan as most MMORPGs do, that the technology/idea for the game was at least written down somewhere. Similarly, Blizzard (when litigation comes against them) only needs to show that Battle.Net (specifically in the case of Diablo) was being developed at a time prior to the patent filing date. But this would leave newer companies out in the cold where the wolves in World.com's legal team would eat them whole and force massive licensing fees on the good majority of MMOs.
I'm no copyright lawyer, so don't take any of what I said as legal advice. But I do recall a case where a lawsuit was overturned based on concurrent IP development, so there may be precedent to this case that may favor NC.
This reeks of market manipulation.... Sony Online has lots to earn if this succeeds: their online games wouldn't be penalized where most others would, Playstation Home would become a market singularity (i.e. say goodbye to your Mii's and Live Avatars--as these are 3D avatars able to interact in networked instances). However, we are lucky there are a number of ways that this suit could fail. The easiest way is to show prior IP art, and thankfully as many others in this thread have pointed out, it is out there. The second way is to show concurrent development of technology or IP. If any company can show that it had technology being developed before the filing date on the original 1996 patent, then it stands a good chance of the court overruling the infringement claim, even if World's patent holds up for some unholy reason. This means all NC has to do is show that Lineage was being developed before the file date... and it stands to reason that since Lineage was released in 1998, and assuming the original developers followed a 2-3 year production plan as most MMORPGs do, that the technology/idea for the game was at least written down somewhere. Similarly, Blizzard (when litigation comes against them) only needs to show that Battle.Net (specifically in the case of Diablo) was being developed at a time prior to the patent filing date. But this would leave newer companies out in the cold where the wolves in World.com's legal team would eat them whole and force massive licensing fees on the good majority of MMOs. I'm no copyright lawyer, so don't take any of what I said as legal advice. But I do recall a case where a lawsuit was overturned based on concurrent IP development, so there may be precedent to this case that may favor NC.
The point of novelty that got this patent issued is actually quite specific. I doubt battle.net will do the trick, because I'm pretty sure it did not support the kind of player numbers that this patent contemplates and supports.
Also, to invalidate the patent based on its own prior development, NC would probably have to do better than just showing they started developing Lineage before 1996. They'd have to show that they came up with the specific patented idea and that they worked on it more or less continuously towards commercialization before Worlds did (which may have happened a significant amount of time before the patent application was filed).
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imma gonna patent breathing. And sue worlds.com first. Then imma gonna watch baseball and drink beer!
Seriously i been working on the in game chatfunctions of a MUD so long ago i dont even remember the name of the game. (Early 80's like)
We never botherered to patent anything cus users back then were friends and could be as "many" as half a dozen at a time (OMG!)
If they win this, they gonna be a big a player as Blizzard. Thats why they try. They cant win though. This patent is to general. (patent office klerk ZzzzZZ.. oeps)
There are companies (and lawyers) who specialize in buying up or patenting existing technologies and their sole purpose is to sue (and make money off of) the people using the technology, even before the patent existed.
I remember WW2 Online having to disable to "spinning death cam" as it was supposedly making the game a target for a lawsuit by some pseudo-tech company who bought a bunch of patents from defunct companies. This particular patent would hit everyone in the graphical world: The ability to view an object in a 3-D space from a moving point of view.
I didn't follow the suits, but I doubt they won.... or they went the other way and said "Pay us X dollars and we won't sue you" which works too.
Psh, after reading the patent. The patent is actually too specific to target any of NCSofts games. They can pick out the way something was worded in one of the 20 specifications and get out of it. That is if they don't settle. Like it has to be a 3D world in which mouse movement is not used to position the character. That takes out all of thier titles as mouse movement is used in some form.
Psh, after reading the patent. The patent is actually too specific to target any of NCSofts games. They can pick out the way something was worded in one of the 20 specifications and get out of it. That is if they don't settle. Like it has to be a 3D world in which mouse movement is not used to position the character. That takes out all of thier titles as mouse movement is used in some form.
Where'd you see that? The claims have nothing to do with mouse movement.
What is claimed is:
1. A method for enabling a first user to interact with other users in a virtual space, wherein the first user and the other users each have an avatar and a client process associated therewith, and wherein each client process is in communication with a server process, wherein the method comprises: (a) receiving a position of less than all of the other users' avatars from the server process; and (b) determining, from the received positions, a set of the other users' avatars that are to be displayed to the first user, wherein steps (a) and (b) are performed by the client process associated with the first user.
