DRM tech firm Uniloc, which has previously clashed with such high-profile publishers as Activision Blizzard and Sony, has now set its sights on Minecraft developer Mojang, amongst a string of other publishers and developers.
The firm previously filed a patent infringement suit against Activision Blizzard and Mac game specialist Aspyr back in 2010, also naming Sony, Borland Software, McAfee and Quark in the same suit, alleging that the defendants infringed on a patented anti-piracy product activation method for software.
Now Uniloc has filed a patent infringement suit against Swedish studio Mojang, claiming that the company is infringing on its patent "System and Method for Preventing Unauthorized Access to Electronic Data." It has also filed similar suits against numerous other companies, including Electronic Arts, Square Enix, Madfinger Games, Gameloft and Halfbrick Studios.
Uniloc alleges [PDF] that Mojang has infringed on its patent by making the Android version of Minecraft -- or "Mindcraft" as the complaint calls it -- available for purchase in such a way that communication with a server to perform a license check is required.
Similar claims are being made by Uniloc against other companies -- EA, for example, is allegedly infringing the same patent with the Android release of Bejeweled 2.
The DRM firm claims that it has been damaged as a result of the infringing conduct, and that Mojang is therefore liable. It is looking for damages and costs incurred through this alleged infringement, and is pursuing ongoing royalties for the use of the patent by Mojang.
Mojang founder Markus Persson tweeted of the news, "Unfortunately for them, they're suing us over a software patent. If needed, I will throw piles of money at making sure they don't get a cent."
Persson also went on to post about software patents on his blog, noting, "Trivial patents, such as for software, are counterproductive (they slow down technical advancement), evil (they sacrifice baby goats to baal), and costly (companies get tied up in pointless lawsuits). If you own a software patent, you should feel bad."
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Of course I think software patents are bad. Everyone thinks they're bad. That's exactly the problem. We have widespread agreement in the industry that software patents are bad, and rush to remind ourselves and others of that at every opportunity. Meanwhile we waffle over the fear that maybe we'll make less money if we make a game without giant breasts and requests for reflection on the social context of our games are denounced as censorship.
What does it say about the social responsibility of games developers when you have 99% of the community rushing to denounce the first group, but not the second? What does it say about our priorities and focus when the first comment on this article is a desire to murder patent trolls but the first two comments on Leigh's recent article on sexism amount to "shut up and fix it yourself"?
Why are we so angry at this and at http://gamasutra.com/view/news/174226/iOS_hacker_circumvents_inapp_purcha ses_App
le_working_to_shut_him_down.php and at other things like it, but not at the real ways in which our community and industry assaults, insults, and excludes people daily?
Do you really not see the weird cultural standard here?
What is important is that Leigh's previous article had 199 comments, I'm skeptical this one will reach over 50. Just because a single commenter happens to be first and uses some extreme hyperbole, has no relevance to the quality of the rest of the discussion.
Edit: In shorter form, your arguement's examples basically reads to me: "Jakub Janovsky really doesn't like patent trolls, but Vincent Hyne and James Coote think nothing specific should be done about sexism in game development; this means our industry as a whole has an issue with social responsibility" which is ridiculous.
"DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL DERAIL"
It also makes it way too risky for an individual to ever sue a large corporation - something that's already hard enough and doesn't need to be harder.
These patent trolls are usually shell companies anyway. If they had to pay out any significant fines, they'll just declare bankruptcy and leave you footing the bill regardless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation#Statutes_and_rul es_of_court_pe
nalizing_frivolous_litigation
This is a better idea than requiring to pay legal fees if you lose, since it would unjustly penalize prosecutors of legitimate cases, particularly where the decision came down to the judges interpretation of the law.
The whole system is horribly asymmetric in favour of patent holders. Excessive rights, excessive lack of effort at the PTO and excessive numbers of lawyers making a good living to ever allow reform.
A "pay for the defense" law punishes/deters people who, in the eyes of the law, have no legal case for damages.
@Tom
Seems according to wikipedia there's a limit of $25k and in the example given only $2000, not the biggest deterrent for some of these trolls.
(BTW love the example for a frivolous litigation here: guy sues the IRS on the constitutionality of taking his property (money) and gets slapped with the fine, not because taxing income is constitutional, but because it has been "long established")
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/drew_curtis_how_i_beat_a_patent_troll.html
Common sense would suggest that the above would be true, although Google had to stop using the 'Slide to Unlock' for Android..
There's so much money to be made in litigation.
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.
Anyone that thought about it for a couple minutes to figure out how to protect their software would come up with this idea. This patent is listed as 2005, it is not like this was patented back in the 70's, 80's or even the 90's when it might have been a new idea.
I'd donate to Notch's legal fees. He should kickstart it!
How is such a patent handed out?
Properly every company with a trial version is in violation of this patent!