NCsoft Sued Over MMO Patent Dispute, Blizzard Next
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But Worlds.com's Thom filled us in on his backstory: Back in 1997, a developer created the Steven Spielberg-backed Starbright World, part of the Starlight Starbright Foundation's work with seriously ill children. Even in the fledgling virtual worlds industry, very few people heard of Starbright World because its creators shunned publicity, seeing their product as a private wonderland for sick kids.This is why the EU never recognizes patents on ideas. It's stupid.
Eventually a collection of Starbright patents, which don't cover virtual worlds per se but an architecture for enabling thousands of simultaneous users in a 3D virtual space, passed from the original creators to the current Worlds.com management. Lawyers from General Patent Corporation encouraged the Worlds.com team to aggressively pursue licensing deals.
Thom insists he's not out to put anyone out of business, he just wants to be paid licensing fees for what he considers his lawful intellectual property. But we can't imagine the potential targets of any patent infringement action will interpret the demand for licensing fees as anything less than a legal shakedown.
