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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

WORLDS, INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
ACTIVISION BLIZZARD, INC., BLIZZARD
ENTERTAINMENT, INC., and ACTIVISION
PUBLISHING, INC.,

Defendants.

Civil Action No. 1:12-CV-10576-DJC

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

WORLDS, INC.S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS
MOTION TO CONTINUE THE DATE OF THE MARKMAN HEARING

Plaintiff Worlds, Inc. (Worlds) files this memorandum in opposition to the
Motion to Continue the Date of the Markman Hearing (Dkt. Nos. 9596) filed by
Defendants Activision Blizzard, Inc., Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., and Activision
Publishing, Inc. (collectively, Defendants).
On August 5, 2013, the Court indicated to the parties that it would likely grant
Defendants motion and hear oral argument on Defendants Motion for Summary
Judgment in October, before holding the Markman hearing. Worlds respectfully asks the
Court to reconsider its position and hold the Markman hearing, as scheduled, on August
2223. In the alternative, Worlds respectfully requests that the Court hold the Markman
hearing in October, simultaneously with the summary judgment hearing.
Introduction
Defendants Motion to Continue is just their latest attempt to delay this case,
disparage Worlds, and divert this Courts attention from the fact that Defendants Call of
Duty and World of Warcraft franchises infringe Worlds valid patents. Unable to rebut
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Worlds substantive claims, Defendants have resorted to collateral attacks, ad hominem
arguments, and opportunistic procedural maneuvering the apparent goal being to keep
Worlds claim construction and infringement arguments from coming before the Court.
The Markman hearing has already been postponed once, and there is zero reason
to postpone the hearing again. To the contrary, there are several reasons why the hearing
should go forward as planned, on August 2223. First, Defendants summary judgment
motion that is meritless and soon-to-be moot. Second, postponing the hearing would
unnecessarily delay the efficient resolution of the parties dispute. Rather than promoting
efficiency, postponing the hearing would force the parties and the Court to undertake
redundant, duplicative work. Finally, any further delay would irreparably harm Worlds.
For these reasons and others, this Court should not deviate from the original
August 2223 Markman hearing schedule.
Argument
I. Defendants pending Motion for Summary Judgment lacks merit.
Defendants Motion for Summary Judgment, which seeks to invalidate Worlds
patent portfolio on the basis of an irrefutably harmless technicality, lacks merit and will
soon be moot. The Court should not delay the resolution of this case merely because a
meritless motion is pending. As Worlds explained in its summary judgment briefing, the
patents-in-suit are valid under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) because (1) the applications that
matured into U.S. Patent Numbers 6,219,045 (the 045 patent) and 7,181,690 (the 690
patent) properly claimed the benefit of a November 13, 1995 effective filing date, and
(2) to the extent the 045 and 690 patents include incomplete priority information, those
errors are harmless typographical oversights that the Court can and should correct on its
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own accord. See generally Dkt. No. 89. The Court should not even entertain the
possibility of invalidating Worlds patents on the basis of Worlds development of its
own software platforms.
Furthermore, even if Defendants motion had any merit (it doesnt), it would not
be case dispositive. Regardless of anything else, given Worlds pending requests for
Certificates of Correction, this Court has no basis to invalidate Worlds patents as applied
to Defendants ongoing acts of infringement. See E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v.
MacDermid Printing, 525 F.3d 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2008) ([E]ach act of infringement gives
rise to a separate cause of action.). This case will go forward, and so should the
Markman hearing. Postponing the Markman hearing on the basis of a non-dispositive
motion would make no sense.
II. Holding the Markman hearing as planned is essential to ensuring an efficient
resolution of the parties dispute.

