Activision Blizzard sued for patent infringement of virtual worlds usage
Worlds Inc. files lawsuit against ATVI for World of Warcraft and Call of Duty
Activision Blizzard is being sued for allegedly utilizing technology in a patent owned by Worlds Inc. The company claims that ATVI is violating its patent by using a "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space."
Worlds Inc., which claims multiple titles like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty are in violation of the patent, said that it deserves compensation for using technologies developed by the company.
"Technologies created by Worlds have helped the businesses of virtual worlds gaming and the sale of virtual goods to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry," said Worlds Inc. CEO Thom Kidrin.
"While we are pleased to see that the gaming industry and its rapidly growing customer base have enthusiastically embraced our patented technologies, we deserve fair compensation for their use."
The smaller firm can count this as the second time they've filed such suit. 2008 saw them filing suit against NCSoft for the game City of Heroes. That case was dismissed in 2010 after an undisclosed settlement was attained.
Activision has yet to respond to the lawsuit.
So a patent for all videogames then? That has to be patent trolling unless I've missed something, how did that patent get upheld?
A 3D environment, people represented by avatars, interacting with each other, a system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space. Way to broad. Waaay to broad.
Blizzard/Activision should counter sue, claim their patent is baseless, and have the patent voided. If companies would stand up and take away these false patents, then our economy would be better for it.
http://www.google.com/patents/US7493558
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN/7493558
But pretty much yeap, every multiplayer online game in existence. Great racket!
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Neil Alphonso on 10th April 2012 11:58am