Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Somewhere here, our data is really at odds. According to sources published back at 1996, worlds.com demonstrated tech in the market way back then. Granted, it may not have executed the entire system that they show here-- which would be a fatal flaw. if that was the case, though, the patent wouldnt' have been granted at all.
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Also, Although the abstract sounds generic, all patents do- you have to cover the general idea in a very limited space. The importance is in the details. I can patent a "device that delivers caffeine directly to users through the Internet" and then list how I do it. You can patent your own "device that delivers caffeine directly to users through the Internet" and as long as we achieve that same goal in entirely different ways, we're both OK.
In this case, "habitat" wasn't considered prior art (correctly or incorrectly) because this dealt more with the specific challenges of scalability and scope. Habitat has used techniques to work around these barriers, rather than overcome them. Air Warrior and Club Calibre were the same way (and were prior art that was used by the USPTO in its consideration). Again, both of these products managed to make a multiplayer game that worked around specific barriers, rather than overcome them. This patent design *claimed to* use an innovation that worked past those barriers.
As long as they made a valuable and not-obvious contribution to a public-domain invention (habitat's data), they can then patent that contribution. This has been common over a century- heck since the paperclip was patented, there have been almost a dozed patents that build upon the expired patent with new techniques (ones that don't dent/mark paper as much, ones for larger bundles, ones with clip binds, etc). Those are all legitimate patents that build off the prior art idea. People can keep using the public-domain idea, but if you want to use their innovation, they can charge you for it.
The claim that worlds.com made was that they DID come up with an architecture that eliminated those barriers (true or not). That's what's critical here. Worlds.com has not made the claim that every virtual world out there owes them money. They've instead targeted places that use techniques that parallel the ones that they claim they developed and that the USPTO gave them a limited-time ownership to.
- it did not include peer to peer
- it did not include ad hoc systems
- it did not include 2d graphic systems
- it included 3d client-server systems
- - if those systems used a technique to identify the max avatars & objects to display
- - if this determination was made on identified client and network resources
- - if that display limitation is executed on the client-side.
That's what their system governs... well, the first item's hilights.
If you made a client-server based network game that didn't limit the max avatars & items to display- if it was to render everything, even if it made the client's system hang due to the load... then you DID NOT INFRINGE ON (this part) OF THE PATENT.
This wasn't a claim to all 3D MMO's. This was a claim to a method to overcome the challenge of having TOO MANY people in the same place at the same time in a 3D MMO.
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