Cost of the Uniloc Lawsuit
x-plane.com
x-plane.com
He had his own 'Australian Story' feature:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/thebigdeal/default.ht...
And has been profiled numerous times as brilliant genius entrepreneur in the newspapers:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-beautif...
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/04/19/1240079538770.html
As far as I am concerned this type of coverage is a complete embarrassment for the Australian tech scene and honest entrepreneurs from this country. Not once in any of this coverage of Uniloc is the issue raised of small companies being sued and threatened.
If you follow me on Twitter you would have seen that I have been tracking his media coverage for years now and getting in touch with journalists in order to get the other side of this patent trolling out and known to the public. It was all to no effect.
This guy didn't invent anything, he is simply taking advantage of an antiquated patent system to profit from the work of others. It is funny how in none of these stories is it mentioned that what he does only works in the USA.
If you are from Australia help us out the next time you see a story or feature on Ric and paste in a comment about how he is helping destroy small software startups.
I find it sad that a man like this is invented to speak to 900 entrepreneurs and actually given some credence. He seems like a smart guy, but patents aren't a friend of the startup community.
If you want to contact @pc0 who organised the latest SydStart event and register your displeasure at Ric being one of the main speakers at this largely awesome event that might be interesting.
I am also going to write a post about it this weekend and forward it to the journalists who have covered Uniloc in the Australian media, to try and get the other side of the story out.
(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft-settles-f...)
The specifics of the suit were two clicks away from the linked page: http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/details/
This seems strange; does android app signing even use "communication with a server to perform a license check"? That sounds more like serial/license number verification.
This is unacceptable. Entirely unacceptable.
Tomorrow it could be me, or it could be you. This has to stop, like right fracking now. Take Uniloc down. Take all patent trolls down. Stop this patent law bullshit. Right now!
Put up another such site, starting with these guys: http://www.uniloc.com/index.php/company/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20A13F7395A1...
The code of law, the reason we have laws in the first place, is to prevent people from resorting to the exercise of "personal justice". This can manifest in many forms (like blood feuds and revenge killings). The problem with a situation in which there is no law is that it is on the whole unproductive to society, and usually tends to escalate to a point where no society is possible anymore (see medieval Italy and the feuds of the houses). Homicide and mutilation are often parts of such ancient justice practices (see medieval torture, killing and mutilation of thieves) because without the support of the society, extracting damage payments or justice in the form of incarceration is impossible or very difficult.
The Sumerian King Ur-Nammu is usually credited with establishing the first written code of law. But it was not until much, much later that an important addition was made in medieval england in the form of the Magna Charta, that established that before the law, everybody is equal, even the king.
Summerian codification of law enabled large civilizations to flourish by deflecting the destructive tendencies of large groups of people away from counter-productive behavior. Medieval English law enabled modern society to be possible by establishing that before the law everybody is equal, enabling such things as property, companies, and certainty of being treated fairly.
There is however an evil serpent hidden in law, which is that laws can be unjust. It's not just erroneous application of law that can be unjust, but the rules themselves can also be unjust. Usually on the whole law works because on the bottom line, averaged, it is more just than not. That is true because the number of unjust codifications was hitherto relatively small and errors by justice where statistically the exception, not the norm. And the entire judicature hitherto strives to keep it that way. Why?
There are many examples of where society ground to a halt and regressed to earlier states where law was subverted to be on the whole unjust (see many dictatorships, totalitarian states, corruption, etc.)
What happens when the law becomes unjust and justice cannot be served by law? Personal martial law comes back into effect. Things like revenge killings and blood feuds will become a problem for society again. Civilization as we know it will begin to crumble. The economy will go to the shitters. The works, you know.
Now tell me: This patent law that is hurting countless people by imposing money they have to pay to other people who have contributed nothing to what they did, is it just?
If that is not just, think about: How many people do you have to treat unjustly before the perception of law deterioates and earlier personal martial law comes back into effect? Nobody knows, but it's usually a bad idea to test it out.
