Activision Blizzard Wins Nine-Year Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed By Worlds Inc.

Activision Blizzard has just won a nine-year patent infringement lawsuit against Massachusetts-based tech company Worlds Inc. The lawsuit was filed in March 2012 claiming that the former violated five existing patents for a “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space” in World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and other games.

After nine years, PCGamesN reported that the judge presiding over the case, US District Judge Denise J. Casper, ultimately ruled in favor of Activision Blizzard saying that the patents held by Worlds Inc. are “abstract ideas” and are not actual technological inventions of the company.

“Worlds' asserted claims use a general-purpose computer to employ well known filtering or crowd control methods and means that ultimately use same to display graphical results and generate a view of the virtual world, none of which is inherently inventive or sufficient to 'transform' the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application,” Judge Casper added.

Activision Blizzard later filed a counter suit in 2013 against Worlds Inc. for basically the same thing with a different patent. Worlds Inc. also filed the same patent infringement suit against Microsoft in 2020.

Worlds Inc. is an intellectual property developer and designer of software, content, and technology related to interactive 3D virtual environments and owns 10 U.S. patents for various server technologies.