Nice Wddd article written from months ago for those who need a refresher or new investor's in waiting:
Worlds Inc (OTCMKTS:WDDD) Is Getting Closer To A Favorable Ruling
By Chris Sandburg / in Momentum & Growth, Momentum Stocks, Stocks, Tech / on Thursday, 08 Dec 2016 02:04 AM / 0 Comment / 1050 views
Worlds Inc (OTCMKTS:WDDD) is an interesting play right now. The company is a software designer and developer, with a specific focus on the development of interactive – as the name suggests – worlds, accessible online. But that’s not why we’re interested in it right now. It doesn’t generate any revenues from its software development operations, and as far as we can tell (based on filings and other information) it’s not even trying to. Instead, what we’re interested in is the potential of a range of patents that the company owns, and has owned since as far back as the mid 1990s.
Worlds is attempting to monetize these patents by bringing infringement suits against one of the biggest names in the industry, Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), and while there’s no guarantee that the decisions will go Worlds’ way come final ruling, if they do, then there’s the potential for a very large capital injection. Perhaps more importantly, it would open the floodgates for a host of other suits that Worlds can bring to other players in the space (of which there are many large ones) and double down on its Activision payout.
So, the question is, what are the company’s chances of success?
By way of a bit of background, these patents relate to the creation of 3d worlds for online play, and various elements of these worlds with which users interact. This space is called massively multiplayer online role-playing gaming (MMORPG), and analysts estimate its a close to $20 billion industry as things stand, and growing fast. Readers might be familiar with one of the space’s biggest names, World of Warcraft, which is owned by the above mentioned Activision.
There’s a full run down of each patent available here, but to list the, the patents that the company holds are numbers 6,219,045, 7,181,690, 7,493,558, 7,945,856 and 8,082,501. Certain claims on these patents apply to various versions of Activision’s applications of them to its own technology, but again, we won’t go in to too much detail on the claims for the purposes of this discussion.
Instead, we’re going to look at what’s happened to date, and what’s next.
At the outset, Activision filed for dismissal of the claims, and failed. That was a win for Worlds. It then tried to invalidate the claims by way of one of its subsidiaries, Bungie. Basically, Bungie filed a petition for an Inter Partes Review (IPR) at the USPTO, the outcome of which could have basically ended the chances of World generating any cash from these suits. Arguments took place earlier this year, and the result hit press on November 30. Again, the outcome was a win for Worlds. The review resulted in the validation of six of the claims, specifically, claims 4, 8, 13, and 16 of patent 7,181,690 and claims 5 and 7 of patent 7,493,558. There’s another claim yet to rule, relating to the 501 patent, and the company’s litigation team expects to counter the ruling no the claims that weren’t validated.
Thomas Kidrin, Worlds Inc. CEO:
“… we believe that a number of the disallowed claims should have been ruled in our favor.”
So what does all this mean?
Well, basically, that the company is back on track. It’s impossible to say how much these patents are worth to the company based on these claims (and there’s some dispute about how far back the claims rights go, rooted in some 2013 Certificates of Corrections, which muddies the waters even further) but Activision’s options are quickly running out, and that these above mentioned claims are validated lends credence to a bullish outcome.
There’s still plenty of risk, of course. The final decision is generally the toughest to get past for the claimants in these cases, so even with a few wins under its belt, there’s no guarantee Worlds is going to get anything at the end of the process. At its current cap however, just $9 million at last count, the potential payout dwarfs valuation, and that means there exists plenty of reward to offset the risk.
We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on WDDD, sign up below!
Sign up for next microcap runner ahead of the crowd.
Your E-mail...
Submit
Disclosure: We have no position in WDDD and have not been compensated for this article.
