The Habitat Chronicles has a post up today that gives the history of the “Word Balloon Patent” battle. This was when Forterra Systems (originally produced There.com) tried to exercise a patent for a chat bubble on IMVU. This is a very interesting story about how that patent fight went.
The Demise of the Word Balloon Patent
Bruce Damer’s Avatar book was instrumental in this battle, and ultimately showed that the prior art predated this patent by several years. Patent trolls are an unfortunate byproduct of our high tech industry. All too often these suits are instigated by lawyers and firms that seek out broad general patents that can be interpreted to specific successful products. They start with smaller companies to set precedent and then move up the food chain towards their ultimate targets.
Read this account of this other patent suit and you can see how this latest attempt may play out.
Categories: Opinion · Virtual Worlds
Virtual World News is reporting today that Worlds.com has filed a patent infringement suit against NCSoft. The patent in question was filed in 2000 and only recently granted. World.com was a big virtual world developer in the early 90’s.
Worlds.com Files Suit Against NCsoft for Patent Infringement
Terranova has a more detailed post up that is certain to garner much commenting over the coming days:
Worlds.com Asserting Patents on Virtual Worlds
From the comments and posts today it appears that this patent is so broad as to cover anything in a 3D environment where a person interacts with others through an avatar. They seem to be starting with a smaller but mainstream MMO company to test the waters. With Blizzard’s subscribers and revenue stream, they may be the ones who put this to bed under a sea of Murloc lawyers.
This is going to be an interesting one to watch over the coming months/years. Keep an eye on Terra Nova for coverage and comments as this thing moves forward.
Categories: Virtual Worlds
