The Rocky Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds

Three short articles with some basic IP information regarding:


1. Trademarks

2. Patents

3. Copyrights


all by Ross Dannenberg the editor-in-chief of the Patent Arcade blog, and an adjunct professor at George Mason Law School in Arlington, Va.

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What if someone patented the whole metaverse?

It looks like american software patents system threaten virtual worlds too.

General Patent Corporation and World's.com announced yesterday:

We are pleased to have the expertise and IP experience of General Patent and Lerner David to enforce Worlds’ patent portfolio,” stated Thom Kidrin, Worlds’ CEO. “As the number of virtual worlds and MMORG’s continues to grow, Worlds has seen the space we pioneered in 1995 validated in techniques and methodologies we believe are defined in our patents.

The two patents in question are 6,219,045 and 7,181,690. Firts one is titled: "Scalable virtual world client-server chat system" second: "System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space".


from Virtual Judgment post:

Therefore, it would seem that General Patent Corporation and Worlds.com are taking the position that the above-referenced patents cover the idea of the computer architecture for a three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world systems. If so, this announcement is arguably a very thinly veiled notice to the virtual world industry that infringement suits are forthcoming for those companies who do not enter into a licensing deal with General Patent Corporation and Worlds.com.

Undoubtedly determining enforeability of these two patents could have serious impact on the future of virtual worlds.

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