Notch being sued over software patent

[lonewolff]

Straight from the horses mouth a few minutes ago.

http://notch.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/mojang.pdf

[Kojack]

12. Mojang is directly infringing one or more claims of the ’067 patent in this judicial
district and elsewhere in Texas, including at least claim 107, without the consent or authorization
of Uniloc, by or through making, using, offering for sale, selling and/or importing Android based
applications for use on cellular phones and/or tablet devices that require communication with a
server to perform a license check to prevent the unauthorized use of said application, including,
but not limited to, Mindcraft.

So Notch is being sued because his android port of "Mindcraft" does a license check against a server?
The whole patent talks about using smart cards and smart card readers.

www.google.com/patents/US6857067

[betajaen]

Not a lawyer and all.

But I thought patents were only good as the country they were patented in? Even then aren't they illegal in the EU?

[lonewolff]

Notch didn't seem too concerned. He said he was going to spend as much money, on lawyers, as it takes so they dont get a cent.

[Mind Calamity]

Are they serious ? Suing someone because their game checks license against a server ? [s]Don't all the newer DRM games, or the Steam games (at least in a similar fashion) do that ?'[/s] Oh, the Android version only, but still...

Uniloc has sued 73 companies over violating its patent. 25 of those companies have settled according to Uniloc.

and then:

On April 8, 2009 a Rhode Island jury found Microsoft had violated the patent and told Microsoft to pay Uniloc $388 million in damages.[9] After this success, Uniloc filed new patent infringement suits against Sony America, McAfee, Activision, Quark, Borland Softward and Aspyr Media.[10]

So if I make an Android app that writes a local file with data, and sends it to the server for checking (therefore not really infringing these guys' patents), I can patent it ? And then if a company decides to use the same way for licence checking, I can sue the crap out of them and get myself a ton of cash ?
Good, good...

The same lawsuit was also filed against Electronic Arts, citing Bejewelled2 as an infringement upon their patents on Android devices.[

I somehow doubt they're going to win against EA...

[cybereality]

I actually hold a patent for writing a post on an internet forum. Please PayPal me $1 USD for each post you have made on this forum. Thanks.

[lonewolff]

I somehow doubt they're going to win against EA...

If they won against Microsoft, then why not?

[BTolputt]

I somehow doubt they're going to win against EA...

If they won against Microsoft, then why not?

Did they win or did Microsoft settle? There is a big difference between the two, especially given Microsoft has been "settling" patent suits that will hurt developers on the Android & Apple platforms. One of the Microsoft founders is in charge of the world's biggest patent troll company, Intellectual Ventures. Look into it, it's enlightening & scary

[lonewolff]

Did they win or did Microsoft settle? There is a big difference between the two, especially given Microsoft has been "settling" patent suits that will hurt developers on the Android & Apple platforms. One of the Microsoft founders is in charge of the world's biggest patent troll company, Intellectual Ventures. Look into it, it's enlightening & scary

Interesting point.

So, this may have been a corporate strategy to discourage development on these other platforms? Man, these companies all have their dodgy sides, dont they?

[Kojack]

Did they win or did Microsoft settle?

Uniloc started to sue them in 2003. In 2006 microsoft won. Then the appeals court overturned the ruling. In 2009 uniloc won and ms was ordered to pay them $388million. Later in 2009 the jury verdict was overturned and ms were the winners again. Uniloc appealed and in 2011 the verdict was overturned yet again, with Uniloc now the winner.

MS fought them for 8 years and still couldn't win. EA and Mojang may have some trouble.


It's odd that the doc mojang received (the one notch uploaded) has two main flaws:
- It calls his game Mindcraft.
- It has the wrong patent number.
The number it mentions is a Uniloc patent, but for smart card access to a computer. (6857067)
The one they should be suing with is 8213907, which is about authorising software on mobile devices (the patent is about sending a request to a mobile, the mobile reads some hardware info and hashes it, sends the hashed value back to the server, and the server decides if it's a close enough match to the known device's hardware).

Although maybe I shouldn't point that out, it might help the incompetent lawyers involved (I wonder if when they went after MS they thought the main produce was MS Widows?).

So, this may have been a corporate strategy to discourage development on these other platforms? Man, these companies all have their dodgy sides, dont they?

My first thought when I saw what Uniloc has been up to was "how much funding do they get from apple?".

[lonewolff]

Looking at Uniloc's website. I looks like they were able to patent 'software activation' in 1992 to prevent anti-piracy.

So, does this mean Uniloc has anyone, who uses some form of online anti-piracy measures, in thier sights?

[duststorm]

Disgusting, really. This is exactly the reason why I believe software patents should never reach Europe.
If you take a look at that website, it's clear that it's a dodgy front company whose only purpose is to win from patent infringements.
There might be good reasons for software patents, but in most cases they just hold innovation back.

[Mind Calamity]

There might be good reasons for software patents, but in most cases they just hold innovation back.

I absolutely agree. How the heck are developers supposed to know that someone has something patented, even something as simple as server-side license checking on a specific platform...

Did they win or did Microsoft settle? There is a big difference between the two, especially given Microsoft has been "settling" patent suits that will hurt developers on the Android & Apple platforms. One of the Microsoft founders is in charge of the world's biggest patent troll company, Intellectual Ventures. Look into it, it's enlightening & scary

Good thinking! Didn't think of that, really. When I wrote that I doubt that they're going to win against EA I completely disregarded the Microsoft thing.

[lonewolff]

Did they win or did Microsoft settle? There is a big difference between the two, especially given Microsoft has been "settling" patent suits that will hurt developers on the Android & Apple platforms. One of the Microsoft founders is in charge of the world's biggest patent troll company, Intellectual Ventures. Look into it, it's enlightening & scary

They won against Microsoft. Microsoft did not settle.

Microsoft are still yet to pay, as the have appealed once again.

[areay]

I absolutely agree. How the heck are developers supposed to know that someone has something patented, even something as simple as server-side license checking on a specific platform...

It gets worse than that. If you *knowingly* infringe on the patent then the plaintiff gets triple damages (ah Unreal Tournament ) . That's a pretty strong incentive for not even going out looking in the first place.

[Kojack]

We need to somehow trick the movie and music industries into thinking patents are helping pirates.



Software patents piss me off, especially game related ones and some of the bullshit phone ones.
At least marching cubes and gif files expired. I still feel ashamed that I worked at Unisys (the company that tried to force the world into paying thousands for putting gifs on websites) for a short time. Although that wasn't by choice, they bought out the company I was at.