Creator Of The X-Plane Flight Simulator Seeks Help Fighting A Patent Troll
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Years ago when I was working at a small ISP in Columbia, SC I had lunch with Austin Meyer. He came in to upload the latest release of X-Plane to his FTP servers. We went across the street to get some shrimp and grits.
The man oozes genius. Over lunch he was rambling about some technique he discovered to render scenes at a much higher frame-rate. Something to do with culling and inlining a series of functions responsible for a very particular set of expensive transformations.
His almost hysterical, passionate, hyper, consuming personality made it a completely one-sided encounter. It was my pleasure to just sit and listen.
While we were walking out, I noticed the tail of his plaid shirt had come partially untucked. He had also missed 2 belt loops.
We're reading today about a man who legitimately doesn't have the cycles to spare for belt loops, let alone a patent battle. If for no other reason than to stop distracting people like Austin from doing what they do, we desperately need software patent reform.
Anyway. He probably thought I was a dope, but I still recall that lunch as one of my fondest memories while starting out in the industry.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...
If you want to check a unique serial number securely, either over the phone or net you are violating this patent.
Seems a little broad.
There's absolutely no way that there isn't prior art for this.
Dismissing the due process of a patent holder simply because you disagree with it and claiming the whole system broken because you didn't see the outcome you had hoped for is childish.
The amount of corruption in the current system is insane.
"1. A registration system for licensing execution of digital data in a use mode, said digital data executable on a platform, said system including local licensee unique ID generating means and remote licensee unique ID generating means, said system further including mode switching means operable on said platform which permits use of said digital data in said use mode on said platform only if a licensee unique ID first generated by said local licensee unique ID generating means has matched a licensee unique ID subsequently generated by said remote licensee unique ID generating means; and wherein said remote licensee unique ID generating means comprises software executed on a platform which includes the algorithm utilized by said local licensee unique ID generating means to produce said licensee unique ID."
Here's my take at translating this into plain English:
They're claiming a software system (let's call this the "DRM system") consisting of a client & server which work in tandem to figure out whether a piece of software installed on the user's machine (let's call this the "controlled software") is allowed to run in a specified mode (note, this is important). The DRM system consists of a way to switch the mode in which the controlled software can be used (eg, demo mode, new-user mode, etc [1]). Also, the DRM system & the controlled system implement the same algorithm to generate the "licensee unique ID".
However, there's another independent claim #12, which says:
"12. A registration system attachable to software to be protected, said registration system generating a security key from information input to said software which uniquely identifies an intended registered user of said software on a computer on which said software is to be installed; and wherein said registration system is replicated at a registration authority and used for the purposes of checking by the registration authority that the information unique to the user is correctly entered at the time that the security key is generated by the registration system. "
Claim #12 is fairly easy to read & understand. It basically claims any method to generate a unique key for each user + machine combination of the "controlled software", wherein the unique key can be generated, both locally & remotely using the same algorithm. Curiously, this does not claim the mode-switching aspect claimed in #1 above, making it even broader in scope.
[1] This is not described in the first independent claim, but in subsequent dependent claims and embodiment descriptions.
Do you honestly feel like you're adding to the discussion?
I'd say that contributed.
"Oh, I'm not a principle at the company anymore" yeah, sure. If you're really not involved, why are you calling their victims thieves in news articles? I bet you sold all your shares, right?
Signing the petition costs nothing, and there's a chance that it could have a real and lasting impact on the patent system.
Donating to Austin Meyer's legal defence fund is much cheaper—both financially and emotionally—than having to defend against a patent troll yourself at some stage in the future.
No, that only treats the symptoms. It would be much better to cure the disease -- the broken patent system.
With limited resources, we're better off investing in a wholesale overhaul of the patent system, compared to fighting one patent troll after another. The reason? After we've spent millions fighting patent trolls, we will face a new generation of trolls who have learned valuable lessons from the methods we used in the past.
I know, one person doesn't make a difference furthermore i'm not a "very important super mega top ninja hipster talented programmer" and every county has it's own problems. The thing is, i really don't like the idea that, my company can go to bankruptcy because law doesn't protect me and i have to live with fear and try to stay out of some patent troll's radar.
