Curse

Bowstring Badass · Jan 07, 2009, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Ultima Online (UO) is a graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), released on September 25, 1997,[1] by Origin Systems, Inc.

Unless one of worlds.com's clients is OSI then there patent means jack shit.

Master Knightfall · Jan 07, 2009, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Sorry, but, it doesn't matter when something is 'released' all that matters is when the patent was 'applied for'. Many people have lost millions because they didn't apply for a patent or a copyright because they didn't know any better or didn't think it was necessary. So, once again a wouldbe lawyer like Bowstring doesn't know what he's talking about.

I just served on a case of infringement in Marshall Texas and I know the procedures and I know how most jurors think. We awarded the plantiff 1.3 billion dollars in restitution and the major(s) that infringed are the ones that got jack shit. hahahahaha NCsoft is going down.

irkwerks2 · Jan 07, 2009, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Wouldn't it be possible for the Judge to dismiss the case until such time that Worlds.com included other possible defendants that may have violated the patent also (ie Blizzard,Microsoft,et al) so as to allow no precident to be set.

I for one hope that NCSoft does not settle because anything gotten in a settlement is yours reguardless of what happens afterwards.

TAAAAAANEX · Jan 07, 2009, 03:23 PM // 15:23

http://gwpoll.tk/ be sure to vote

lakatz · Jan 07, 2009, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

I understand lakatz's point (how ridiculous to call him a traitor, don't people read posts anymore?), because I had a discussion not too long ago with people from the Second Life community (very, very knowledgeable) and realised how diverse these "Virtual Worlds" (VW) are, both from the point of view of their aims (MMOs are games, SL is "serious" as people work and "live virtually" over there) and technology (SL looks too basic graphics-wise, but it's a User-Generated Content/UGC kind of VW which makes the technological challenge amazingly difficult but so rewarding for creators).

(side-note: the discussion on this affair in the SL mailing lists almost immediately died with people in-the-know telling others that it's not going to last long, from the opinion of well-informed lawyers; the contrast with this gaming community is striking, with most (but not all) people expressing opinions, without any deep understanding or facts, it's like anyone can have an opinion on anything and want to share it with the world, freedom of information but no accountability)

Despite all our accumulated knowledge and tools like google, people are short-sighted nowadays, because we lost the link between things, given the number of things we can access. History is a thing of the past (some call it "provenance") and I'm always very, very happy to read stories about old technos and developments. Nothing is completely new, you always built on top of old stuff, but rarely learn your lesson.

The patent system is ridiculed by story like these. When SCO launched their affair to claim rights over Unix/Linux systems, people were baffled. It's a lawyer-thing (no offence to lawyers) and we simply realise the profound gap between "correct" and "right". It's almost funny (in a cynical kind of way :/ ) to read people trying to make sense of this at "their" level.

Hi Fril...

Very cool... you were able to empathize with the mood of the mid-90s when all this 3d immersive innovation was happening. It was a very exciting time.

I read the abstract of the patent and looked at the notes and images, and it's very interesting that the people named in the patent don't include Ron Britvich... probably because they parted ways when they sold Activeworlds to COF. But their first application for a patent was in 1995, and that's the year they partnered with him to develop AW. I'm curious to know how why he's not named.

If you google Ron Britvich, you'll find a few sites online that attest to his brilliance. My favorite compares him to Neil Stephenson (Snowcrash), William Gibson (Neuromancer) and Tad Williams (Otherland). The author says:

"If I were to nominate candidates for the Virtual World Innovation Award, there would be only three true Metarati: Neil Stephenson, Tad Williams and Ron Britvich, the guy from WebWorlds." http://blog.mindblizzard.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

Anyway, if anyone benefits from this patent, I believe Ron Britvich should as well. He was integral. But he's also very humble and easy going. He's more likely to talk about how much fun an amusement park is than about his own innovations and shrug his shoulders at the thought of making the fortune that's potential in this lawsuit.

You mentioned the SL mail lists. When I was googling for stuff on the patent I found some posts on the Activeworlds forum that were rather entertaining, though I don't believe the likes of my juvenile protractors would find them so. For example, "The whole worlds.com thing makes me laugh. I'm waiting for them to try and sue someone who matters." http://forums.activeworlds.com/showthread.php?p=100936 Ouch, not a lot of love there for NCSoft. lol

Anyway, I'm thinking of renewing my citizenship with AW after an exhaustive search for opportunities to display my Maya work in a 3D immersive environment. SL will let you upload nurb-based objects of limited data to use for building larger projects, but that's something I can't do because it becomes a huge waste of data. AW is the only place I've found in my search that will allow me to upload clean polygon-based models. They even have a public world now that allows people to upload their own models. So once I get going, I will send you an invitation to come see my work.

