Looks like someone thinks NCSoft is an easy target
By
Assailant,
Posted on: 2008-12-29 22:58 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Seriously, if they wanted to go for Linden Labs then why didnt they? Why NCsoft?
As i said, this could have more serious implications than just MMO's.... and IF Worlds.com win ANY part of this, then i think we *could* probably see more Gaming Companies suing each other for "games that looks the same"...
I place my bet on David Brabham suing CCP saying that Elite is "prior" art (although granted Elite doesnt have online play.... yet)
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Put simply, I'm betting that LL has a good deal more money than NCSoft. Thus, it's tougher to sue them, cuz they get bigger, more expensive lawyers. But, if world.com can win against the "small fry" they then can say "we have this case" and move forward. It becomes a lot harder to defend against somebody who's already won one case.
Thelonious Monk
Maybe we could raise a class action (Stateside) against Worlds.com for something? 
NCSoft can always move NorCal over here to the UK. I'm reasonably sure that U.S patent laws don't apply globally. If a company gets attacked like that, they can always pull out. Imagine the uproar that would create in the US. You can't hit a target if it ain't there any more. Unlikely to happen though 
Union: @Ban-Sidhe
It gets even more hilarious if you go to their website and read their 'about' page. Essentially, they are trying to patent the idea of creating a 3d avatar and interacting with other people in a 3d environment. They call it 'social networking' and think they came up with it. Sony would be on the client list almost certainly because they've used these morons to work on that whole rubbish virtual world the Playstation 3 provides.
Chairman of the Charity of Pain; accepting donations of blood and guts.
Prophet of the Creamy Truth; "If it's empty, fill it with cream."
Technically, a bunch of people I know could sue Amazon, because they developed the net's first online book ordering system in 1995 (I did reviews and cataloguing for it). Whether or not this would be wise to do is uncertain.
NCSoft aren't exactly 100% vulnerable, but are (a) not an American-based company and (b) not Blizzard and therefore an easier target.
Just because you own such IP doesn't mean you always win these cases, particularly if you go straight to law, so I wouldn't worry too much.
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
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Put simply, I'm betting that LL has a good deal more money than NCSoft. Thus, it's tougher to sue them, cuz they get bigger, more expensive lawyers.
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And LL already have a crack legal team wrt the various times they've been involved in lawsuits. Eg customer IP disputes, prim losses, land snatches and so forth.
I agree that SL and other derivatives would be a more obvious choice for "worlds" to go after though.
Fahie
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Technically, a bunch of people I know could sue Amazon, because they developed the net's first online book ordering system in 1995 (I did reviews and cataloguing for it). Whether or not this would be wise to do is uncertain.
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The company that is Amazon was created with its business plan in 1994 and opened the website on July 1995.
You could not sue Amazon. Amazon could have sued you.
Chairman of the Charity of Pain; accepting donations of blood and guts.
Prophet of the Creamy Truth; "If it's empty, fill it with cream."
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The lawsuit is pretty much standard patent infringement litigation language. No real surprises in it. And at least they aren't claiming wilfull infringement, which means treble damages and attorneys fees.
The original parent patent application, which determines what is prior art, was filed in 1996. That does pre-date the modern MMORPG.
This is how patents work. The first one in the queue gets broad coverage, and everything afterwards is considered an improvement on it.
What one cannot tell from just reading the patent is what the applicant said to the Patent Office to get it approved...that is available to the public, and it limits the breadth of the patent's coverage.
The patent is presumed valid unless NCSoft can prove otherwise, and that is hard. This should be a very expensive battle, and could cost millions of dollars to defend. The typical response is to pay a royalty to make them go away.
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If what they say is true, then this whole 'prior art' argument doesn't matter anyway. The original patent pre-dates the modern mmorpg so they are perfectly with their rights to sue. To be honest i'd rather they didnt and i hope NCsoft win but i can see this happening alot more in the future, with everyone losing money some people are going to be on the lookout for anything that could bring them an income.
The above is only my opinion, please don't hate me for it
SG: Suicidal Maniacs @Aurealis
GhostRaptor: Server populations have been trending upwards since Issue 13 release. There are no current plans for any server mergers and we're looking forward to Issue 14 and the rest of the year.
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If what they say is true, then this whole 'prior art' argument doesn't matter anyway. The original patent pre-dates the modern mmorpg so they are perfectly with their rights to sue.
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There's nothing in the patent that's specific to modern MMORPGs, though, and the patent doesn't predate 3D online games with player avatars. The first version of BZFlag, for instance, was released in 1992.
I'm still not convinced that the patent even covers the way CoH is implemented -- CoH has nothing like the "N closest neighbours" filtering discussed in the patent, for instance.
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I'm still not convinced that the patent even covers the way CoH is implemented -- CoH has nothing like the "N closest neighbours" filtering discussed in the patent, for instance.
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I think the closest it has is the 50yard range on local chat.
Mind you, not that I'm defending worlds.com, but I used to use their system back in 1995/6 on dialup, so it IS pretty old... But it's NOTHING like CoH, at all. In fact, having tried Liden Lab's Second Life once, the first thing that struck me was "Hmm, is this by the worlds.com people?"
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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If what they say is true, then this whole 'prior art' argument doesn't matter anyway. The original patent pre-dates the modern mmorpg so they are perfectly with their rights to sue. To be honest i'd rather they didnt and i hope NCsoft win but i can see this happening alot more in the future, with everyone losing money some people are going to be on the lookout for anything that could bring them an income.
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They have absolutely no case on the basis that this 'infringement' has been allowed to continue in a blatantly public fashion to the extent of creating a specialised industry with hundreds of companies rising and falling within it. You cannot 'hide away' a patent in such a fashion in order to wait for everyone to get rich and jump out like some mustache twirling villain going "Aha! You all owe me MONEY! Mwaaahahahaha!".