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"Input devices 116 supply various inputs from the user to signal motion. To make movement easier and more natural, client 60 performs several unique operations. One such operation is "squared forward movement" which makes it easier for the user to move straight. Unlike ordinary mouse movements, where one mouse tick forward results in an avatar movement forward one unit and one mouse tick to the left or right results in side movement of one unit, squared forward movement squares the forward/backward ticks or takes the square root of the sideways ticks or divides by the number of forward/backward ticks. For example, if the user moves the mouse F mouse ticks forward, the avatar moves F screen units forward, whereas if the user moves the mouse F mouse units forward and L mouse units to the left, the avatar moves F units forward and L/F screen units to the left. For covering non-linear distances, (F,L) mouse units (i.e., F forward, L to the side) might translate to (F.sup.2 L) screen units. "
If they don't follow the process described in the patent, then it doesnt count. Reading the full length document will provide instances where the games differ in implementation.
Heh, this Worlds.com is going to go bust in the next year. As there are published images of scaling world designs by other companies pre 1999, this claim will be thrown out, the patent removed, and NCSoft will counter sue for defamation of character. And that will be the end of Worlds.com
Although the Patents office was clearly also at fault here for not bothering to properly check it when it was submitted!!
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
"Input devices 116 supply various inputs from the user to signal motion. To make movement easier and more natural, client 60 performs several unique operations. One such operation is "squared forward movement" which makes it easier for the user to move straight. Unlike ordinary mouse movements, where one mouse tick forward results in an avatar movement forward one unit and one mouse tick to the left or right results in side movement of one unit, squared forward movement squares the forward/backward ticks or takes the square root of the sideways ticks or divides by the number of forward/backward ticks. For example, if the user moves the mouse F mouse ticks forward, the avatar moves F screen units forward, whereas if the user moves the mouse F mouse units forward and L mouse units to the left, the avatar moves F units forward and L/F screen units to the left. For covering non-linear distances, (F,L) mouse units (i.e., F forward, L to the side) might translate to (F.sup.2 L) screen units. " If they don't follow the process described in the patent, then it doesnt count. Reading the full length document will provide instances where the games differ in implementation.
You should educate yourself on how patents work. One needn't do everything written in the entire patent to infringe it. One need only do everything set forth in one of the numbered claims at the end of the patent, like the one I copied above. As I said, the claims in this patent have nothing to do with mouse movement. They have to do with how the client and server determine which avatars to display to a particular player.
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Heh, this Worlds.com is going to go bust in the next year. As there are published images of scaling world designs by other companies pre 1999, this claim will be thrown out, the patent removed, and NCSoft will counter sue for defamation of character. And that will be the end of Worlds.com Although the Patents office was clearly also at fault here for not bothering to properly check it when it was submitted!!
"Published images of scaling world designs by other companies pre 1999" will not be enough to invalidate the patent. First of all, the patent was filed in 1996, not 1999. Second, the patent covers a very specific technique for rendering avatars, not all "scaling world designs".
You can't sue someone for "defamation of character" simply because they filed a patent infringement suit against you. If the suit was truly frivolous and filed in bad faith the court might order the plaintiff pay the defendants' costs and attorney's fees. But that is very rare.
The patent office did what it was supposed to do, which is search its database of other patents for one or more that would invalidate the patent. Normally, this process is not very effective, but in this case they apparently got pretty close because Worlds had to narrow the patent significantly to get it issued. I have yet to see anyone on this site or any other site identify something that existed prior to 1996 that does what is claimed in this patent (i.e. server calculates for which avatars to send position information to client, and client calculates a subset of those avatars to actually display).
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I'm not too sure whether what I am about to say has been said, but I'm at work and I don't have time to look over the full thread so I will go ahead anyway.
Firstly, out of all of the profitable companies that Worlds could sue, NCSoft is by far the worst positioned to deal with a court case like this. It is true that it is almost as profitable as World of Warcraft, but it isn't as well placed from a financial perspective, regardless of how much money it is making. There are very good reasons why Worlds stayed away from SOE and Blizzard - the only other alternatives it had at hand from a realistic perspective. This is a test case and nothing more; Worlds are using it as a way of feeling out the legality behind the patent. NCSoft are financially successful but are well known for having a fairly weak legal team out of the Big Three.
