Angry Birds maker Rovio sued over app patents | Hacker News Reader

Angry Birds maker Rovio sued over app patents

bbc.co.uk

38 pointswatkdab48 comments

So yet another 'You've violated our patents, but we aren't saying which ones' story?

I don't say this often, but I'm going to this time:

That should be illegal.

It's a threat, clear and simple. It's an attempt to force them into action without actually having to have anything concrete. It causes a ton of pain and anguish, and costs a lot of money, even if they never actually sue. It's absolutely ridiculous and should never be allowed.

Is it really that different than libel or slander? You're accusing someone of something without providing any proof that it's true. And if you just say 'whoops' afterwards, you're scott-free, but they've still got damages to their reputation and bottom line.

It's disgusting and cowardly.

Kind of similar to how some companies with a lot of money bully people into submission by suing them with the intent of forcing them to run out of money, even if when the company wouldn't actually win the case.

I so wish we'd get Euro-style loser pays (it's really Judge assigns fees, and one party doesn't pay everything, nor do they let expensive lawyer fees be billed if they're unwarranted, etc).

Then companies could be more "Bring it on" when things are totally out there.

I believe it is fairly common in the US for victors to be awarded money to cover their legal fees. The problem is that none of these companies being sued are confidant they would win, and they don't have the money to cover losing.

I think the other part of that problem is that, even if they could be guaranteed to win and have their costs paid, the whole process could take a very long time, and they have to be able to pay all those costs in the meantime.

That's only true if they're really out of bounds.

In the EU, they divide the fees along a much more graduated basis every time

I liken it to fraudulent DMCA takedown notices which are illegal

Just out of interest, could you provide any articles/resources that describe why they're illegal?

I believe the DMCA itself is a good resource. Look for "penalty of perjury".

Unfortunately Barratry isn't enforced in the US that much:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry

If I'm not mistaken Rovio are based in Finland, where software patents don't hold much water.

They're selling a product in the US market, so they're subject to US laws so long as they want to continue doing that.

No they are not. Finnish company is subject to Finnish laws and Finnish laws only. If they produce something in Finland, then only valid Finnish patents are their concern. US Patents are not valid for Rovio in Finland.

Now. If and when their _product_ is sold in US and infringes some US patents then patent owner can block selling that product and this is the only thing they can do. No damages no nothing. In Rovio's case the only thing Llodsys can achieve is to prevent Apple for selling Angry Birds in US. Nothing more.

You just reiterated what he said.

If you sell products in the US, the courts will enjoy sales or award damages here if you violate patents/copyrights. Apple would be forced, for instance, to pay the judgement then rovio the extra, etc.

It reminds me of the Monster Cable lawsuit against Blue Jeans Cables[1] and any other company using "Monster" in the name; including, but not limited to, a go-cart racing company.

Fortunately, the BJC owner was a lawyer in another life and peeled back the layers of the lawsuit to find exactly what you describe... a giant, non-sensical, non-cohesive set of documents showing nothing in particular, not even addressing the specific complaints, just meant as a "pile of scary papers" to make people freak out and write checks.

You are absolutely right, this IS extortion and it IS illegal, but there aren't a whole lot of protections in the system for a little guy trying to counter-sue a firm full of lawyers that have more financial resources to drag it on.

[1] http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm

The amended complaint clearly shows what patents Lodsys is accusing Rovio of infringing.

"On May 22, 2007, U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 (the "'078 patent") was duly and legally issued for "Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity Across a Network."

...

Rovio makes, sells, uses, imports, and/or offers to sell infringing applications, including but not limited to Angry Birds for iPhone and Angry Birds for Android, which infringe at least claims 1 and 24 of the '078 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271."

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60587096/11-07-21-Lodsys-Amended-C...

There are 2, actually.

Rovio makes, sells, uses, imports, and/or offers to sell infringing applications, including but not limited to Angry Birds for iPhone andAngry Birds for Android, which infringe at least claim 27 of the „565 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271.

U.S. Patent No. 7,620,565 - 27. A tangible computer readable medium having stored thereon, computer executable instructions that, if executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising: monitoring a product for an occurrence in the product of a trigger event of a predefined plurality of trigger events, incrementing a counter corresponding to the trigger event upon detection of the occurrence of the trigger event in the product; displaying a user interface, configured to probe for information regarding a use of the product, if the counter exceeds a threshold; storing an input received from the user interface on a device; and transmitting the input to a server.

U.S. PATENT NO. 7,222,078 - 1. A system comprising: units of a commodity that can be used by respective users in different locations, a user interface, which is part of each of the units of the commodity, configured to provide a medium for two-way local interaction between one of the users and the corresponding unit of the commodity, and further configured to elicit, from a user, information about the user's perception of the commodity, a memory within each of the units of the commodity capable of storing results of the two-way local interaction, the results including elicited information about user perception of the commodity, a communication element associated with each of the units of the commodity capable of carrying results of the two-way local interaction from each of the units of the commodity to a central location, and a component capable of managing the interactions of the users in different locations and collecting the results of the interactions at the central location.

