Cost of the Uniloc Lawsuit

http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/lawsuit/cost/

by mmastrac • 14 years ago

175 66 14 years ago

x-plane.com

creamyhorror4• 14 years ago

The general background, necessary reading for basically all of us:

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.

DanBC2• 14 years ago

The SIM card is the removable medium. I think. I'm not sure.

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...)

creamyhorror4• 14 years ago

Oh, wow, it's the same company that sued Mojang over "Mindcraft" not long ago. And over the same claim 107 too. (Good info man. But the Microsoft patent is '216, not the '067 that the X-Plane developer is being sued over.)

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! !!!

mistercow2• 14 years ago

That was a different patent, though. That was 5,490,216, whereas this is 6,857,067. There are a couple of key differences between that situation and this one.

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.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

A good question if he really is just using the Android API is why isn't Google intervening as Apple did in the LodSys case? He should file a motion to dismiss for lack of standing. He's not doing the infringing in that case any more than you're infringing Apples rubber banding snapback by using a Samsung phone.

jrockway• 14 years ago

The problem is that Google and Samsung can afford to defend lawsuits. Laminar Research, not so much, so they're more likely to settle.

bootload• 14 years ago

"... The general background, necessary reading for basically all of us: ..."

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]

That's how it started: An idea, little money, some hacking. While patenting software technology might not be mine or others taste, it allowed a small company in the tech-backwaters to profit & survive to build new things. That is what the tech business in the US is all about.

[0] http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Ric+Richard...

[1] http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/aussie-inventor...

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s2666148.htm

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

Survive to build new things?

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.

creamyhorror4• 14 years ago

1. Software patents might have helped Ric Richardson's startup survive and grow, but who's to say they haven't cost other developers the chance to survive? Look at what he's doing to other companies now.

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.

xsmasher• 14 years ago

I was surprised to see that this lawsuit seems to be about copy protection, specifically Android app signing, not anything specific to flight simulators.

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.

danielweber2• 14 years ago

Yes, it took a while to find. This is one example where changing the headline on HN to match the headline of the blog, where it expects to sit inside a lot more context, is just confusing.

nekitamo• 14 years ago

If Uniloc wins this lawsuit they will have a precedent with which to sue every app developer on the Android Marketplace who uses the Android License Verification Library. Given how this can be a crippling blow to the Android Marketplace, I'm interested to see what Google's reaction will be to this lawsuit.

DanBC2• 14 years ago

MS fought for 8 years and then settled.

(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/microsoft-settles-f...)

ricricho5• 14 years ago

Yes but not this patent. They will have to fight for a precedent like everyone else in the US legal system.

debacle• 14 years ago

I was with him until the unborn child bit. Then it went off the deep end.

oogali• 14 years ago

If a project I put a lot of sweat into and providing a revenue stream I depended on for my family was now threatened by a large entity, and the monetary cost was more than the combined value of my total app revenue and my personal savings, plus the time cost is more than I'm willing to bear... I'd be there with him.

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.

MattGrommes• 14 years ago

Why? He lays out his reasoning behind this thought. Not every thought process can be purely logical. There's a lot of emotion behind anything to do with having kids and if they're concerned about the stress, it's got to factor into the equation.

wpietri• 14 years ago

Oh, do tell of your brave reaction when you were sued, and how it never bothered you to risk losing it all during the months or years until resolution. Also tell us about how easy and worry-free having kids was for you.

Wait, let me guess: you've never actually been sued. And don't have kids.

tibbon• 14 years ago

Why are judges not throwing out these lawsuits more?

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.

dschuler• 14 years ago

Presumably, judges need to assume that granted patents are valid and defensible. On the other hand, Eastern Texas probably gets a good amount of revenue from allowing this sort of nonsense to be litigated.

caf• 14 years ago

Is the court system really a profit centre for the state?

andreasvc3• 14 years ago

I don't know if it's feasible, but I would say that they should be much more selective in what kind of patents are granted, both ruling out the more frivolous patents, and also trying harder to confirm that there's no prior art (perhaps through peer review as in science). The costs for this should be for the applicant of the patent.

wissler3• 14 years ago

Clearly, you don't see the slippery slope from:

Clearly, there are real patent violations that occur and need stopped

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."

eps• 14 years ago

Of course there are good patents!