The law has to be just, and patent law is not just. Keep on this path and it will be one coffin nail to destroy your society as you know it.
http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/
Specific lawsuit details:
http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/details/
Hilarious, it's a patent troll called Uniloc suing a guy for implementing a license-check-with-a-server in his Android app - apparently the one provided by Google for use in Android apps.
LANGUAGE OF THE DISPUTE: Paragraph 12 of the lawsuit states: ”Laminar Research 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, X-Plane.”
Section 107 of the patent, which they claim I violated, contains: “107. …code for verifying the license data stored on the licensing medium by communicating with a registration authority having verification data….”
These guys seriously need to be beaten down. Their website says:
“In the device recognition space, for example, we believe that we have uncovered a billion dollar market … And it fits our straightforward development model. Look at many ideas. Pick an outstanding one. Patent it. Commercialize it. Reap the rewards.”
Either they were really careful with the patent application phrasing, or the PTO flubbed this one.
THE PATENT IN QUESTION: I'm reading the actual patent and seeing that it's about a license system which is in 3 parts: device, "portable license medium", and registration authority (presumably a remote server).
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...
MAIN IDEA: The primary claim is that the device checks the data on/from the license medium and compares it with verification data from the registration authority. The data may be a hash of the license data; it may be encrypted by a private-public key system; it may contain hardware identifiers so that the authority can check if the hardware is on an authorized list; it may be updated with new data from the authority; it may be limited by an expiry date; so on and so forth.
It goes on to talk about securing the licensing medium and data by means of a double verification process (through a "license manager").
LICENSING MEDIUM: The definition of the licensing medium:
The licensing medium 120 is a portable component that contains information concerning the software or other licensed electronic data that the user is authorized to access. When a user seeks to access a vended piece of electronic data, the client program communicates with the licensing medium 120 to verify that the user is authorized to access the electronic data.
In general, the licensing medium 120 may be any type of portable electronic data storage medium that has a unique, unalterable serial number or other form of identification that can be transmitted electronically. Examples include smart cards, memory sticks, magnetic strip cards, floppy disks and other removable computer storage media. The licensing medium 120 and the electronic device that uses the licensed electronic data need not have a wired connection. A wireless connection, e.g., an infrared or radio frequency (RF) link, may be used.
DOES THIS PATENT APPLY?: In general, this seems to be a patent on a license system involving a separate, "portable" license module (like a dongle or smartcard) that provides license data and can be updated with new license data from the server. Putting aside the question of whether this deserves a patent in the first place, I wonder what about the guy's Android app involves a separate, removable license medium. What's their basis for suing?
Especially in the light of:
Speaking for Laminar Research, we used only the technology that was provided to us by Google for copy protection in our Android App ‘X-Plane’… we used exactly the copy protection Google gave us! And, of course, this is what Google provides to EVERYONE ELSE THAT IS MAKING A GAME FOR ANDROID!
KEY CLAIM: And here's the claim at the heart of the dispute, which I should've gone to at the start:
107. Computer code executable on an electronic device to prevent unauthorized access to electronic data stored on the electronic device, the computer code comprising: code for storing license data on a portable licensing medium configured to communicate with the electronic device; code for determining whether to allow access to the electronic data based on the license data; code for verifying the license data stored on the licensing medium by communicating with a registration authority having verification data; and code for providing updated license data received from the registration authority to the licensing medium.
This very clearly says that the license data is stored on a "portable licensing medium". If they're referring to license data stored in the internal RAM or SD card of a smartphone, then it collapses to the traditional license-data-and-server model and it doesn't make sense to talk about a portable licensing medium any more.
It's patent nonsense, literally.
Let's not forget that while this patent is a joke MS fought them for eight years and eventually settled.
(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft-settles-f...)
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/21/uniloc-sues-mojang-over-al...
