The new patents add to Utherverse’s already formidable mountain of intellectual property, addressing a variety of problems and vulnerabilities within metaverse platforms, ranging from the physics of movement and immersive displays to physical interaction between users and animation control.

“For more than two decades we have been working to enhance users’ experiences on the internet,” said Shuster. “These new patents span the three key metaverse pillars of software, hardware and remote touch; solve some inherent and significant problems with the operation of metaverse platforms; and greatly improve the ability of users to exist and thrive in hyper-realistic virtual worlds. They will provide developers with the capability to continually innovate.”

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Shuster is now an inventor of more than 100 patents for internet enabling technologies. The abstracts of the seven new patents read in part:

• System and methods of virtual world interaction (US 11507733 B2): Systems and methods of virtual world interaction, operation, implementation, instantiation, creation, and other functions related to virtual worlds. Various embodiments facilitate interoperation between and within virtual worlds and may provide consistent structures for operating virtual worlds. The disclosed embodiments may further enable individuals to build new virtual worlds within a framework and allow third party users to better interact with those worlds.

• Device for physical interaction between remotely located users (US 11467671 B2): An electronic device for touch translation includes a body, a plurality of pins extending from the body, the pins including couplings to facilitate movement of a first portion relative to a second portion of the pins, the pins being controllable to control movement of the first portion relative to the second portion and to control force applied by the pins on an external object. Sensors cooperating with the pins detect forces externally applied to the pins and a communication subsystem is utilized to communicate over a network, with a remote electronic device.

• Method, system and apparatus of recording and playing back an experience in a virtual worlds system (US 11452938 B2): A recorded experience in a virtual worlds system may be played back by one or more servers instantiating a new instance of a scene using one or more processors of the one or more servers and playing back the recorded experience in the new instance by modeling objects of a recorded initial scene state of the recorded experience in the new instance and updating the recorded initial scene state based on subsequent recorded changes over a time period, a recorded experience file includes the recorded initial scene state and the subsequent recorded changes and is stored in one or more memories of the one or more servers.

• Immersive displays (US 11455032 B2): A method of providing information for display on a display of an immersive display. The method includes obtaining information utilized for displaying a first image in front of a first eye and a second image in front of a second eye of a user of the immersive display, excluding part of the information to yield adjusted information to occlude or replace first information from a first area of the first image and second information from a second area of a second image when displayed on the immersive display, and providing the adjusted information for displaying the first image absent the first area and the second image absent the second area on the immersive display.

• System, method and apparatus of simulating physics in a virtual environment (US 11455030 B2): A method of simulating physics in a virtual worlds system includes selecting at least one of the client devices participating in an instance of a scene as a physics host, the physics host determining subsequent states of objects and sending the subsequent states to one or more processors of a server, the subsequent states of objects comprising one or more of: subsequent locations, orientations, velocities and accelerations determined based on characteristics of the objects and constraints for simulating physics consistent with the new instance of the scene of the virtual worlds system.

• Time-dependent client inactivity indicia in a multi-user animation environment (US 11443472 B2): A method for managing a multi-user animation platform is disclosed. A three-dimensional space within a computer memory is modeled. An avatar of a client is located within the three-dimensional space, the avatar being graphically represented by a three-dimensional figure within the three-dimensional space. The avatar is responsive to client input commands, and the three-dimensional figure includes a graphical representation of client activity. The client input commands are monitored to determine client activity. The graphical representation of client activity is then altered according to an inactivity scheme when client input commands are not detected.

• Animation control method for multiple participants (US 11410367 B2): A computer system is used to host a virtual reality universe process in which multiple avatars are independently controlled in response to client input. The host provides coordinated motion information for defining coordinated movement between designated portions of multiple avatars, and an application responsive to detect conditions triggering a coordinated movement sequence between two or more avatars. During coordinated movement, user commands for controlling avatar movement may be in part used normally and in part ignored or otherwise processed to cause the involved avatars to respond in part to respective client input and in part to predefined coordinated movement information.

Utherverse is a metaverse platform that enables developers to build interconnected virtual worlds, provides hyper-realistic immersive experiences for consumers and opportunities for companies to market and monetize their products and services. Utherverse generates revenue from custom metaverse building services, sales of NFTs and a variety of business verticals including advertising/marketing, shopping/retail, conferences/conventions, education, dating, lifestyle, entertainment events/performances, VIP experiences and virtual offices. The Utherverse platform was launched in 2005 by internet visionary Brian Shuster. A beta version of the next generation Utherverse platform is expected to launch by mid-2023. To date, the platform has served 50 million+ users with 32 billion+ virtual commerce transactions. Utherverse has developed the technology and received more than 40 patents critical toward operating large-scale metaverses.

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