Now, Worlds may well intend to use this case as a way of pressuring Blizzard into paying up. Sadly for them, Blizzard has a number of factors on their side at this time that mean that they would be unlikely to win a court case, even with the remotest validity. Blizzard are more popular and are well liked by the US courts. As well as this, Blizzard is notorious for having one of the best legal teams in the games industry behind it. It's also got the financial backing of the largest third party game developer and publisher in the world - Activision Blizzard. If Worlds went for Blizzard first, Blizzard would simply play tactically and work to delay the case, which wouldn't be too hard for them. Blizzard would steam roll them simply because Worlds would go bust long before the case was concluded and ruling was given. The patent would be over turned and everyone would be happy - apart from Worlds. By going after NCSoft, they are figuring that if they do win, they may pressure Blizzard into backing down from its usual stone wall approach to legal matters. Even if that doesn't happen, Worlds could theoretically ride out a war of longevity with Blizzard based on the funds they will recover from NCSoft.
They won't sue SOE for obvious reasons. Firstly, Sony is a customer. Secondly, Sony has a legal team far more formidable than Blizzards. It'd be like punching a bull in the mouth after getting hammered down by a goat.
Of course, it's possible that SOE, Blizzard and NCSoft could counter sue together quite easily. It is highly unlikely but I wouldn't be surprised, considering how much money is at stake for all three companies. It's more likely that NCSoft will simply win, as the patents are too broad.
edit: I'd jsut thought I'd throw in the fact that Worlds aren't just dealing with NCSoft here. They are dealing with EA, Activison Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony AND NCSoft. I'd love to see them beat those odds ;-)
This is horrible. Every game company looks at all the games out there and trys to put their own creative spin on things already learned. The money NCsoft will have to come up with, will take away from improving and making games.
I hope they COUNTER SUE! but loser Worldcom probably is already broke, and thats why they are suing.
I'd like to start this off with a "Dude where's my brain?"
Although the claim of patent infringement might seem valid, should the patent be valid? Honestly we are talking about a patent that was approved post Ultimate, The Realm, Everquest, and a large group of multiplayer games, all which are arguably use a "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space". That does not even include games released in the 80's with mulitplayer aspects (yes they DO exist!).
F this I patented music, Beethoven owes me a shit load. How about I just patent language, by responding to this post you're infringing on my patent. How absurdly broad can a patent honestly be? Yes when the telephone was invented it was patented. They did not patent how you could speak over that telephone.
What this really is a question of is what should be able to patented. That great grey area known as "intellectual property" is clearly debatable. If I create a method of doing something, that is specific, clearly that is my property and should not be used by other companies. If another company creates a completely separate way of doing the same thing, simply because my patent covers the same type of outcome does not mean it has been infringed upon.
I patent a teleportation device. I never implement said device very successfully. Another company comes along and they create a device that tears wholes in the space time continuum. It also instantly transports people. Simply because the outcome is the same, the instant transportation of people, does not mean I have any sort of lawsuit or that my "intellectual property" has been stole. Using this example one could assume that there is no reason that the patent isn't valid yet they still do not have a lawsuit.
Edit: This cracked me up thinking about it:
WHEREFORE, Worlds demands judgment as follows:
A. An order finding that the '690 Patent is valid and enforceable
B. An order adjudging defendant NCSoft to have infringed the '690 Patent;
C. An order finding that defendant NCSoft's acts in infringing the '690 Patent
were willful and wanton;
Maybe I'm crazy but I don't see how C can apply. I highly doubt they were willfully trying to infringe on this random patent. They would not have been the first company to infringe on the patent, and how would a company be expect to know about a patent that was not enforced before. If anything the worry would have been infringing on the companies who made mmos before them. Clearly they are smart enough to not do that. There are abandoned property laws, why should this not be the same. (This is with the assumption that the lawsuit is valid on all other points which clearly I think we agree is most likely not the case)
A small note here about IP (intellectual property) An IP patent could simply be "patenting" an "idea" it doesnt even need a working prototype really.. The Overall problem with IP's is that they can simply be ideas and thats where things become problematic. While they might of filed for a Patent back in 96 it was just an idea on paper then that they likely werent even sure would properly work at the time. They didnt recieve a patent itself until 2001 which was long after this system had been proerly enabled. Note Meridian 59 and several 3d Muds and the like existed before this patent was even filed for... You also had NVN and a few other games out before then that used some similar processes all be it more likely over LAN.... Still an IP can be dangerous territory and hard to really prove overall since again it can just be an idea....
The patent system itself needs to be changed around to only allow patents on things that have a working prototype period. In this case they tried to patent something quite stupid in that its unavoidable for a 3d user space to use some kind of text chat system... Not to mention previous works already using a similar system by the time they were even given a patent and also before they filed one. The overall logistics of the patent system are so horribly broken its absurd really. And they have been for a long time. They are abused to such an extent that its become discouraging....
