After reading into it, I am pretty much sure that this guy is just doing this to get money. He has sued MANY companies, and, surprisingly, won many of them, including one with Microsoft for $388 million. This won't go well for Mojang...
Knowing how stubborn Notch is, it probably will go well. For everyone besides Uniloc.
Wow thats some kinda crazy. To take on Square Enix, EA, and Mojang on all at once seems suicidal when going for a trial by jury. Any normal person would be able to see them for what they are. Money grubbing thieves. As for mispelling Minecraft thats about icing on the cake. Unfortunately that won't hurt their Non-case, because they say "including,but not limited to, Mindcraft."
If you guys knew Uniloc, you'd know that they're a notorious and infamous patent troll. They have sued over 70 freaking companies such as Microsoft, Activision, EA (whose lawsuit seems similar to this one), and Aspyr Media, and they're now targeting Mojang. If anything, this will likely be a lot worse than Bethesda's recent lawsuit against Mojang.
Let's hope that this security software knows a thing or two about securing emails and phone numbers from angry or troll emails and phone calls from Minecrafters. [Points at bottom of the PDF.]
Notch should post their (snail mail) address, e-mail address, and phone number on the front page of Minecraft.net. It would take a DNS and spam attack to a new level and give this company a glimpse into what the fan community could do in this case.
Of course it's biased, this is their forum. If Uniloc had a forum, they'd make it look like Mojang and all the others were bad and they were good.
Also, if you look into the issue and the patent at hand, you would realize that Uniloc really is the bad guy here. The thing they patented makes no sense.
I sincerely hope they get counter-sued for things like this. Even with just one lawsuit against them, pretty much every one they tried to sue is going to jump on the bandwagon, full steam ahead, aiming at the heart of the beast.
It would be nice to nail them, but the problem with patent trolls like this is that suing them into the ground is ineffective. Since they don't produce anything other than legal briefs, affidavits, and other legal documents, about the only thing you would be able to obtain from a lawsuit is their photocopy machine... which is likely to be leased as well. I guess their filing cabinets might be worth a little bit of money.
If this company goes out of business, the "owners" simply regroup and start up somewhere else doing the same thing. They may end up losing a couple of patents in the process, but they are either buying up patents from other failing companies or sitting down with some software developers and filing a blizzard of patent applications until a few of them stick and are accepted by the USPTO. Since a typical programmer thinks up about a dozen different things every day in order to simply do their job that may even be novel or unique that they haven't seen before, it is entirely possible that somebody else somewhere else has also thought up the same thing without them knowing about it.
This is also one of the reasons why software patents are such a horrible idea and doesn't really help those that it claims to protect: an ordinary programmer who works real hard to come up with something new and original.
"12. Mojang 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, Mindcraft. "
This entire lawsuit is complete rubbish beacause in the lawsuit PDF it says they're suing over infractions caused by a game called 'Mindcraft'. Since Mojang have never released a games called Mindcraft, Uniloc therefore doesn't have a case. So the moral is: always spellcheck official court documents!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely. Lacre cannot bury the law. All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
Quoted directly from their website. "In 2009 a Federal Court jury in Rhode Island found Microsoft guilty of willful infringement and ordered Microsoft to pay Uniloc $388 Million in damages. Both sides stipulated that there is an additional $86 Million in interest owed to Uniloc. Later that year the judge in the case overturned the jury’s verdict." So does this mean they actually lost the case in the end?
This entire lawsuit is complete rubbish beacause in the lawsuit PDF it says they're suing over infractions caused by a game called 'Mindcraft'. Since Mojang have never released a games called Mindcraft, Uniloc therefore doesn't have a case. So the moral is: always spellcheck official court documents!
The reason it's misspelled is probably because they are assigning lawyers to the case that fail to actually research the companies or products they offer. This happens all too often and yet people still give in to them. Sort of ridiculous, eh?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's hard criticizing ideas when one is tired, so you'd better appreciate it when I criticize yours.
Can't someone counter-sue/sue a company for falsely suing a company? Especially to this magnitude? Isn't this like...against the law or something? We should all get together and sue Uniloc for just being a money-hungry, falsely-suing, idiots. They're not even that big of a company. They somehow got away with patening something that would literally pretty much make it so no one can program, so that only they can be the programmers. Isn't it a crime to make a law so that only you can be the big business?
1) It's ridiculous that this is being played off as ridiculous because the patent isn't understood by the average gamer.
2) You say it's "awful" that a company is suing another for something silly, and for something it has actually developed? Yeh, well how about your beloved apple? They abuse the legal progress. The last time I checked, they didn't invent sliding doors, but still tried to get the Galaxy Nexus banned for having a slide to unlock feature. They come up with a stupid lawsuit for a generalised patent (e.g. something that is phone shaped) force the temporary banning of its opponents, and then delay the court case as long as they can. Normally get laughed out of court, and then carry on. And this is from Steve Jobs, the man who always "promoted" innovation? Nearly all new apple features are 100% rip offs (including pure code) of other people's work.
tl;dr - If you are reading this, why do you think you have the intellect to comment on a legal patent issue?
It's ridiculous because it is ridiculous. Software patents in general are ridiculous. They should not even exist.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's hard criticizing ideas when one is tired, so you'd better appreciate it when I criticize yours.
You're thinking of a Monopoly.Unfortunately this is not the case as they can "allow" companies the ability to protect themselves.... Wait, what? You mean unless I pay this random company money I can't legally protect myself from piracy?
Unfortunately, they have won in the past, even getting $388 million from Microsoft...
Let's hope that this security software knows a thing or two about securing emails and phone numbers from angry or troll emails and phone calls from Minecrafters. [Points at bottom of the PDF.]
Let's all hope so!
TEACH THESE GUYS NOT TO MESS WITH MINECRAFT, NOTCH!
Of course it's biased, this is their forum. If Uniloc had a forum, they'd make it look like Mojang and all the others were bad and they were good.
A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely. Lacre cannot bury the law. All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
i like that idea.
I like how you suppose he supports Uniloc by saying the thread title is biased. What kind of an idiot are you?
Also, if you look into the issue and the patent at hand, you would realize that Uniloc really is the bad guy here. The thing they patented makes no sense.
It would be nice to nail them, but the problem with patent trolls like this is that suing them into the ground is ineffective. Since they don't produce anything other than legal briefs, affidavits, and other legal documents, about the only thing you would be able to obtain from a lawsuit is their photocopy machine... which is likely to be leased as well. I guess their filing cabinets might be worth a little bit of money.
If this company goes out of business, the "owners" simply regroup and start up somewhere else doing the same thing. They may end up losing a couple of patents in the process, but they are either buying up patents from other failing companies or sitting down with some software developers and filing a blizzard of patent applications until a few of them stick and are accepted by the USPTO. Since a typical programmer thinks up about a dozen different things every day in order to simply do their job that may even be novel or unique that they haven't seen before, it is entirely possible that somebody else somewhere else has also thought up the same thing without them knowing about it.
This is also one of the reasons why software patents are such a horrible idea and doesn't really help those that it claims to protect: an ordinary programmer who works real hard to come up with something new and original.
Version 2.1 now updated for MC 1.6.2
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, Mindcraft. "
They even spelled Minecraft wrongly >
A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely. Lacre cannot bury the law. All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.