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).
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
A former colleague of mine had information in his thesis which could invalidate a certain patent. For various unplanned reasons his thesis was not available online nor through his alma mater.
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!"
I just watched the talk, and Troll Busters's comment is misplaced. Curtis didn't say exactly how much he spent defeating this troll, but it wasn't any $2M and probably not even $50k. He said he just asked for screenshots showing the alleged infringement, and the troll failed to provide any. When the troll pressed for settlement nonetheless, Curtis offered him zero, and the troll accepted. When the settlement agreement arrived, he crossed out the NDA provision, signed it, and sent it back. It was returned signed (to the surprise of Curtis's attorney). Curtis evidently did consult with his attorney a little, so it must have cost him something, but it didn't sound like it was very much.
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.
If you have good invalidating prior art, re-exam is cost effective and scary for the patentee. Not only can it knock out the patent, even a small change to the claim language in light of the prior art during re-exam means that the patentee can not collect damages prior to the modification. This affects the troll's current target and past and future licensees as well.
Even if you don't go into a reexam, it is a stick to wave to try to bring about a more reasonable settlement.
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.
Than kyou for the voice of reason. Yes as the inventor of the 216 patent it was pretty ahead of its time... while I understand the companies 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.
Since you're here, could you give a statement on this current suit versus Laminar Research? How do you justify suing an independent developer over a common technology provided by Google? Why aren't you suing Google instead?
"... 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.
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.
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.
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.