If the SIM card is the source of the license data, surely the data must have been put there together with the app, and be directly relevant to it. If simply checking an account identifier on the SIM card before providing access is a violation (since it might be considered "license data"), then probably every smartphone in the world is in violation.
Uniloc has filed suit over the same patent against software companies in federal court in Tyler, Texas, including Symantec Corp. (SYMC) and Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) Some of those, including Adobe, have reached settlement agreements.
If even giants like Adobe...I don't know how much hope an independent developer has. Either Google does something, or the defendants will have to band together to gather the resources. What a terrible mess, that they actually managed to get money through their ridiculous claim 107.
edit: It turns out Laminar Research (the guy in this story) was already mentioned in the Reddit thread on Uniloc suing Minecraft. Along with Square Enix, EA, and other games companies.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/wx2pg/notch_being_sue...
OF PARTICULAR INTEREST:
edit2: It turns out that the case against Microsoft was overturned in 2009 by the District Court of Rhode Island:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4524170
and very interestingly, "the Court found that jury members were not able to sufficiently understand the technical details and legal issues to reach a reliable verdict. There is also concern over the obstacles presented by increasing patent litigation to high-technology entrepreneurs and companies, which may inhibit innovation."
!!! A judge who actually said a jury wasn't sufficiently capable of understanding the details in a patent case! !!!
There are some good insights in this short talk, but there was also this comment by a user called Troll Busters:
This is unfortunate because Mr. Curtis was scammed. No, not by the patent troll, but by his lawyers who was more concerned about charging excessive fees when there was a much more cost-effective solution to his problem. The problem is not patent law but legal economics. This patent was easily invalidated by a simple and cost-efftive post-grant proceeding called a reexamination. However, law firms have been steering clients away from cost-effective proceedings in favor of much riskier and higher cost litigation to resolve disputes. Why? Because law firms need the high fees associated with patent litigation and discourage use of cost-effective post-grant proceedings to determine patent invalidity at the Patent Office.
I was familiar with the patent mentioned and proposed to wipe it out for $50K. We had the prior art needed to invalidate the patent. But each defendant's lawyer wanted to charge their clients fees and not give up the high-billing litigation legal work for such a simple solution that could have been shared collectively among the defendants. Instead, it allowed the troll to divide and conquer and force lucrative settlements for "nuisance fees" or the amount that would have to be paid to lawyers.
I don't know if the threat of a reexamination would have been enough to scare the patent troll away, but it would be very interesting if this were a viable method of nullifying the patent. I'm guessing it's not as easy as $50K-and-we're-done, else one of the victims in these cases would have attempted it already. But it seems like a successful invalidation would certainly kill the troll and save everyone the trouble and legal costs.
For a while, every year or two he would get a call from a lawyer who was willing to pay him a hefty fee for a copy of his thesis. For the lulz he always asked "do you want me to publish this somewhere?" and the lawyer always said "NO!"
Even if you don't go into a reexam, it is a stick to wave to try to bring about a more reasonable settlement.
In short this doesn't seem to have been a very determined or well-funded troll.
Troll Busters may have a point here, but it's clear that he/she/it is also trying to drum up business.
First of all, in the MS case, the patent was filed 1993, whereas this one is from 2001; prior art should be far easier to find for this one.
Also, in that case, apparently the inventor had shown Microsoft his idea and offered to sell it to them. They declined and then implemented it themselves. Now, regardless of whether the idea was obvious in the first place, that's not a story you want a jury to hear if you're Microsoft.
I've been following the Uniloc case for more than 3 years now. [0] This case has a long history. It has it's roots in Ric Richardson being ripped off by Microsoft from '97 onwards. Ric sued Microsoft in 2003 but he'd demoed the software in question to MS in 1993. [1]
Uniloc was once a startup.
"Ric and I were at a music expo one day and we
had our own software that we had the rights to
publish in Australia and we were wondering how
to get this piece of music software into, straight
to people’s hands, because we couldn’t afford a
stand at this thing. We were a very small company
working out of Ric’s lounge room basically.
