Creator Of The X-Plane Flight Simulator Seeks Help Fighting A Patent Troll

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/02/creator-of-the-x-plane-flight-simulator-seeks-help-fighting-a-patent-troll/

by adambenayoun • 13 years ago

300 93 13 years ago

Permit• 13 years ago

I honestly don't even know what to say when these things come up nowadays. It just seems like the bullshit won't end. I can't think of any options that even exist to fix this broken patent system.

thesagan• 13 years ago

It's as if some sort of patent "tragedy" would need to happen, such as an extremely popular application used by multiple voting blocs be shut down, an application whose absence would set off a larger popular response. However, the owner of such an application would have to somehow be vulnerable, and I'm not sure what's out there that would match this criteria. Certainly not a Google or Microsoft, to state the obvious.

DividesByZero• 13 years ago

Someone like Google or Microsoft can just pay to settle. No such 'tragedy' is possible.

lucajona• 13 years ago

I understand your feeling of helplessness, but supporting the people that stand up and fight against these patent trolls seems like a good place to start.

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.

melling2• 13 years ago

I didn't see a link to donate. Wouldn't it be better for the FSF to create a generic fund that agressively went after these trolls? I'd give a couple hundred dollars a year.

devmach2• 13 years ago

I'm studying in Germany abroad and i have a u.s. green card. After reading so much crap about u.s. patent system, i'm really considering staying in Germany or immigrate to another country ( like Singapore ?? ) and start a business there.

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.

beering2• 13 years ago

Singapore is where Uniloc, this patent troll, is incorporated. Just an interesting bit of trivia.

emmelaich• 13 years ago

I believe German trademark law has been (ab)used, too, so don't think you're completely safe.

Kliment• 13 years ago

German patent law is super-evil too. As far as I understand it, patents are presumed valid for the duration of a patent suit, so you get hit with an injunction even if you countersue.

EliRivers• 13 years ago

I don't know a damn thing about the law so I'm asking this in the hopes of education; I live in a country that doesn't recognise software patents. Presumably I can still sell software overseas, to places where software patents are recognised. What's stopping people such as Mr Meyer creating a company in my country that exists purely to create the effect that all sales of his software come from my country?

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.

Vivtek• 13 years ago

I'm interested in this question, too. As I understand it, the patent law in the country of sale governs each sale - but I'm open to the possibility that I don't actually understand it.

kevingadd2• 13 years ago

Maybe if people like Ric Richardson see consequences for being a part of the patent trolling machine, they'll be less likely to do it again in the future. It's hilarious to me that he wants to simultaneously claim credit for 'inventing' this patent and founding the company responsible for this patent trolling while avoiding any of the responsibility for the damage the company creates.

"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?

christiangenco• 13 years ago

What if someone could get a patent on "a method of starting a business whose sole purpose is acquiring many patents and then suing large companies"? Could they destroy all patent trolls?

kevingadd2• 13 years ago

You'd spend more money suing the patent troll organizations than you'd ever recover, because they could just close up shop and move on, being non-practicing entities with no real assets or holdings.

chris_wot5• 13 years ago

In other words, you put that entity out of business. Sounds like success!

chrisbennet• 13 years ago

This is close: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/01/157743897/can-you-...

(In 2007 IBM and Haliburton filed for patents on being patent troll.)

nuclear_eclipse• 13 years ago

IBM did it.

minikomi• 13 years ago

Nice idea. I wonder how technical sounding you'd have to get to push it through. "Issuing a legal claim over a telecommunications network"?

andrewfelix3• 13 years ago

More detailed look at the patent:

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.

rossjudson• 13 years ago

20 years ago I (and many others) had shareware registration systems that did this kind of thing. ShareIt ring a bell with anyone?

There's absolutely no way that there isn't prior art for this.

beering2• 13 years ago

Funnily enough, this patent was reexamined in 2011 and 100% reaffirmed.

monochromatic3• 13 years ago

You haven't even glanced at the claims, have you?

andrewfelix3• 13 years ago

Why not correct my interpretation, rather than make a snide insinuation?

revelation• 13 years ago

Google has completely jumped the shark and is now being controlled by mindless business drones that will drive the company into the ground in just a few years. For your consideration:

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.

coditor• 13 years ago

At least Apple helped in their version of this. Google ignoring their own technology and customers is the epitome of Be Evil.

hakaaaaak• 13 years ago

What I never understood is why Google's motto wasn't "Be Good". Logically and linguistically, "be good" is simpler than "Don't Be Evil", even if they aren't logically equivalent. And, as any psychologist will tell you, you don't say or think what you are trying to avoid; instead, you focus on something else that achieves the same goal, so if you were trying not to be evil, the word evil shouldn't even be in the motto.

If they had focused on "Be Good", perhaps they would have fully instituted good service from the beginning and embraced personal customer contact.

sneak• 13 years ago

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/01/26/takeover/

throwaway20482• 13 years ago

That is a ridiculously black and white analysis, people doing evil don't set out with some vague malevolent goal to make the world a worse place for everyone else. Many times they view what they are doing as a good thing.

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.

OGinparadise• 13 years ago

Google has completely jumped the shark and is now being controlled by mindless business drones that will drive the company into the ground in just a few years.