In addition, holding the Markman hearing as planned will promote judicial
efficiency and encourage swift resolution of the parties dispute. Defendants have
requested that the Court hear oral argument on their Summary Judgment Motion. Worlds
welcomes oral argument on Defendants motion and proposes that the Court hear
arguments promptly on Defendants motion while the parties are before the Court for the
Markman hearing. Hearing both claim construction and summary judgment arguments
on August 2223 would allow the Court to consider all pressing issues at a single
hearing, thereby eliminating the expenses associated with multiple court hearings. By
contrast, under Defendants proposed approach, the parties would have to appear in
Boston to argue the summary judgment motion, and then again (presumably soon
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thereafter) for the Markman hearing. The best approach is to coordinate the arguments so
as to avoid taking additional days of the Courts and the parties time.
Moreover, Defendants radically overstate the amount of work that remains on
claim construction. Claim construction has been fully briefed for months, and the parties
have conferred several times to narrow the disputed terms. Furthermore, when the
Markman hearing was rescheduled on June 17, 2013, Worlds was in its final stages of
preparation for the originally scheduled June 27 hearing. In all likelihood, Defendants
were also fully (or almost fully) prepared for the hearing. The parties have now had an
additional month-and-a-half to prepare for the August 2223 hearing. There is little more
work to do at this point. In fact, if the hearing is postponed again, the parties will be
forced to prepare a third time and duplicate much of the work that has already been done.
That would be a waste of time and resources.
Of course, if Defendants genuinely wanted to avoid the expenses associated with
the Markman hearing, they would have filed their Motion for Summary Judgment before
April 22, when the parties submitted their opening Markman briefs. Defendants motion
is based entirely on the 045 and 690 patents, their associated file histories, and Worlds
interrogatory responses. Defendants had access to all of these sources as of January 24,
2013, and Defendants could have filed their motion immediately thereafter. Instead,
Defendants pushed forward until the eve of the Markman hearing, only to then seek
postponement. Defendants cannot credibly claim that they seek to avoid costs. What
Defendants really seek to avoid is the merits of Worlds claims.
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III. Postponing the Markman hearing would irreparably harm Worlds.
Finally, Worlds will be irreparably harmed by any delays in this case. In their last
several court filings, Defendants have attempted to disparage Worlds with a series of
irrelevant and highly misleading attacks. Trumpeting out-of-context excerpts from SEC
filings, Defendants repeatedly and pejoratively attempt to brand Worlds as a non-
practicing patent assertion entity. See, e.g., Dkt. No. 96 at 5; Dkt. No. 91 at 16. The
Court should ignore Defendants improper and irrelevant attempts to mischaracterize
Worlds and invoke supposed political trends. See, e.g., Dkt. No. 91 at 16 (Worlds is
precisely the type of patent assertion entity that Congress and the President are actively
trying to reign in.).
In any event, Defendants are wrong. Although Worlds did spin off much of its
software development operations to Worlds Online Inc., Worlds continues to create
virtual world software based on the technology disclosed in its patents. See, e.g., Dkt.
No. 89, Ex. 19 (Decl. of T. Kidrin) (Today, Worlds still actively pursues development of
core virtual world technologies.). Worlds initially developed the technology disclosed
in the patents-in-suit in 1995, and Worlds remains a software innovator today. Thus,
Worlds is a practicing entity that is irreparably harmed by Defendants ongoing acts of
infringement. As such, any delay in this case also harms Worlds, which will be entitled
to injunctive relief if it prevails at trial.
Postponing the Markman hearing would also harm Worlds by stalling discovery
and delaying the case as a whole. At the initial scheduling conference in August 2012,
the Court set dates only up to the Markman hearing. The Court indicated that it would set
a trial date and other pretrial deadlines at or soon after the Markman hearing. Thus,
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postponing the Markman hearing would leave this case in limbo with no trial date, no
discovery deadline, and no Markman order and would risk dragging this dispute out
and causing significant delays in the ultimate trial date and pretrial deadlines. Such
delays would harm Worlds.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants Motion to Continue the Date of the
Markman Hearing should be denied.

Dated: August 6, 2013 Respectfully submitted,

Worlds, Inc.
By its attorneys,

By: /s/ Ryan V. Caughey________
Max L. Tribble (admitted pro hac vice)
mtribble@susmangodfrey.com
Brian D. Melton (admitted pro hac vice)
bmelton@susmangodfrey.com
Chanler Langham (pro hac vice pending)
clangham@susmangodfrey.com
Ryan Caughey (admitted pro hac vice)
rcaughey@susmangodfrey.com
SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.
1000 Louisiana Street, Suite 5100
Houston, Texas 77002
Telephone: (713) 651-9366
Facsimile: (713) 654-6666

Joel R. Leeman (BBO # 292070)
jleeman@sunsteinlaw.com
Meredith L. Ainbinder (BBO # 661132)
mainbinder@sunsteinlaw.com
SUNSTEIN KANN MURPHY & TIMBERS LLP
125 Summer Street
Boston, MA 02110-1618
Telephone: (617) 443-9292
Facsimile: (617) 443-0004


Attorneys for Plaintiff Worlds, Inc.

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Certificate of Service
I certify that on the above date, this document was filed through the ECF system
and thereupon sent electronically to the registered participants as identified on the Notice
of Electronic Filing (NEF).
/s/ Ryan V. Caughey
Ryan V. Caughey

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