I'm not too sure whether what I am about to say has been said, but I'm at work and I don't have time to look over the full thread so I will go ahead anyway. Firstly, out of all of the profitable companies that Worlds could sue, NCSoft is by far the worst positioned to deal with a court case like this. It is true that it is almost as profitable as World of Warcraft, but it isn't as well placed from a financial perspective, regardless of how much money it is making. There are very good reasons why Worlds stayed away from SOE and Blizzard - the only other alternatives it had at hand from a realistic perspective. This is a test case and nothing more; Worlds are using it as a way of feeling out the legality behind the patent. NCSoft are financially successful but are well known for having a fairly weak legal team out of the Big Three. I suspect they sued NC primarily because it is a foreign corporation with a major presence in Texas. Juries in the Eastern District of Texas are heavily pro-patent, and anti-Asia. Once they get a win under their belts, they probably believe that will put more pressure on Blizz to settle rather than fight it out in court. This would certainly give them the funds to take Blizz to court if they did not settle. Now, Worlds may well intend to use this case as a way of pressuring Blizzard into paying up. Sadly for them, Blizzard has a number of factors on their side at this time that mean that they would be unlikely to win a court case, even with the remotest validity. Blizzard are more popular and are well liked by the US courts. As well as this, Blizzard is notorious for having one of the best legal teams in the games industry behind it. It's also got the financial backing of the largest third party game developer and publisher in the world - Activision Blizzard. If Worlds went for Blizzard first, Blizzard would simply play tactically and work to delay the case, which wouldn't be too hard for them. Blizzard would steam roll them simply because Worlds would go bust long before the case was concluded and ruling was given. The patent would be over turned and everyone would be happy - apart from Worlds. By going after NCSoft, they are figuring that if they do win, they may pressure Blizzard into backing down from its usual stone wall approach to legal matters. Even if that doesn't happen, Worlds could theoretically ride out a war of longevity with Blizzard based on the funds they will recover from NCSoft. They won't sue SOE for obvious reasons. Firstly, Sony is a customer. Secondly, Sony has a legal team far more formidable than Blizzards. It'd be like punching a bull in the mouth after getting hammered down by a goat. I don't know about Sony being a customer, but the part about them having a formidable legal team is completely irrelevant. Blizz has the cash to retain any one of the best and the biggest patent litigation teams in the country, and they undoubtedly will if they get sued. Of course, it's possible that SOE, Blizzard and NCSoft could counter sue together quite easily. It is highly unlikely but I wouldn't be surprised, considering how much money is at stake for all three companies. It's more likely that NCSoft will simply win, as the patents are too broad. What would they counter sue for? edit: I'd jsut thought I'd throw in the fact that Worlds aren't just dealing with NCSoft here. They are dealing with EA, Activison Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony AND NCSoft. I'd love to see them beat those odds ;-)
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The real crime here is that the US patent office would let such a ridiculously BROAD patent like this go through!
Why do people keep saying it's so broad? It's really directed to one specific idea, and I have yet to see one person identify any product that existed before 1996 that had this feature.
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I'd like to start this off with a "Dude where's my brain?" Although the claim of patent infringement might seem valid, should the patent be valid? Honestly we are talking about a patent that was approved post Ultimate, The Realm, Everquest, and a large group of multiplayer games, all which are arguably use a "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space". That does not even include games released in the 80's with mulitplayer aspects (yes they DO exist!). The issue date of the patent is totally irrelevant to its validity (at least in the sense that you are talking about). All that matters is when it was filed, when the invention was actually made, and whether the patent contains a sufficient specification to allow someone else to implement it. This patent is not nearly as broad as the title would suggest. Read the claims. They are what defines how broad the patent is. F this I patented music, Beethoven owes me a shit load. How about I just patent language, by responding to this post you're infringing on my patent. How absurdly broad can a patent honestly be? Yes when the telephone was invented it was patented. They did not patent how you could speak over that telephone. You can't get a patent for anything that was known to the public before you filed your patent application (with some very narrow exceptions), and you have to have actually invented the thing you wish to patent. If you review the history of this patent, you'll see that the Patent Office did find some pretty close prior art, but the patentee narrowed the claims to get around it. That doesn't mean there isn't better prior art out there. It just means that the Patent Office does not search all possible sources of prior art when it examines patents and that the patent examiner has very limited time to review the art it does find. What this really is a question of is what should be able to patented. That great grey area known as "intellectual property" is clearly debatable. If I create a method of doing something, that is specific, clearly that is my property and should not be used by other companies. If another company creates a completely separate way of doing the same thing, simply because my patent covers the same type of outcome does not mean it has been infringed upon. I patent a teleportation device. I never implement said device very successfully. Another company comes along and they create a device that tears wholes in the space time continuum. It also instantly transports people. Simply because the outcome is the same, the instant transportation of people, does not mean I have any sort of lawsuit or that my "intellectual property" has been stole. Using this example one could assume that there is no reason that the patent isn't valid yet they still do not have a lawsuit. Another requirement for getting a patent is that you have to describe it in sufficient detail that a person skilled in the relevant technology could make it work. You can't patent a mere idea. So you could not have a valid patent for your time machine unless you gave enough information to actually make one.
