News And Commentary: Patent Troll Sues Linden Labs

By Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich)

News broke recently over on yahoo!finance that a known patent troll, Worlds Incorporated, has filed a patent dispute lawsuit with Linden Labs for their extremely broad patent on a “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space.”

In fact they have used this same patent to files a suit against Blizzard all the way back in 2012. In 2013, they were counter sued by Activision when they went after them.

So what is a patent troll you might ask? Patent trolls are often not companies that offer their own services or goods. They are more of a “patent holding company” and they often collect and sit on patents just so they can go after legitimate companies in the future in the hopes of either settling with them or collecting royalty fees for the use of their intentionally broad patents.

In this case, Worlds Inc. maintains a very basic 3D chat client which you can read about here (but be warned this article is very NSFW and that’s not the avatar’s tail). It’s obvious that this service isn’t even looked after. What these patent trolls will do is gather the patent and release a barebones “service” or “product” so that they can prove later on in court that they have been sourcing this “product” or “service.” They are essentially opportunistic vultures who see an opportunity, wait for their prey to get fat (successful), and then strike when the time is right.

This is nothing new and happens all the time in the technology industry. Since it’s so common, the companies that these patent trolls go after tend to pay for good lawyers who take care of these things. Let’s hope that Linden Labs is able to do the same. It’s just a shame that it’s such a drain on resources for these companies.

Cyfir

Image Source: Engadget. 

Editor's Note: According to an article by Engadget, they sued NCSoft and had gone after Linden Lab in the past as well.

It seems among the things that the money coming from Linden Lab's price and fee hikes will be going to is paying lawyers to defend them against patent trolls.