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?

adventured• 13 years ago

"Google has completely jumped the shark and is now being controlled by mindless business drones that will drive the company into the ground in just a few years."

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.

incompatible• 13 years ago

The moral of the story is don't develop software unless you have the resources to fight patent lawsuits. I haven't, so I don't.

camus• 13 years ago

you mean dont do it in USA , the so-called land of opportunities ...

DanBC• 13 years ago

The article mentions Mojang and Uniloc suing for the '067 patent.

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.

rooshdi3• 13 years ago

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but I've actually concluded the opposite. The patent system is so ridiculous now that it should be treated as such and developers should "infringe" as many patents as possible until the whole tyrannical system collapses on itself.

hayksaakian• 13 years ago

As a software developer you're playing a round of roulette for every 10k you make. As noble as what you're saying sounds, nobody wants to be a casualty of war.

pi18n3• 13 years ago

I think the moral is to incorporate company A, which sells source code without any warranty to company B (also yours), which sells the binaries to users. Company B is perpetually in debt to company A; if they are sued they use their remaining assets to pay A and then declare bankruptcy.

Kiro2• 13 years ago

Or move to another country. I'm glad I'm not in the US and have to deal with this crap.

triplesec• 13 years ago

I'm not really sure on this, but Uniloc owner Ric Richardson doesn't seem prima facie to fit the normal patent troll profile: he appears to be a bona fide inventor, but then I only looked at wikipedia and his blog http://ricrichardson.blogspot.co.uk/ . Doesn't mean I support his action, of course and the whle legal system is fcked, hence the problem of the trolls, like Nathan Myrhvold's "Intellectual Ventures" https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120811/02060619993/natha...

neurotech13• 13 years ago

Doesn't mean this patent is "non-obvious", not excessively vague/broad. He attracted negative attention by going after X-Plane based on a vaguely scoped patent.

ramblerman• 13 years ago

"he appears to be a bona fide inventor"

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.

spligak• 13 years ago

Slightly off-topic.

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.

ScottBurson• 13 years ago

Heh - - I think you'll find that listening raptly to someone's ravings is a great way to leave them with the impression that you're very intelligent.

mkhattab• 13 years ago

It's interesting to note that the number of patent cases in East Texas quadrupled from 2003 to 2004, from 14 to 59 cases, then increased again to 236 in 2006 [1]. Is there an economic benefit for the citizens in that district?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...

jpark• 13 years ago

Yes, that is why it is very difficult to get a change of venue out of the Eastern District.

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.

darkarmani• 13 years ago

"Just think about the logic here. The people complaining about the law suits here are complaining that a company is trying to protect it's own right to make a living from a technology that the patent office has verified as unique and novel. If you disagree then track the patent office and voice your problems with the patents as they are published."

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!

pi18n3• 13 years ago

If you disagree then watch every patent as they are published to make certain they are non-obvious? This guy is full of it. Of course you would have to be full of it to think this patent was non-obvious.

knodi• 13 years ago

I don't understand why Google isn't all over this.

neurotech13• 13 years ago

IANAL But this patent screams of "obviousness", or technically "would a person skilled in the art or science, consider this non-obvious and novel". Most likely not.

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.

thinkcomp• 13 years ago

Actual case docket:

http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2383637

dmpk2k• 13 years ago

Google won't defend someone using their technology in their ecosystem?

I hope there's more to this story, because otherwise that is a mind-bogglingly stupid move. Talk about a chilling effect.

anovikov• 13 years ago

Why don't just register companies offshore in jurisdictions that reject/ignore patent law and avoid this mess? I don't think patent trolls would have much chance offshore.

tubelite• 13 years ago

  Under the spreading patent tree,
  I sold you and you sold me.

When we're done with the well-deserved two minutes hate of patent trolls, lawyers and the broken legal system, perhaps we can consider the willing and eager participation of thousands of engineers in the corporate patent process. While it does not apply to the patent under discussion, the majority of software patents are produced not by individual inventors in garages but by employees in cubicles, then assigned to their employers.

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..

giulivo2• 13 years ago

I think the software patents regulation should to be reviewed but I see the current situation with software patents regulation very similar to what happens with copyrighted closed source software.

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!

mosselman• 13 years ago

There should be no copyrights, period. They are based on the idea of most people working in coalmines while 2 people are out there 'innovating' because they had rich parents and the fantasy in which we are all unique and all have unique ideas. Nowadays we can all be 'innovators'; or rather, we have enough wealth to be able to afford not spending all of our times slaving on our hands and knees and give our brains a little stroll in the park coming up with 'creative' ideas.

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.

Arelius4• 13 years ago

You say copyrights, but it seems very much that you mean patents. Could you clarify?

giulivo2• 13 years ago

In another post, I'm also trying to compare the similarities of the two.

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?

rooshdi3• 13 years ago

Yea, what the patent system essentially does is play musical chairs with information, but even worse.....the seat holders are incentivized to knock down all surrounding chairs.

L4mppu2• 13 years ago

Why do people accept these stupid patents?

Creator Of The X-Plane Flight Simulator Seeks Help Fighting A Patent Troll

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