Patent trolling is a problem in U.S. since a long time but nobody want's to fix it. Politicians seems doesn't care, big corporations simply pay fees and reflect them to their customers or like in this case, companies let patent trolls screw their suppliers / business partners.
Entrepreneurs & companies spending billions[0] for nothing, current patent system ironically hinders innovation, which is clearly bad for the economy and the country, everybody complains but nothing changes. I'm really having a hard time understanding why is this happening [1]
[0] : http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/study-...
[1] : Just to clarify, i'm not saying country a is better than country b. I'm just really trying to understand.
It's possible the SOPA protests and the furore over the treatment of Aaron Swartz will make a difference and the US can turn a corner on these issues after all. We can hope so.
I've worked at two companies now where there were graphical methods of displaying data that previously existed on paper, but we could not implement them in software because they were patented in the USA. One was in celular radio network planning and something to do with interference calculation, the other was in displaying a 'ladder' of bids and offers in financial trading systems. You could use these methods to display data on printed paper, or in a PDF on a screen for example, but if you generate the results in software and you're breaking the law in the US. Insane. But it's not practical to have one version for inside the US and another for the rest of the world.
Not trolling or snarking; I genuinely don't know what the situation would be in that kind of case. Company employee in a the US making the software just as before, but technically working for company in a country that doesn't recognise software patents, and that company is the company selling the software to people in the US.
Because the patent office verified it as "novel," that's the reason he isn't a patent troll. sigh The only way you can be a patent troll is to have the patent office verify a patent that you can sue people over!
They allow a patent troll to potentially set a legal precedent for what constitutes a big part of their app infrastructure. They probably figured that its cheaper to build around the patent and let this one developer eat shit.
They are killing net neutrality by saying mobile networks are somehow special and don't need it, a very obvious move to bolster Android and their telco relationships. They are now apparently paying Orange in France for mobile traffic related to services like YouTube [1], again trading short term business sense for eventually losing the net neutrality fight and turning the whole internet into many walled gardens at the hands of ISPs.
They have settled with news websites in France [2] to avert legal repercussions by a government that is essentially being blackmailed by press. 60 millions is pocket change for them, but the precedent this sets will endanger their business in many countries where press is dying and abusing their power to force governments to pass laws that will benefit their old business models very much to the detriment of Google. They are facing the same thing in Germany right now. News websites by the old printing press garde are the antithesis to the web. They do not understand hyperlinks, they do not understand the importance of giving access to raw material in a Wikileaks era. This move by Google perpetuates their dying business model and damages its own products like News or YouTube, which is thriving as an alternative to the old publisher model in media and music.
They let media companies patrol their data (and search rankings) and remove content by automatically generated requests, no questions asked, at exponentially growing scale [3]. They pretend to be under legal obligations to do so, but intentionally muddle the process to the point where if your content is contended, they give you no recourse under DMCA [4].
Sorry, I'm somewhat consumed by rage after reading the comments of the UniLoc persona non grata.
1: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipkAQJJNg...
2: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipwetvKBf...
3: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/
4: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/youtube-universal-m...
Universal said Google’s private system doesn’t count as an
official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, and thus it was immune from legal liability.If they had focused on "Be Good", perhaps they would have fully instituted good service from the beginning and embraced personal customer contact.
I am very afraid indeed of people claiming to do things for my benefit.
Evil is banal, it is every day, and more than likely it happens right in front of your eyes.
People need to shed this comic book villain version of evil, where anybody that acts evil is clearly just a bad person, and starts out with a goal of wanting to hurt everybody else.
ditto, my pet peeve: pages are now almost all ads, barely disclosed ones to boot. What's next and for how long will they get away with pay-to-play?
I think you missed the part where they have a near monopoly in search and that currently there is no real competition for that crown. There is absolutely nothing that is going to run Google into the ground in a few short years.
Once a company becomes as large and critical as Google, it becomes an integral national service provider (think Boeing or Ford or Walmart or Goldman) and gets special protection via all the lobbying they do and all the friends they have in DC. Particularly once a company like Google lets the government in to regulate them, as Microsoft and Intel and IBM and others have done, that seals the deal. Which is why the Feds just backed completely away from their anti-trust interest; they could have just as easily pursued Google forever, but they got what they wanted. Any idea the value that organizations like the NSA derive from Google? With that partnership established, any idea the lengths they'll go to in order to protect that treasure trove?
