Activision Publishing filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Worlds Inc. and Worlds Online Inc., the company announced.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Activision states Worlds —a company that specializes in developing software for 3D video games — has infringed and is continuing to infringe on two of its patents with its Worlds Player software.
The patents in question are U.S. Patent No. 6,014,145, which is for "navigation with optimum viewpoints in three-dimensional workspace interactive displays having three-dimensional objects with collision barriers," and U.S. Patent No. 5,883,628 for "climability: property for objects in 3D virtual environments."
In March 2012, Worlds filed its own infringement complaint against Activision. The lawsuit specifically names World of Warcraft and Call of Duty as violators of Worlds' own patents, U.S. numbers 8,082,501, 7,493,558, 7,945,856 and 7,181,690, titled "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space." These patents cover "computer architecture for three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world systems," systems used widely for massively multiplayer online games.
Worlds' lawsuit is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.