"Merry Christmas, NCsoft. You just got served." That might have been the reaction from the execs at the MMO publisher on Christmas Eve. As the Virtual Worlds News web site reports, NCsoft was indeed sued on that day by Worlds.com. The Massachusetts based company claims NCsoft has infringed on one of its patents.

Specifically, the patent is 7,181,690, "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space" and the lawsuit claims all of NCsoft's games are in violation of that patent. The lawsuit is seeking damages from NCsoft for its alledged patent infringement. As our sister site Massively points out the Worlds.com patent was first filed in 2000. However the MMO genre had already launched by that time with the release of games like Meridian 59, Ultima Online and the original Everquest. NCsoft has yet to respond to the Worlds.com lawsuit.