Uniloc is a company with a history of patent trolling. It's now steamrolling companies with lawsuits.
"Step 1: Wake up. Step 2: Check email. Step 3: See we're being sued for patent infringement. Step 4: Smile" read Mojang co-founder Notch's Twitter feed on the morning of the 21st.
The suing party is Uniloc, a Luxembourg-based company that, according to the company's own site, "discovers and develops big ideas that are technology driven." Delving a bit into Uniloc's past reveals that the company's apparently more interested in patent trolling that fulfilling any of the lofty aims its set out for itself.
Back in 2003, Uniloc sued Microsoft over a software licensing method that founder Ric Richardson had patented (Patent No. 5,490,216) back in 1996. The company accused Microsoft of violating the patent with how product activation worked in Microsoft Office. After almost a decade of legal battles, Uniloc finally ended on top after whittling out $388 million from Microsoft.
But Uniloc's suit with Microsoft alone doesn't make it a patent troll. Since then, the company's been shotgun suing companies right and left. Each of these legal battles are proudly displayed on the company website's "News" tab.
In June 2010, Uniloc filed suits against Sony, Activision Blizzard, Aspyr Media, Borland Software, McAfee, and quark over the same patent.
Not content with being embroiled in seven different suits, the company then slapped Symantec, Adobe, CA Inc., National Instrments, Pervasive Softwa, SafeNet, Avid Technology, Sonic Solutions, and Onyx Graphics with lawsuits over the same patent just a few months later in September 2010.
Now, the company's back at it again with a different patent. Patent 6,857,067 details a simple server authentication process via a smart card reader, which Uniloc claims Mojang is violating "[sic]by orthrough making, using, offering for sale, selling and/or importing Android basedapplications for use on cellular phones and/or tablet devices that require communication with aserver to perform a license check to prevent the unauthorized use of said application, including,but not limited to, Mindcraft." Yes, Mindcraft.
Once again, Uniloc isn't content without having an entire slew of lawsuits to slog through. On July 20th, the company not only filed suit against Mojang, but EA, Madfinger Games, Full Fat Productions, Gameloft, Laminar Research, Polarbit, Square Enix, and Halfbrick Studios. Reddit user Zippy54 spotted and tracked down every single one of these claims, which are aggregated in the top post here.
Don't bother reading past the "Mindcraft" filing, as the rest of them are essentially carbon copies. Uniloc is seeking payment for damages both pre and post judgment. With the patent wars already as confusing as it is, Uniloc adding quite a few more suits to the case really isn't helping.
Stay tuned for more from this saga...
http://www.techatron.net/2012/07/samsung-sells-more-than-10-million.html
I just purchased Mindcraft and the new imagination upgrade. I'm pretty sure I'll be recreating Rome pretty soon.
Pathetic. Uniloc just proved that not only are they morons but their three lawyers are too.
You two apparently don't pay attention to detail huh?
add more risk to the patent trolling, If you lose then you lose the patent.
and if needed, also add personal risk. If you patent troll and lose, you get arrested for filing a false report (patent system is a law system which is why lawsuit can work) and an unsuccessful case means a false report of patent infringement, so punish all those involved the same way you would punish people for doing things like swatting (prank calls to get the police to send a swat team to someones home)
and do like a 3 strike policy where if they have 3 failed cases then they all of their assets will be given to the defendants in the 3 failed cases and the owners of the patent trolling company will be arrested for patent trolling. (this will make it so that a patent case will only happen for exact patents and none of the vague crap (eg suing a company because you have a patent for sending any form of data over a copper wire (where the idea is patented meaning they follow the patent troll system where you take something that is being done now (eg if it was when electricity was was just discovered and the method for time delayed communications was written text, then you would patent sending the information over a wire and not describe how)
anyway most of these issues will be solved if they made it more risky to start a patent case.
if you have actual proper evidence of a patent infringement then you have nothing to worry about.
I looked up "Mindcraft" in Google, and it didn't show up.
"They deserve it" ?
Keep in mind that any settlement amounts are simply passed on to the consumer of their respective products. You and I are paying for their lawyer's new Ferrari !
Click on the link that the author of this article was good enough to include for you.
1) Any and all companies involved in a history of patent bullying and found guilty, shall further cease and desist from any further lawsuits from a universal court order. Punishment for said company may also include reparations of up to the maximum court settlement amounts from settled cases of previously-sued companies to be back-payed (scare tactic).
2) Any company filing lawsuit without an actual physical product on the marketplace being actively produced and sold (paper patent trolls) shall have no grounds for litigation.
Done, that ought to wipe out half of the nonsense.