At the time, software piracy was a major problem. We
had to come up with some way to allow people to copy
software from person to person - but still end up
getting paid for it." [2]
[0] http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Ric+Richard...
[1] http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/aussie-inventor...
You might as well just link to their homepage:
Uniloc’s story mirrors an American theme seen over and
over during the last few decades: a company that is
discovering, growing and innovating technology that is
changing the way people live.2. Is it fair that Richardson's firm should have a monopoly on license checking for 20 years? Just think about that - we're talking about the rights to the broad, basic idea of a license-checking mechanism being allocated to a single person for 20 whole years. What good is it to society to allow what amounts to a highly profitable IP land-grab?
3. Should the patent have been approved in the first place, when what seems to be prior art existed in the '80s? (Based on the X-Plane dev's research.) A bankrupt patent is not a very good argument for Richardson's case.
4. Tightening the standards for issuing patents could conceivably allow developers to launch products and try implementing new features without a particular fear of stepping on patent landmines. That will be good for proliferation and innovation.
5. Patenting and licensing a technology is not the only valid business model in tech. I don't think it's "what the tech business in the US is all about". It's not the only, or best, way.
What can we do to stop these and fix the system? Clearly, there are real patent violations that occur and need stopped, but there are so many ones that benefit only trolls and attorneys.
Clearly, there are real patent violations that occur and need stopped
to
so many ones that benefit only trolls and attorneys
By design, patents are not to protect invention, they are a form of neo-feudalism. There is no such thing as a good patent, not by any rational definition of "good."
Any invention that is a result of targeted time- or resource-consuming research is worthy of a patent protection, which specifically exists to allow an inventor recoup his costs by not letting others to blindly copy the product once it hits the market.
Patents are tyranny, and they are only justifiable on the moral reasoning of a two-year-old.
Libertarians crack me up. They're more disconnected from reality than the people they accuse of the same. The issue with the patent system as it is now is not the entire system, but rather the shortcomings of its implementation.
Another point of fact: sarcasm and sneering are not an argument.
Yes, my post was sarcastic, but at least I'm rooted in reality instead of speaking in pure conjecture and hypothesis. There was more to my comment than just sarcasm, though you chose to ignore it and instead continue with the rhetoric.
I found the following, but I'm sure there is much more:
Mr. Bradley C. Davis, CEO
Mr. Craig S. Etchegoyen, Co-Founder
Mr. Michael Lin, CFO
Mr. J. A. White, VP Sales & Business Development
Mr. Joe Mordetsky, VP Engineering
For many states where companies are incorporated, much of this is often required to be released as public information for articles of incorporation and annual report filings--even for privately-owned corporations.
Or is your motivation is to mount a campaign of distributed harassment of these individuals?
You and I both know that this is a worthless avenue to take. Any organization of sufficient size generating externalities and ill will certainly has a "catchall" mechanism for making sure that such opinions regarding merit will probably never be read and considered.
Publicly publishing their contact info ensures that they receive all feedback unfiltered (assuming they would have received such feedback at all). Yes, it is likely that these people will be exposed to distributed harassment by some members of the public that are unhappy with what they are doing, but it will also give other members of the public the opportunity to write something thoughtful that gets to the intended recipient.
It's an unfortunate dichotomy, but between approach A that will more than likely filter out all dissenting opinion before arriving at the desk of the recipients and approach B that will result in the delivery of thoughtful comments and harassment, the latter is far more desirable because at least it has the opportunity to have an impact.
After reading the article, I immediately thought of how I would feel and what I would do. I have had some experience with having a "diamond" that I had spent years figuratively cutting and polishing suddenly smashed to bits. But, my metaphorical diamond is not of the same scale as the original author's corporation. I didn't see it coming and it only amounted to a loss of a few thousand dollars. If I knew months or years beforehand that someone was building a case for some wild claims about my supposed mega-diamond that were false (e.g., the original diamond was theirs and was stolen even though I personally mined the rough diamond with valid mineral rights), but that those claims were going to be presented in a courtroom where I was at a significant disadvantage, I would want to explore plans of defense that were reasonably complete.
