Blizzard and other MMO makers sued

The company behind World of Warcraft is one of several massive multiplayer online game publishers being sued for patent infringement.

New York-based Paltalk alleges that Activision Blizzard, Sony, NCSoft, Turbine and others infringed a patent pertaining to online multiplayer gaming, the Boston Globe reports. The patent, which Paltalk purchased from another company called Hear Me in 2002, helps players around the world see the same in-game events at the same time.

The lawsuit is being filed in Marshall, Texas — the same region of the state where Microsoft lost a patent infringement suit and was ordered to stop selling its Word software as a result. Lawyers note that this part of the country tends to be friendly towards the plaintiffs in patent infringement cases.

Paltalk had previously sued Microsoft for violating the same multiplayer gaming patent, as allegedly used in Halo 3. Earlier this year, Microsoft settled the lawsuit, agreeing to license the patent for an undisclosed sum. Paltalk argues that the settlement strengthens its case, but the settlement could also imply that Microsoft simply wanted to skip a lengthy court battle and avoid putting one of its most popular multiplayer titles at risk. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

This raises an interesting point: If all the companies named in the current lawsuit also settle, it should allow Paltalk to continue suing any company that uses what seems to me like a very common technology. For that reason, I’d like to see one of the companies sticks it out to the end, if only to find out whether Paltalk’s claims have any merit. But for all the World of Warcraft addicts out there, let’s hope Activision Blizzard isn’t the one to put its games at risk.