Edit: This cracked me up thinking about it: WHEREFORE, Worlds demands judgment as follows:
A. An order finding that the '690 Patent is valid and enforceable
B. An order adjudging defendant NCSoft to have infringed the '690 Patent;
C. An order finding that defendant NCSoft's acts in infringing the '690 Patent
were willful and wanton; Maybe I'm crazy but I don't see how C can apply. I highly doubt they were willfully trying to infringe on this random patent. They would not have been the first company to infringe on the patent, and how would a company be expect to know about a patent that was not enforced before. If anything the worry would have been infringing on the companies who made mmos before them. Clearly they are smart enough to not do that. There are abandoned property laws, why should this not be the same. (This is with the assumption that the lawsuit is valid on all other points which clearly I think we agree is most likely not the case) It is very common practice for a patentee contemplating an infringement suit to notify the infringer of the patent, and perhaps even provide them with written proof of infringement. In any case, a statement like C is very standard in patent infringement complaints, and is almost always made, regardless of whether there is any actual evidence of willful infringement at the time they file the complaint. The reason they do this is that they can get the damages tripled if they can prove that the infringement was intentional.
____________________________________________ im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
A small note here about IP (intellectual property) An IP patent could simply be "patenting" an "idea" it doesnt even need a working prototype really.. The Overall problem with IP's is that they can simply be ideas and thats where things become problematic. While they might of filed for a Patent back in 96 it was just an idea on paper then that they likely werent even sure would properly work at the time. They didnt recieve a patent itself until 2001 which was long after this system had been proerly enabled. Note Meridian 59 and several 3d Muds and the like existed before this patent was even filed for... You also had NVN and a few other games out before then that used some similar processes all be it more likely over LAN.... Still an IP can be dangerous territory and hard to really prove overall since again it can just be an idea.... The patent system itself needs to be changed around to only allow patents on things that have a working prototype period. In this case they tried to patent something quite stupid in that its unavoidable for a 3d user space to use some kind of text chat system... Not to mention previous works already using a similar system by the time they were even given a patent and also before they filed one. The overall logistics of the patent system are so horribly broken its absurd really. And they have been for a long time. They are abused to such an extent that its become discouraging....
As I said, in order to get a valid patent, you need to describe it in sufficient detail that someone could make it work based on knowledge existing at the time you filed your patent.
So no, you can't get a patent on just an idea. Well, correction: you may be able to dupe the patent examiner into believing that your specification enables the practice of your invention, but if you sue someone, they will have the opportunity to prove that your description was not sufficient.
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Comments
Would you spend years and millions of dollars to develop a drug or software if the second you published it, someone else could copy it and prevent you from recovering your investment?
Or let's put it in simpler terms: would you buy a house if other people could come in whenever they wanted and eat out of your refrigerator, sleep in your bed and crap in you toilets whenever they wanted?
You make a good point, but so does consortitude. IP patents are needed, but they also have been abused. But of course, this is a reacurring theme in our patent system...
Would you spend years and millions of dollars to develop a drug or software if the second you published it, someone else could copy it and prevent you from recovering your investment?
Or let's put it in simpler terms: would you buy a house if other people could come in whenever they wanted and eat out of your refrigerator, sleep in your bed and crap in you toilets whenever they wanted?
You make a good point, but so does consortitude. IP patents are needed, but they also have been abused. But of course, this is a reacurring theme in our patent system...
The patent system, like any other government system, has flaws and is therefore subject to abuse. But the biggest flaw in the system is our jury system -- where 12 people who can barely tie their own shoes get to decide whether a patent covering sophisticated technology is valid or infringed. If the average American was better educated, or if the decision of patent cases was taken away from clueless judges and juries, we might see less abuse.
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
Would you spend years and millions of dollars to develop a drug or software if the second you published it, someone else could copy it and prevent you from recovering your investment?