Given my inexperience in these matters, I also would really appreciate and perhaps greatly benefit from help. It could even be help in a form that might first appear meaningless without perspective that was later provided by future developments or other information.
Would I fantasize that some heavy hitters in the media would investigate and perhaps assist with informing the public of my plight and the plight of others who are increasingly victimized by these tricky diamond thieves or patent trolls? Sure. Should someone from the media want to start investigating exactly what is happening in this case, it would be nice if one of the first hits they see is this Hacker News thread. The opinions and details contained herein--the who, what, how, why, where, etc--might be quite helpful if someone digs up a small nugget that leads to something bigger. There may be (or there may not be) several obvious items that are just under the surface of this matter that just need some bits to come to light before the dots can be connected.
It's possible that we are unaware of some real eye-opening items relating to this matter that someone just needs to dig a bit to find within the mountain of publically available information. Has Uniloc intentionally targetted a very specific corporate demographic? Has Uniloc already successfully settled with thousands or tens of thousands of small companies already with just some persistent and carefully-worded threats?
Then, there's the matter I originally bought up. Should the individuals behind this be subject to public scrutiny that would normally only be expected for people like senatorial, mayoral or presidential political candidates? If this were my diamond that was going to be taken from me and I had time to do something, I think I would agree with this level of scrutiny. Would I want to let the perpetrators of these legal maneuvers grow in their direct and indirect dealings that appeared to be directly harming me? No. I don't think it's wrong to look at publically available information if there may be some aspect of that public information that might be helpful. Why not know every single thing that is possible to know? If this were happening to me, I would feel remiss if I did not pursue perfectly legal and reasonable avenues of investigation.
In addition, the information gathered and communicated during investigation can be used by others. There are so many obvious ways in which those involved can be discouraged from doing these things. I'm talking about using gathered information in the most obvious ways such as:
* Abstaining from the purchase of products or services from:
- those bringing lawsuits
- other organizations which are owned by the principals and/or investors (e.g., a restaurant owned jointly officer X and spouse)
- other organizations which funded/are funding and/or assisting them
Before any of this can be done, some basic investigation has to be done... search, identify and communicate any and all public information which might be of use to reporters, the writer of the original article or other HN users which are trying to help.
Any expert with some experience in dealing with patents can figure out if a patent in his/her area has any merit. But doing it in court is a different matter, and takes time.
The problem is, the court has to do this evaluation by appointing established experts, who don't have much time anyway, so even the search for experts take time. And the experts have to evaluate the claims with respect to historical state of the art at the time of patent application.
We are lucky that the internet now remembers most of the past, so we can go back to comments in HN, and say, "see, people were already talking about that in public at the time of this patent". But, for older patents, the experts have to dig through conferences, magazines, emails, journals, etc. as reference, and evidence that something was known. Without such diligent work, plainly declaring that an idea is trivial, will not be something an expert will be willing to do in court.
All this can be sped up and the costs can be reduced if an organization took the task. I) Hire a group of neutral distinguished academics in several key fields, who will find and appoint technology experts. II) Put together the tools and archives the experts will need in their evaluation. III) Coach the experts about the process, and provide secretarial services during the process.
Being sued is stressful.
Being sued and losing a revenue stream, when you want to bring this thing into the world that eats, breathes, and needs you and your time is doubly stressful.
Being sued, losing a revenue stream, wanting to have another child, and having your significant other tell you that while this cloud is hanging over your head, we won't take on the additional responsibility in the shrinking window of her fertility, is heart breaking.
Those daydreams you have of building a successful product, while your kids play in the backyard, now evaporate.
To call it the deep end, is very dismissive.
Wait, let me guess: you've never actually been sued. And don't have kids.