Judges will look at this, pull a facepalm emote, and tell them to go the hell away. There are always hundreds of stupid little lawsuits and stories like this going on, and this is no different apart from someone wrote a pointless article.
Chairman of the Charity of Pain; accepting donations of blood and guts.
Prophet of the Creamy Truth; "If it's empty, fill it with cream."
Post deleted by The_Phantoms
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I'd gladly call Osama Bin Laden a heroic man if he blows up Worlds.com HQ...
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That really wasn't very funny, boyo. 
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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*sigh* If people WANT to get money and publicity, why don't they earn it instead of trying to sue every Jack and Jill?
I'd gladly call Osama Bin Laden a heroic man if he blows up Worlds.com HQ...
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Well done, you just took idiocy to a whole new level of stupid.
We built this city on Rock and Roll!
Not very tasteful mate
Art of War Co-Leader - Union *Global@Warscythe*
"The box said Windows Vista or better - so I installed Linux"
I'll chip in towards airfare to the US for IM if someone wants to let their homeland security know about his pro-terrorism stance.
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my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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I'd gladly call Osama Bin Laden a heroic man if he blows up Worlds.com HQ...
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That was seriously not cool. Tut-tut.
Anyhoo, I could see where Worlds.com would be coming from IF CoX was meant to just allow communication between users and look around and go oooo. Much like PlayStation Home (with a little less oooo). But CoX and every other MMORPG isnt that.
An absolutely pointless lawsuit and will probably end up forking out cash themselves. Thatll learn them.
"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people"
Sorry if any offence was caused. It was supposted to be a joke. I'll delete the post.
No worries, matey. 
"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people"
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Sorry if any offence was caused. It was supposted to be a joke. I'll delete the post.
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Lol think there is little point as several people already quoted it. was a bit tasteless but meh, you live and learn. Reminds me of the awesome comedian that is Frankie Boyle.
Anyway what I was going to say is that Second Life is much more like what people are describing than CoX is or indeed a lot of other MMORPG's. LindenLabs may have more money but surely it would be a far more positive outcome for World.com if they sued them instead. At least then they could have some validity to their claims rather than just picking on the nearest small games company you can find.
If you think about it NCsoft was the perfect choice for a money grabber, not large enough to put up a really good fight but not small enough that nobody knows of it so it makes little impact.
The above is only my opinion, please don't hate me for it
SG: Suicidal Maniacs @Aurealis
GhostRaptor: Server populations have been trending upwards since Issue 13 release. There are no current plans for any server mergers and we're looking forward to Issue 14 and the rest of the year.
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Sorry if any offence was caused. It was supposted to be a joke. I'll delete the post.
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Don't worry mate. If anyone gave it three times the attention your guides normally get, only 2 people read it.
Thelonious Monk
Well....
Here are a couple of interesting "news" articles that i have found recently...
Lum the Mad's opinion (Scott Jennings who USED to work for Ncsoft Austin
Habitat Chronicles (a link from the previous linkage)
Hmmm, me thinks that they *could* possibly use some of the previous information there as methods of cancelling this one out.
Fortunately, this looks like it would end up being settled OoC (Out of Court) just due to how effing stupid the claim is...
*edit* Best defence there... Scott Jennings lists quite a few...
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(I don't like Apple much, and Steve Jobs less. They were responsible for crippling early development of windows OSes, and, along with IBM, are therefore responsible for the uber-power that is Microsoft. And yet, while Apple claim to be the lords of freedom in a world of Windows, their systems are more restrictive and more proprietary than Wintel systems are. Sorry, for off-topic rant.)
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Glad to see I'm not the only person who feels that way.
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The lawsuit is pretty much standard patent infringement litigation language. No real surprises in it. And at least they aren't claiming wilfull infringement, which means treble damages and attorneys fees.
The original parent patent application, which determines what is prior art, was filed in 1996. That does pre-date the modern MMORPG.
This is how patents work. The first one in the queue gets broad coverage, and everything afterwards is considered an improvement on it.
What one cannot tell from just reading the patent is what the applicant said to the Patent Office to get it approved...that is available to the public, and it limits the breadth of the patent's coverage.
The patent is presumed valid unless NCSoft can prove otherwise, and that is hard. This should be a very expensive battle, and could cost millions of dollars to defend. The typical response is to pay a royalty to make them go away.
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If what they say is true, then this whole 'prior art' argument doesn't matter anyway. The original patent pre-dates the modern mmorpg so they are perfectly with their rights to sue. To be honest i'd rather they didnt and i hope NCsoft win but i can see this happening alot more in the future, with everyone losing money some people are going to be on the lookout for anything that could bring them an income.
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All NCSoft need to do is find someone who commercially used the patented idea before it was patented. Hence Prior Art, if thats valid. Personally I'd imagine they will either fight and get support from other big name MMO publishers, as if they capitulate all of them will lose out, or they'll come to some sort of licensing deal.
I really doubt it will make any difference to us the user in any way shape or form.
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Sorry if any offence was caused. It was supposted to be a joke. I'll delete the post.
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Don't worry mate. If anyone gave it three times the attention your guides normally get, only 2 people read it.
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Lmfao!
Is that patent even applicable to CoH? It's been my impression that the CoH server supplies the position information about all players in a city zone to every client in that zone -- you can, for instance, see the target reticule of a team-member no matter where they are in the zone. There doesn't seem to be any "neighbours only" filtering which is what this patent claims. (There is "neighbours only" filtering of mobs, but the patent only covers player avatars, not mobs.)