Or let's put it in simpler terms: would you buy a house if other people could come in whenever they wanted and eat out of your refrigerator, sleep in your bed and crap in you toilets whenever they wanted?
You make a good point, but so does consortitude. IP patents are needed, but they also have been abused. But of course, this is a reacurring theme in our patent system...
The patent system, like any other government system, has flaws and is therefore subject to abuse. But the biggest flaw in the system is our jury system -- where 12 people who can barely tie their own shoes get to decide whether a patent covering sophisticated technology is valid or infringed. If the average American was better educated, or if the decision of patent cases was taken away from clueless judges and juries, we might see less abuse.
lol, oh so true. I actually have a decent grasp of the tech stuff that goes into coding computers and games, I can't follow the patents that have been listed here for beans! The jury system in our country actually works well for most things, this is one of the few times were it just fails miserably. In this setting, a jury of your peers should consist of technical experts and patent lawyers. It would make these trials fairer and faster, imo.
This reeks of market manipulation.... Sony Online has lots to earn if this succeeds: their online games wouldn't be penalized where most others would, Playstation Home would become a market singularity (i.e. say goodbye to your Mii's and Live Avatars--as these are 3D avatars able to interact in networked instances).
However, we are lucky there are a number of ways that this suit could fail. The easiest way is to show prior IP art, and thankfully as many others in this thread have pointed out, it is out there.
The second way is to show concurrent development of technology or IP. If any company can show that it had technology being developed before the filing date on the original 1996 patent, then it stands a good chance of the court overruling the infringement claim, even if World's patent holds up for some unholy reason. This means all NC has to do is show that Lineage was being developed before the file date... and it stands to reason that since Lineage was released in 1998, and assuming the original developers followed a 2-3 year production plan as most MMORPGs do, that the technology/idea for the game was at least written down somewhere. Similarly, Blizzard (when litigation comes against them) only needs to show that Battle.Net (specifically in the case of Diablo) was being developed at a time prior to the patent filing date. But this would leave newer companies out in the cold where the wolves in World.com's legal team would eat them whole and force massive licensing fees on the good majority of MMOs.
I'm no copyright lawyer, so don't take any of what I said as legal advice. But I do recall a case where a lawsuit was overturned based on concurrent IP development, so there may be precedent to this case that may favor NC.
Well in my professional legal opinion, specialising in patents. WTF? Woot.
The point of novelty that got this patent issued is actually quite specific. I doubt battle.net will do the trick, because I'm pretty sure it did not support the kind of player numbers that this patent contemplates and supports.
Also, to invalidate the patent based on its own prior development, NC would probably have to do better than just showing they started developing Lineage before 1996. They'd have to show that they came up with the specific patented idea and that they worked on it more or less continuously towards commercialization before Worlds did (which may have happened a significant amount of time before the patent application was filed).
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
imma gonna patent breathing. And sue worlds.com first. Then imma gonna watch baseball and drink beer!
Seriously i been working on the in game chatfunctions of a MUD so long ago i dont even remember the name of the game. (Early 80's like)
We never botherered to patent anything cus users back then were friends and could be as "many" as half a dozen at a time (OMG!)
If they win this, they gonna be a big a player as Blizzard. Thats why they try. They cant win though. This patent is to general. (patent office klerk ZzzzZZ.. oeps)
Patent 6,219,045 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,219,045.PN.&OS=PN/6,219,045&RS=PN/6,219,045) another good example of a patent that will never hold up in court.)
There are companies (and lawyers) who specialize in buying up or patenting existing technologies and their sole purpose is to sue (and make money off of) the people using the technology, even before the patent existed.
I remember WW2 Online having to disable to "spinning death cam" as it was supposedly making the game a target for a lawsuit by some pseudo-tech company who bought a bunch of patents from defunct companies. This particular patent would hit everyone in the graphical world: The ability to view an object in a 3-D space from a moving point of view.
I didn't follow the suits, but I doubt they won.... or they went the other way and said "Pay us X dollars and we won't sue you" which works too.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-321727.html
Apparently Atari paid up.... damn.
Psh, after reading the patent. The patent is actually too specific to target any of NCSofts games. They can pick out the way something was worded in one of the 20 specifications and get out of it. That is if they don't settle. Like it has to be a 3D world in which mouse movement is not used to position the character. That takes out all of thier titles as mouse movement is used in some form.
Where'd you see that? The claims have nothing to do with mouse movement.
