[MUD-Dev] Project Entropia

[Jessica Mulligan]

At 12:03 AM 26/1/01 -0800, Frank Crowell wrote:
>>Jessica Mulligan wrote:
>>> Frank Crowell <frankc at maddog.com>

>>> I am not wild about the fact that Entropia is trying to patent
>>> their economic model and I wish the company would give up that
>>> attempt.  Or at least have an open license which prevents someone
>>> else from developing a closed patent.  The
>>> buying/selling/renting/owning virtual objects has a potential for
>>> big business.  The little bit of stuff that has gone on at Ebay
>>> would be nothing compared to what this market could do.

>> I wouldn't worry too much about the patent.  There is so much prior
>> art in this field that such a patent could never stand up in court.
>> It would be the Compton's fiasco all over again.  >

> Interesting that Rtime was able to patent key parts of distributed
> virtual worlds without citing any prior art.  Those guys are really
> smart inventing it all themselves.

Two keys here: No one has challenged the Rtime patents in court, and
Rtime wisely has refrained from trying to make current online games
companies pay royalties, which would no doubt trigger a lawsuit.  The
patent, #5,841,980 filed 1996 and issued in 1998, basically describes
distributed computing.  I've no doubt it would be overturned in court.

Of course, now that Sony Computer Ent. owns RTime, anything can happen.

-Jess


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