A patent is defined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) as “the grant of a property right to the inventor.” Patents are used by inventors to protect their rights over their inventions. IMVU has invented a lot of really cool stuff over the years, some of which they have patented with the U.S. patent office. A patent grant confers upon the owner “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing the invention.” In other words, patents prevent IMVU's competitors from stealing and reselling their inventions. As consumers, we can use these patents to look into the future of IMVU and see what they might have planed next. For example, IMVU appears to have patent for WithMoji effective 2014, 2 years before WithMoji was released.

IMVU's Patents:

1) WithMoji? patented by IMVU inc effective 2012, filed with the patent office in 2016, & released on IMVU in 2016 -
https://patents.google.com/patent/US201 ... r&sort=new

Automation of WithMoji? : https://patents.google.com/patent/US201 ... r&sort=new

2) Derive chains patented by IMVU inc effective 2005, filed with the patent office in 2012: https://patents.google.com/patent/US201 ... r&sort=new

3) Message Queues used by chat clients patented by IMVU inc effective 2011, filed with the patent office in 2012: https://patents.google.com/patent/KR201 ... r&sort=new

4) Customizable homepages linked to a market where you can buy decorations for said homepages from third party developers, effective 2004 and filed in 2005: https://patents.google.com/patent/US734 ... r&sort=new

5) Giving players the ability to add 3D products to a 3D scene during a chat and those items show up on both ends via triggered commands embedded in the chat messages, effective 2004 and filed in 2005: https://patents.google.com/patent/US799 ... r&sort=new

5) Alright, here is the mysterious patent. A geolocation tool that shows you a real life in time map of yourself and other online IMVU users near you, effective 2004 and filed in 2005: https://patents.google.com/patent/US734 ... r&sort=new

Is it just me, or is anyone else reminded of pokemon go by that last patent? IMVU filed that patent in 2005, over 10 years ago. I wonder if we will ever get to see this geolocation feature in action on IMVU? I personally do not remember ever seeing this feature on IMVU in the past. I have however seen geolocation libraries / code embeded in the IMVU client for years. I wonder if this is something they were working on and then canceled? Quite the mystery.

Image included with IMVU's player geolocation patent:

Okey, i might be lying now. But i do member hearing somewhere in 2007 that imvu had eyes for making imvu "cafe" deal. Like with few dating websites, what display who is close to you. And so enabling more connectivity over it and trying to form more imvu oriented groups in real life. This all did fall down as the spread of imvu users was way more than it would have been profitable to start connecting people, i think there was legal issue with the location advertising as well. (in same display adds along as your location moves)

I could be 100% wrong, way too long to member about it, was it imvu or just an idea.

I also can't finger it, but I DO remember something about a "cafe" it didn't last very long. I think imvu was evolving at that point, and I believe it fell due to imvu focusing on the newer upgrading/branching out. Same as the many other things they've tried and tossed. The "cafe" thing was gonna be something like FB's location things, I think.

Ive been on IMVU for 12 years, back when it was still in Beta. There was only I think 4 or 5 rooms to choose from and no private rooms at that point. There was a queue to get into certain rooms and the default room you were put into was a coffee shop. There were "ghosts" of people all over the place as you waited for them to load all the way, which could be as much as 5 or 6 minutes into a conversation. You had to be a VIP member to use the Try It Now option. There were many more "illegal" items in the store everyday. When they got together to decide what was allowed and what wasnt people were getting huge sums of credits returned to them because something they bought before that was legal, is suddenly not. Over all Ive seen some good and some bad over the years.

Old post but I first signed up on IMVU back in 2007 and I could swear that initially there was an option in the client that was labeled something like "See online users close to you." At the time, I didn't think it used geolocation but rather simply looked at the location you entered on your profile. I only remember clicking the option once or twice just to see what it would show me and then I either lost interest in it or it disappeared, not sure. I'm also not sure if it was in the client or a link on your web page. Seems to me that you accessed it from your friends page. Was a loooong time ago.

Anybody else remember Voice Chat?

thats interesting i never personally seen this feature u are talking about but honestly back then i would of missed it anyway lol. this makes sense though, we've known how imvu uses geolocation.

i do remember voice on imvu. wish they wouldn't have taken it out . someone told me it was taken out because of harassment issues with imvu users?

Thirteen100 wrote:

someone told me it was taken out because of harassment issues with imvu users?

One of their engineers back then told me it was more of a performance decision. Even tho' it was restricted to VIP users, it still caused massive lag and that I do remember. If a room was full and everyone had VC turned on, I couldn't even pan the screen.

Thirteen100 wrote:

i do remember voice on imvu. wish they wouldn't have taken it out . someone told me it was taken out because of harassment issues with imvu users?

That was such a nice feature back then. I was just joining imvu around this time, then not so much time after I've joined IMVU, they removed it. I remember people saying that had to do with people streaming music through the mic and/or harassment issues. I did see a post on the old imvu forums that IMVU claimed it was removed due to a small number of people using the mic. And as far as I remember, pure bullshit on their part if this is "true".

Only if I knew it... maybe I could've enjoyed the voice chat a little more. lol
It's sad to remember how fast they had dropped this feature. And never to be seen again.