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.

adanto6840• 14 years ago

I'm involved in a similar legal 'dispute' and was quoted very similar numbers by several large firms. I was eventually able to find representation that is substantially more economical and that is likely of higher quality. Feel free to contact me directly if interested (same or similar jurisdiction even!)... Email is in profile.

jcurbo• 14 years ago

It is highly possible the Laminar Research people didn't post this or don't read HN. If you have good advice to give them, you should probably contact them directly.

DCoder• 14 years ago

FYI: the email: field in your profile is private, other users can only see the about: field.

nsxwolf• 14 years ago

Does anyone know of a "Big List Of Things You Should Not Implement" that would help developers avoid stumbling into patent traps?

pyalot23• 14 years ago

Yeah, everything.

colinshark• 14 years ago

2.1 million patents, each with dozens of claims. It's perfectly reasonable to know about them all.

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Any possible mechanism, algorithm, or feature with an explanation that can be reasonably expressed using the English language.

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

Are you writing code? You're doing it right now.

pyalot23• 14 years ago

This is unacceptable. I found it unacceptable last time that Uniloc sued mojang for minecraft. And I find it more unacceptable now that they're pounding on a guy who's not got the deep pockets that Notch has.

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!

josephcooney• 14 years ago

How? I would love to do it!

fatbird• 14 years ago

Do you remember how anti-abortion activists would put up a website listing the names and home addresses of abortion doctors? And every time one of them got shot, the activists would gleefully strike through the name of the doctor on that site?

Put up another such site, starting with these guys: http://www.uniloc.com/index.php/company/

andreasvc3• 14 years ago

Taking Uniloc down would be useless. There are umpteen number of patent trolls. What's needed is systemic change, i.e., overhauling the patent system. But since there's a lot of vested interests and esp. money in the current system, this is not going to happen anytime soon.

vetler• 14 years ago

This is scary.

mistercow2• 14 years ago

It seems to me that it would be very much in Google's best interest dig some change out from under their sofa cushions and provide legal support for these developers. There should be no question that the patent will be knocked down, but knocking it down will take money, and it would behoove Google to let their developers know that when the patent trolls come a-knockin', they won't be left on their own to defend their use of basic API calls.

Avitas2• 14 years ago

What are the full names, home addresses, business/home/cell phone number, e-mail address (etc.) of every principal and/or shareholder of Uniloc USA, Inc.?

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.

biot2• 14 years ago

You can share your opinion of the merits of this case c/o Uniloc's corporate office or through the attorney in this case. Or feel free to file an amicus curiae brief with the court having jurisdiction over this case. The latter approach will at least have a chance of helping if you are an expert who is well versed in the subject matter.

Or is your motivation is to mount a campaign of distributed harassment of these individuals?

malandrew• 14 years ago

"You can share your opinion of the merits of this case c/o Uniloc's corporate office or through the attorney in this case."

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.

nikcub2• 14 years ago

The most embarrassing part of this story is that Ric Richardson, the Australian founder of Uniloc, is portrayed in the media in Australia as an entrepreneurial hero.

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.

lengarvey• 14 years ago

He presented at the recent SydStart event/convention here in Sydney. The crowd was largely skeptical of him and his patents, and he had to cajole the audience into agreeing with him that one of his "inventions" was actually patentable.

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.

nikcub2• 14 years ago

I had somebody email me about the same event, I am definitely going to follow up on it - thanks for the info.

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.

ricricho5• 14 years ago

I was there too.. as the speaker! And the inventions I talked about got a big clap... where you not there? That is the other side of the story. Most people can see when someone is trying to make technological breakthroughs and they give them a bit of support. Its easy to sit around backbiting.

ricricho5• 14 years ago

As the inventor of the 216 patent it was pretty ahead of its time... millions of dollars in litigation investment proved that. While I understand the companies (Uniloc's) position in executing patent rights for other patents they own I do appreciate it when people check and find that I am not the inventor of record and also am no longer in the management or board of Uniloc. The personal attacks sure get tiresome.

msmonroe• 14 years ago

This patent looks too broad. It's a joke, challenge the patent. Then sue Uniloc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OReilly_v._Morse

utopkara2• 14 years ago

What is needed, is a fast track evaluation of technology claims. The speed can be achieved by streamlining the process of finding the field expert, providing archives and secretarial services during the evaluation, and coaching the expert about the process. The task can be taken up by an industry foundation, which can also drive down the cost.

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.

utopkara2• 14 years ago

This could be the Free Patent Foundation, similar to FSF, but for everybody.

Cost of the Uniloc Lawsuit

Related Stories