Back in 1994, a little website called Worlds.com was born with dreams of being something big and meaningful on the internet. After a few years, Worlds.com decided to file an application for a patent back in August of 2000. What was this patent for, you ask? Well 7 years later, U.S. Patent 7,181,690 was approved and filed, giving Worlds.com domain over a "System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space."

Why do we care? Well Worlds.com has filed a lawsuit suing NCsoft for patent infringement, claiming they have been damaged by NCsoft's MMO businesses. Maybe I'm just a simpleton, but to me it sounds like Worlds.com tried to, and successfully, patented the existence of an MMO, and NCsoft may not be their only target.

U.S. Patent 7,181,690 states that Worlds.com have domain over technology that allows a user to "interact with other users in a virtual space" through a server, with an avatar representing each user. Going further, it says "the present invention provides a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical, multi-user, interactive virtual world system."

Now, I'm no big city lawyer, I'm just a simple hyperchicken from a backwoods asteroid, but this sounds fishy to me. I don't understand how any company can patent something that sounds like the general concept of an MMO, and go after companies that make games which fall under the incredibly vague umbrella the legalese creates. That would be like patenting  a system where "the user presses multiple colored buttons on a remote-like device in order to engage in certain action animations that would then be represented on-screen in a series of graphical representations."

Does this case hold any water? And why did it take 7 years for the patent to be approved? Why does it smell like sulfur in here?

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