Your time horizon is way too short. Nothing is going to touch Google this decade. You don't understand how the US economy actually works.
I find it stupid how by obfuscating, rephrasing and refactoring claims to avoid a prior art search by the examiner, and by making it sound confusingly novel, patents actually get granted for things like this.
[1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...
That's just one of the reasons why ED Texas is so deadly.
Others:
In the ED, it is extremely difficult to get a motion to stay pending review of the patent by the USPTO. The court also moves very quickly, which compresses the financial burden of defense into a short time period. The fast moving court also makes it difficult to get a review completed by the USPTO in time before trial.
That said, the AIA compels the USPTO to rule much quicker, increasing the probability that you can get the patent invalidated before it reaches trial. However, the cost of the new review process is incredibly expensive: hundreds of thousands of dollars if you have an average lawyer. Could be a million if you have a top law firm billing you.
(In 2007 IBM and Haliburton filed for patents on being patent troll.)
I hope there's more to this story, because otherwise that is a mind-bogglingly stupid move. Talk about a chilling effect.
Mojang are not in the US.
Maybe companies threatened by patents could motivate the public by preventing US citizens from having access to those companies' software for a week, but that's unlikely to happen.
Under the spreading patent tree,
I sold you and you sold me.
Rationalizing comes easy, especially with the prospect of a fat per-patent bonus: "Everyone else is doing it, it's just self-defence", "If I don't, someone else will, might as well be me", "Most of these are silly and will get overturned in court anyway", "My promotion prospects depend on it"...
I was one of them. Forgive me, for I have sinned.
I fear few of my ex-colleagues would agree, though. When will the penny drop, I wonder? Will you be shocked - shocked! - when one of your patents is used offensively in a lawsuit? When you hear about Lodsys and Uniloc and realize that it's not just impersonal big companies who can afford it, but individuals who are victims?
Oh well. I'm off to buy an indulgence by contributing to X-Plane's defense..
To my understanding, they both prevent innovation.
Wikipedia on copyright: gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights.
Wikipedia on patents: The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented invention without permission.
To me it looks like Laminar Research decided to use their right to distribute the software with a license which prevented people from distributing the sources, from copying the binaries, from improving/redistribue the software, from studying the software.
They decided to raise some money for their hard work forcing people to pay for the usage of such a software.
Isn't Uniloc just trying to raise some money from a patented invention, forcing Laminar Research to pay for the usage of such a patent?
To me it looks very similar to what Laminar Research did. They're playing by the same rules.
If Laminar Research has rights to protect its source code, why hasn't Uniloc rights to protect its invention? What am I missing?
I don't think the problem is just about who had invented firstly the technology. We shall all be paying Tesla for the AC current then!
Lets face it, we are not unique and every idea you have was already had by someone else, or someone is having it right now, ideas are sluts that way. A big software project is just a stack of ideas. Rather than having to reinvent everything, and risk plagiarising anyway, lets just accept that the way we have come so far as humans has been to build on knowledge created by others.
The problem I see is that they both, especially when used 'improperly', prevent people from innovate.
To me it looks like software improves also by recycling and improving existing concepts so, when it comes to software, patent owners eventually manage to raise some money, but that's all.
They cause much greater damage to the rest of us by stopping other people from reusing the concept.
The thing is that from my perspective, the same happens with most of the grants given to copyrights holders.
Again, when speaking about software, to give a copyright holder the right to be credited for the work is perfectly fine, but what about the right to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it?
How different is that from a patent?
My main point is that some aspects of your argument, say:
> every idea you have was already had by someone else, or someone is having it right now
Hold much stronger specifically regarding patents. Because patents don't govern over unique instances of the same idea, but only specific realizations, and work on such an idea.
It may not be ultimately bad. But I feel it's a fair bit less obvious than patents.
Not sure what constitutes a bona fida inventor but the first post on his blog is how he has just taken out a patent on another invention.
It seems he just invents stuff to then patent it. To me an inventor builds things. This is more akin to coming up with an idea and then cutting off anybody from every executing that idea without even having executed it yourself.