Until then...

Ciao for now.

Vazze · Jan 07, 2009, 11:13 PM // 23:13

The way I see it, two fundamental criterias for awarding the patent have NOT been met: new and non-obvious. You would be surprised how many crap patents are awarded every year, this is probably one of them.

pumpkin pie · Jan 08, 2009, 03:28 AM // 03:28

no one should be able to exploit this patent, its something that everyone was and is working on/towards and has started since the 70s believe it or not.

Excerpt from: MMORPG History on wikipedia
Islands of Kesmai
Maze War
Plato
Neverwinter Night
The Shadow of Yserbius

by the way, if anyone know, sending of informations from client to server and back, is that somekind of math's formula?

Because this is what it is, isn't it? Sending of informations from server to client and vice versa. for instant this forum, it is also sending and receiving information and vice versa from a client to the server, and this has been happening since the begining of internet, everyone has been sending and receiving informations between servers and clients, and servers around the world already can handle many clients ? anyone?

Master Knightfall · Jan 08, 2009, 07:54 AM // 07:54

actually the wording is different today from yesterday. In the old days it was host computer. Today they call it servers and that is a big difference.

Fril Estelin · Jan 08, 2009, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpkin pie

by the way, if anyone know, sending of informations from client to server and back, is that somekind of math's formula?

Because this is what it is, isn't it? Sending of informations from server to client and vice versa. for instant this forum, it is also sending and receiving information and vice versa from a client to the server, and this has been happening since the begining of internet, everyone has been sending and receiving informations between servers and clients, and servers around the world already can handle many clients ? anyone?

No, it's not math, it's the most basic distributed software architecture, taught in schools, thus un-patentable. But this has no bearing at all on worlds.com's claims on their technology. At this point, we'd better leave it to the lawyers, thus outside of this thread and forum, and then get back to it when there's news on the patent front.

It's the same story we saw countless times before: soon we'll have companies taking actions, a few good lawyers publishing review of the patent, people taking side, and then only the suit may begin. Until then, let's not make a big thread about something so far from our understanding.

pumpkin pie · Jan 08, 2009, 09:00 AM // 09:00

NCSoft has 20 days to reply after the suit.

and no, this is the first time i've seen someone actually wants to patent something that practically everyone is using and the stupid patent office actually let them patent it.

Gli · Jan 08, 2009, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

No, it's not math, it's the most basic distributed software architecture, taught in schools, thus un-patentable.

The way I read the patent, it's actually about occlusion culling not just for graphical optimization, but also using it for networking optimization.

Sounds like a straightforward combination of two long existing concepts, i.e. a natural progression of ideas, and thus an invalid patent.

pumpkin pie · Jan 08, 2009, 09:30 AM // 09:30

what about this?

the technology of MMORPGs

Algorithm

worlds.com claims
"deliver HTML, audio and video content all within the 3D Worlds Website."
their technology is for use with a web-browser. am i reading it correct?

Fril Estelin · Jan 08, 2009, 10:21 AM // 10:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpkin pie

this is the first time i've seen someone actually wants to patent something that practically everyone is using and the stupid patent office actually let them patent it.

The USPTO does that all the time and lawyers have to correct their wrongs (since the USPTO, as said before by Ctb, doesn't consider checking most patents their job). Companies do that all the time, patent is used by business to make money, not protect themselves from idea thieves. Last, but not least, patents are written in a very different language from the one we use, don't try to decipher it unless you're technically very versed in the topic and have a law baggage with you. It's like trying to read Hieroglyph when you know nothing about it (I used to be able to do it

).

pumpkin pie · Jan 08, 2009, 12:48 PM // 12:48

if everyone have the attitude of don't read cos one can't understand, then one never learn. Because of this thread I learn 2 phrase/terms, prior art and declaratory Judgement.

Fril Estelin · Jan 08, 2009, 01:00 PM // 13:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpkin pie

don't read

You didn't read my post properly: I didn't say "don't read", I said "don't talk about it" (the part on Hyeroglyph was more on decyphering than simply "reading", as in read between the lines and discuss the meaning). In this age of google and wiki, we may think that we know a lot at the tip of our mouse/keyboard, but we don't. Feel free to discuss anyway, it's only my opinion and I'm only me, a noone in the see of everyone.

morgan · Jan 08, 2009, 01:13 PM // 13:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by lakatz

"The whole worlds.com thing makes me laugh. I'm waiting for them to try and sue someone who matters." http://forums.activeworlds.com/showthread.php?p=100936 Ouch, not a lot of love there for NCSoft.

