I just read this - it's a couple weeks stale.
So, the US Patent office allows *another* stinker: Worlds.com apparently now has the patent for "a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical, multi-user, interactive virtual world system." - as well as other patents. Basically, they appear to be laying claim on all virtual worlds. Kind of the same way Blackboard was awarded the patent for what essentially is "online learning" and started suing people.
So, Worlds.com is now suing NCSoft, makers of City of Heroes, Lineage II, and other popular MMOGs. Toss aside, for a minute, the fact that the G in MMOG stands for "game" and virtual worlds have always been traditionally "not necessarily a game", there's some pretty obvious previous examples of 3-D virtual worlds with avatars that existed before Worlds.com.
Oh, sorry, perhaps the litigation-crybabies at Worlds.com need that spelled out in big letters:
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