What is claimed is:
1. A method for enabling a first user to interact with other users in a virtual space, wherein the first user and the other users each have an avatar and a client process associated therewith, and wherein each client process is in communication with a server process, wherein the method comprises: (a) receiving a position of less than all of the other users' avatars from the server process; and (b) determining, from the received positions, a set of the other users' avatars that are to be displayed to the first user, wherein steps (a) and (b) are performed by the client process associated with the first user.
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Eve is screwed!!
"Input devices 116 supply various inputs from the user to signal motion. To make movement easier and more natural, client 60 performs several unique operations. One such operation is "squared forward movement" which makes it easier for the user to move straight. Unlike ordinary mouse movements, where one mouse tick forward results in an avatar movement forward one unit and one mouse tick to the left or right results in side movement of one unit, squared forward movement squares the forward/backward ticks or takes the square root of the sideways ticks or divides by the number of forward/backward ticks. For example, if the user moves the mouse F mouse ticks forward, the avatar moves F screen units forward, whereas if the user moves the mouse F mouse units forward and L mouse units to the left, the avatar moves F units forward and L/F screen units to the left. For covering non-linear distances, (F,L) mouse units (i.e., F forward, L to the side) might translate to (F.sup.2 L) screen units. "
If they don't follow the process described in the patent, then it doesnt count. Reading the full length document will provide instances where the games differ in implementation.
Heh, this Worlds.com is going to go bust in the next year. As there are published images of scaling world designs by other companies pre 1999, this claim will be thrown out, the patent removed, and NCSoft will counter sue for defamation of character. And that will be the end of Worlds.com
Although the Patents office was clearly also at fault here for not bothering to properly check it when it was submitted!!
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
You should educate yourself on how patents work. One needn't do everything written in the entire patent to infringe it. One need only do everything set forth in one of the numbered claims at the end of the patent, like the one I copied above. As I said, the claims in this patent have nothing to do with mouse movement. They have to do with how the client and server determine which avatars to display to a particular player.
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"Published images of scaling world designs by other companies pre 1999" will not be enough to invalidate the patent. First of all, the patent was filed in 1996, not 1999. Second, the patent covers a very specific technique for rendering avatars, not all "scaling world designs".
You can't sue someone for "defamation of character" simply because they filed a patent infringement suit against you. If the suit was truly frivolous and filed in bad faith the court might order the plaintiff pay the defendants' costs and attorney's fees. But that is very rare.
The patent office did what it was supposed to do, which is search its database of other patents for one or more that would invalidate the patent. Normally, this process is not very effective, but in this case they apparently got pretty close because Worlds had to narrow the patent significantly to get it issued. I have yet to see anyone on this site or any other site identify something that existed prior to 1996 that does what is claimed in this patent (i.e. server calculates for which avatars to send position information to client, and client calculates a subset of those avatars to actually display).
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I'm not too sure whether what I am about to say has been said, but I'm at work and I don't have time to look over the full thread so I will go ahead anyway.
Firstly, out of all of the profitable companies that Worlds could sue, NCSoft is by far the worst positioned to deal with a court case like this. It is true that it is almost as profitable as World of Warcraft, but it isn't as well placed from a financial perspective, regardless of how much money it is making. There are very good reasons why Worlds stayed away from SOE and Blizzard - the only other alternatives it had at hand from a realistic perspective. This is a test case and nothing more; Worlds are using it as a way of feeling out the legality behind the patent. NCSoft are financially successful but are well known for having a fairly weak legal team out of the Big Three.
Now, Worlds may well intend to use this case as a way of pressuring Blizzard into paying up. Sadly for them, Blizzard has a number of factors on their side at this time that mean that they would be unlikely to win a court case, even with the remotest validity. Blizzard are more popular and are well liked by the US courts. As well as this, Blizzard is notorious for having one of the best legal teams in the games industry behind it. It's also got the financial backing of the largest third party game developer and publisher in the world - Activision Blizzard. If Worlds went for Blizzard first, Blizzard would simply play tactically and work to delay the case, which wouldn't be too hard for them. Blizzard would steam roll them simply because Worlds would go bust long before the case was concluded and ruling was given. The patent would be over turned and everyone would be happy - apart from Worlds. By going after NCSoft, they are figuring that if they do win, they may pressure Blizzard into backing down from its usual stone wall approach to legal matters. Even if that doesn't happen, Worlds could theoretically ride out a war of longevity with Blizzard based on the funds they will recover from NCSoft.
They won't sue SOE for obvious reasons. Firstly, Sony is a customer. Secondly, Sony has a legal team far more formidable than Blizzards. It'd be like punching a bull in the mouth after getting hammered down by a goat.
