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A federal jury found Activision Blizzard liable for $23.4 million in a patent dispute involving World of Warcraft and two Call of Duty games. That amount was the jury’s May 3, 2024 verdict—not a confirmed final payment. The parties later settled, but the settlement terms were not disclosed in the reporting cited here.
What the jury decided
On May 3, 2024, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware found Activision Blizzard liable for infringing patents held by Acceleration Bay. Bloomberg Law reported a total verdict of $23.4 million, divided between two patent claims and the games identified in the case.
| Game or games | Patent | Verdict amount |
|---|---|---|
| World of Warcraft | U.S. Patent No. 6,701,344 | $18 million |
| Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare | U.S. Patent No. 6,732,147 | $5.4 million combined |
The patent descriptions in coverage concern distributing a game environment across a host and multiple computers, and a method for disconnecting from such a network. Ars Technica reported that Boeing originally filed the patents and Acceleration Bay later acquired them. The available reporting does not provide a claim-by-claim technical analysis, so the verdict should not be read as a finding about every networking feature or every Activision Blizzard game. Ars Technica’s verdict report; Bloomberg Law’s verdict report.
Why Activision Blizzard disputed the verdict
Activision Blizzard publicly denied using the patented technologies and said it believed there was a strong basis for appeal. An Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Ars Technica: “While we are disappointed, we believe there is a strong basis for appeal. We have never used the patented technologies at issue in our games.” That was the company’s position, not the jury’s finding.
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What happened after the verdict
Law360 reported in August 2024 that Activision Blizzard and Acceleration Bay settled the dispute. The report does not state the settlement amount or other terms. The $23.4 million figure therefore describes the jury’s verdict; it does not establish how much, if anything, Activision Blizzard ultimately paid. Law360’s settlement report.
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