Hehe, that comment from the activeworlds forum made me laugh. Do they not realise the reason they are going for NCSoft first so that they can then go after the Blizzards of the MMO world.

First they go for a small company and win, setting a precedence, making it almost impossible for any other company that they might decide to sue to defend themselves.

The laws a bitch.

The best thing that the MMO world can do is rally behind NCSoft and make sure worlds.com don't win, otherwise say bye bye to fee-less MMOs and hello to even more expensive pay-2-play games.

lakatz · Jan 08, 2009, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by morgan

Hehe, that comment from the activeworlds forum made me laugh. Do they not realise the reason they are going for NCSoft first so that they can then go after the Blizzards of the MMO world.

First they go for a small company and win, setting a precedence, making it almost impossible for any other company that they might decide to sue to defend themselves.

The laws a bitch.

The best thing that the MMO world can do is rally behind NCSoft and make sure worlds.com don't win, otherwise say bye bye to fee-less MMOs and hello to even more expensive pay-2-play games.

Hi Morgan...

You made some very good points here.

The AW forum post I quoted made me laugh too. I hope you heard the mirth I was feeling when I wrote that post. If you followed my link to that thread, you found other reasons to laugh as well. It's pretty humorous. But then so are many posts in this thread... whether intentionally or not.

Your assessment of the best approach is also my best guess as to what's going to happen. Many unions do collective bargaining because there is power in numbers. And the film and television industry long ago formed the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers to negotiate with them because there is power in numbers. Same thing.

One thing to note is that Worlds.com started the application process in 1995. I'm very curious to know why it took 13 years. One of the many possibilities is that the patent office wanted to make sure it was an enforceable patent. If it weren't for the fact Worlds.com doggedly pursued these two patents for 13 years, I'd say this suit was more a vehicle for publicity than anything else.

Something else to consider is that BT once tried to sue Prodigy over their use of the hyperlink, and they lost. It's a precedence of sorts, but I don't know if a patent was at issue. I'd need to research it more. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

One thing I think some readers of this forum should pay attention to is this patent is not just about MMORPGs. I see posts repeatedly referring to MMORPGs. It's about ALL MMOs... much more far reaching than just games. There's many more applications of 3D immersive technology than just games.

Master Knightfall · Jan 08, 2009, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Quote:

otherwise say bye bye to fee-less MMOs and hello to even more expensive pay-2-play games.

hehe NCsoft is goin down and hello pay to play GW2 woooohoooo. Say bye bye to the 8 year olds and attitudes and play for free and go bam bam and pew pew in the game and on forums hahaha I can hardly wait for the outcome.

Abedeus · Jan 08, 2009, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Knightfall

hehe NCsoft is goin down and hello pay to play GW2 woooohoooo. Say bye bye to the 8 year olds and attitudes and play for free and go bam bam and pew pew in the game and on forums hahaha I can hardly wait for the outcome.

You actually think if a game is p2p, there are no kids? Quite contrary - students (or just anyone in high school or older) has no money/time/both to play p2p, adults have better things to do... and kids can just beg their rich parents "MOMMY PLX PLX I WILL BE BETTER AT SCHOOL JUST LEMME PLAY NOW KTHXBYE".

Just give a game rules hard enough so small kids won't understand.

pumpkin pie · Jan 09, 2009, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by lakatz

One thing to note is that Worlds.com started the application process in 1995. I'm very curious to know why it took 13 years. One of the many possibilities is that the patent office wanted to make sure it was an enforceable patent. If it weren't for the fact Worlds.com doggedly pursued these two patents for 13 years, I'd say this suit was more a vehicle for publicity than anything else.

Lakatz.
I thought its 2 patents one apply 13 years ago.
One which they re-wrote the patent description and apply it once more and was awarded the patent in 2007.

So I ask again why did they re-write the descriptions? And bother to re-apply for another patent if the one that was awarded 13 years ago can be use to cover whatever technology they claim to have created. See, this come back to that the patent is not suppose to be patent-able, and if they wants to patent things revolve around 3Ds, shouldn't 3D programs producer have more claim to that then them?

The patent of 13 years ago is even more ridiculous, it is basically in my understanding, communication between server-client. How do you patent that, the internet is sever-client, client-server. right?

Fril Estelin,
If I don't talk about it, how am i suppose to ask about things I don't know and don't understand?