Of course, it's possible that SOE, Blizzard and NCSoft could counter sue together quite easily. It is highly unlikely but I wouldn't be surprised, considering how much money is at stake for all three companies. It's more likely that NCSoft will simply win, as the patents are too broad.
edit: I'd jsut thought I'd throw in the fact that Worlds aren't just dealing with NCSoft here. They are dealing with EA, Activison Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony AND NCSoft. I'd love to see them beat those odds ;-)
http://www.themmoquest.com - MMO commentary from an overly angry brit. OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
The real crime here is that the US patent office would let such a ridiculously BROAD patent like this go through!
I need a new MMOG
This is horrible. Every game company looks at all the games out there and trys to put their own creative spin on things already learned. The money NCsoft will have to come up with, will take away from improving and making games.
I hope they COUNTER SUE! but loser Worldcom probably is already broke, and thats why they are suing.
i hope they take away every property whoever is involved with worlds.com. may they become homeless bums
I'd like to start this off with a "Dude where's my brain?"
Although the claim of patent infringement might seem valid, should the patent be valid? Honestly we are talking about a patent that was approved post Ultimate, The Realm, Everquest, and a large group of multiplayer games, all which are arguably use a "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space". That does not even include games released in the 80's with mulitplayer aspects (yes they DO exist!).
F this I patented music, Beethoven owes me a shit load. How about I just patent language, by responding to this post you're infringing on my patent. How absurdly broad can a patent honestly be? Yes when the telephone was invented it was patented. They did not patent how you could speak over that telephone.
What this really is a question of is what should be able to patented. That great grey area known as "intellectual property" is clearly debatable. If I create a method of doing something, that is specific, clearly that is my property and should not be used by other companies. If another company creates a completely separate way of doing the same thing, simply because my patent covers the same type of outcome does not mean it has been infringed upon.
I patent a teleportation device. I never implement said device very successfully. Another company comes along and they create a device that tears wholes in the space time continuum. It also instantly transports people. Simply because the outcome is the same, the instant transportation of people, does not mean I have any sort of lawsuit or that my "intellectual property" has been stole. Using this example one could assume that there is no reason that the patent isn't valid yet they still do not have a lawsuit.
Edit: This cracked me up thinking about it:
WHEREFORE, Worlds demands judgment as follows:
A. An order finding that the '690 Patent is valid and enforceable
B. An order adjudging defendant NCSoft to have infringed the '690 Patent;
C. An order finding that defendant NCSoft's acts in infringing the '690 Patent
were willful and wanton;
Maybe I'm crazy but I don't see how C can apply. I highly doubt they were willfully trying to infringe on this random patent. They would not have been the first company to infringe on the patent, and how would a company be expect to know about a patent that was not enforced before. If anything the worry would have been infringing on the companies who made mmos before them. Clearly they are smart enough to not do that. There are abandoned property laws, why should this not be the same. (This is with the assumption that the lawsuit is valid on all other points which clearly I think we agree is most likely not the case)
A small note here about IP (intellectual property) An IP patent could simply be "patenting" an "idea" it doesnt even need a working prototype really.. The Overall problem with IP's is that they can simply be ideas and thats where things become problematic. While they might of filed for a Patent back in 96 it was just an idea on paper then that they likely werent even sure would properly work at the time. They didnt recieve a patent itself until 2001 which was long after this system had been proerly enabled. Note Meridian 59 and several 3d Muds and the like existed before this patent was even filed for... You also had NVN and a few other games out before then that used some similar processes all be it more likely over LAN.... Still an IP can be dangerous territory and hard to really prove overall since again it can just be an idea....
The patent system itself needs to be changed around to only allow patents on things that have a working prototype period. In this case they tried to patent something quite stupid in that its unavoidable for a 3d user space to use some kind of text chat system... Not to mention previous works already using a similar system by the time they were even given a patent and also before they filed one. The overall logistics of the patent system are so horribly broken its absurd really. And they have been for a long time. They are abused to such an extent that its become discouraging....
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
Why do people keep saying it's so broad? It's really directed to one specific idea, and I have yet to see one person identify any product that existed before 1996 that had this feature.
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As I said, in order to get a valid patent, you need to describe it in sufficient detail that someone could make it work based on knowledge existing at the time you filed your patent.
So no, you can't get a patent on just an idea. Well, correction: you may be able to dupe the patent examiner into believing that your specification enables the practice of your invention, but if you sue someone, they will have the opportunity to prove that your description was not sufficient.
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