Activision Blizzard set to cough up $23.4M after losing a 9-year-long patent infringement battle, but claims 'We have never used the patented technologies at issue in our games'

An orc in World of Warcraft grins greedily into a bag overflowing with gold.

It's a bad time to be Activision Blizzard. The publisher is set to fork out $23.4 million to tech incubator Acceleration Bay after a jury ruled that it infringed on two of the company's patents. 

According to Reuters, the patents are related to the "simultaneous sharing of information" used in multiplayer aspects of Activision Blizzard's games. Acceleration Bay originally filed the infringement complaint back in 2015, before being dismissed and refiled a year later.