U.S. PATENT NO. 7,222,078 - 24. The system of claim 1 wherein the two-way local interactions comprise a transaction for sale of a product or a service contract for the commodity.

That first one looks like a counter that triggers a data push to a server when it reaches a certain number. Really?

That second one is a simple feedback form that pushes the data to a server? Really?

I can't believe these. Cripes.

IANAL.

The second one looks more like some sort of ad-hoc network that's generated and used for transactions of some sort. I could imagine a bit-coin app that creates an ad-hoc network between two phones and transfers funds in the ad-hoc network. That's my read of the patent. Am I way off here? And, does Angry Birds really violate that? We very much need a lawyer here to expound upon this.

OMG. I just realized it's probably the feedback in the Android Market. That's why the second part talks about sales. It's not even part of their app!

This part confused me the most. So, if you infringe on even one claim of all the claims in any patent, you are infringing a patent? We're all screwed.

These patent lawsuits are getting ridiculous. Going to get to the point where it stifles innovation. Progress on platforms is slowed, indie developers who are hoping for a viral hit will get smacked with some BS lawsuit, etc.

I think we're already at that point unfortunately.

Now the Angry Birds have something to be angry about. Weaving this into the game would be epic. The Angry Birds Lodsys Defense Fund Edition where your favorite birds destroy the patent pigs.

And Congress give up half-way through Level 1, not because it's too hard, just because they don't care enough to win?

I kept expecting lodsys to just go away. It is now clear they won't.

Now that they have demonstrated how profitable it can be to exploit the laws of patents, there probably will be new companies popping up trying to do the same thing, and it won't stop until their is patent reform.

Software Patents Must Die.

Some patent must die, but I am not sure defining it as software is going to help. I get the feeling the goal should be all "business process" patents. Not mechanical or chemical, but the the patenting of procedures. I think that would take care of this stupidity. I worry that saying software will allow another open avenue.

I never understood how the patent office measures "non-obvious". If two companies are using the same technology, it couldn't have been that non-obvious. Add that to the list of central planning gone awry. Of course it started with the best of intentions tho.

For a while now I have considered getting into development for mobile devices. With all the stupid lawsuits lately I think I'm close to deciding not to bother. At the least not release anything I do for public consumption.

While the lawsuits are stupid, that is not a reason to avoid development.

Do not let the bad guys win.

Well, I would probably develop just for the experience but I'm not sure about releasing unless it was something quite interesting.

They can only really effect the American sales. MOst apps sell a very sizable percentage overseas (I've seen about 45%, I've seen other devs with more like 60-80% overseas).

Don't let these assclowns stop you.

I only develop on Android at the moment, and sell in the Android Market, and if I limited sales strictly to overseas, I'd be dead in the water. ~80% of all my sales are in the U.S.

iOS is a much deeper base more willing to pay. It's worth the cost of a mini or air, and would also happen to safeguard you against patents more (Apple's already batted down lodsys for instance).

Looks like they went after big companies and studios too, maybe they will get counter-sued out of existence.

How? At best, the big pile of big defendants will manage to get the patent(s) in question invalidated after millions in legal expenses. But as we've seen with Lodsys, they have no shortage of patents in their portfolio.

There's nothing to stop them from taking another patent out of their portfolio and applying the same strategy: shake as much easy settlement money out of the small shops as possible, then swing for the fences.

The could lose the other patents as part of a counter suit if they step out of line.

Ideally, a consortium of Apple+Microsoft+Nokia+Google+HTC+Samsung would buy out Lodsys to silence it.

The price would be in the 9 figures though.

However, if only Apple bought out Lodsys, would it go after Google with its new weapons?

Ideally, a consortium of Apple+Microsoft+Nokia+Google+HTC+Samsung would buy out Lodsys to silence it.

That would be very bad. It would provide a strong incentive for future patent trolls to do exactly the same thing.

So maybe get these companies to spend nine figures founding a non-profit to systematically challenge the patent trolls' portfolio.

anyone notice that MS and Nokia are not sued?

This is a MS patent troll dog and pony show..

It's because Microsoft would rip their head off. You don't patent troll a bigger patent troll. Paul Allen is much bigger than Lodsys.

And how exactly would that work? They don't have any products of their own, so they can hardly be sued for infringing on anything.

But a company on the scale of Microsoft have the resources to systematically dismantle their patents, track down prior art, produce material demonstrating that the patent in question is demonstrably 'obvious to anyone skilled in the art' and so on.

Lodsys's product range is their patents which they license and / or sue on. They lose by their patents being demonstrated as the worthless nonsense they truly should be, at which point they're gone completely - it's a bigger loss than having to pay a license for a product or rewrite a component.

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