Signed also ... patent trolling is a big problem that our wonderful government seems unwilling to do anything about (read too complicated for them to understand or make an intelligent decision). But I think the real reason patent trolling still exists is because it's big money ... money = lobbyist = politics = safety -- it's also a big attraction for Lawyers.

But it is interesting seeing people who normally get on their high horse and preach about the evils of software piracy sing an entirely different song when they see these laws burning them.

 

You seem to not understand patent trolling ... piracy is theft, patent trolling has nothing to do with theft. Theft in any context isn't a good thing for existing consumers and/or the producers of content ... piracy does three things:

 

1. Increases the cost of the product to honest consumers

2. Makes the environment unattractive to investment (read reduction in products and quality)

3. Puts smaller Indie content producers out of business

 

There is no "high horse" here ... that would only be interpreted as such by someone that is a thief and has stolen software before. This isn't a game of "Robin Hood" ... that's a fictional story in wonderland, this IS real life. I believe people should get paid for their work and efforts and have the ability to continue (re-invest profits) those same worth ethics. But piracy and patent trolling is NOT the same, not even related at all.

 

Uniloc claims their patent:

 

a system and method ... for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data stored on an electronic device.

 

More specifically "Product Activation" :

 

In one form, product activation refers to a method invented by Ric Richardson and patented (US 5,490,216) by Uniloc where a software application hashes hardware serial numbers and an ID number specific to the product's license (a product key) to generate a unique installation ID. This installation ID is sent to the manufacturer to verify the authenticity of the product key and to ensure that the product key is not being used for multiple installations.

 

This never should have been granted in the first place ... that would be like me filing a patent to a method of how to go to the bathroom and that any time someone wanted to go to the bathroom as described in my "method" they'd have to pay me to do so. Uniloc is suing everyone and anyone from EA to Microsoft to NewEgg to you name it.

 

Read up more on Uniloc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniloc -- they have sued 73 companies with 25 companies settling. Read up on Ric Richardson -- he ain't the Robin Hood you may think he is, he's leveraging a patent on a common concept (coding practice) ... the patent should never have been issued. Ric is all about money and he's made a ton of it ... when he needs more, his now very large legal team goes out looking for more. I guess his legal team must be getting desperate for money, picking on the smaller companies now. Anyway, the "Uniloc" process is being used less and less these days as most companies elect to use a different method and eventually the "Uniloc" method will not be used by anyone ... yeah for Ric, hope he's proud of his achievement and can put on his grave stone "Got rich with lawyers".

 

Maybe I should patent the method of looping a collection of objects ... anyone that wants to perform any type of loop in code has to pay me -- this is the type of "concept" Ric was able patent.

 

Fortunately we have Steam, it's by far the best approach to preventing and monitoring piracy and also isn't using the "Uniloc" process and Steam works very well for when one moving games/apps to another PC. Austin M. should think about contact Steam and moving his distribution over to them.

Steam would not help here due to as far as I am aware steam is not for Android, and only windows

 

Sent from my Galaxy SIII using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Steam is for Windows/mac/Linux these days... Think the beta for Linux went public just recently.

 

Skickat från min GT-I9300 via Tapatalk 2

 

 

What I'd like to know is how Uniloc found out Laminar was using their system in the first place. The Google Market protection and licensing scheme documentation says nothing on the origins or legal aspect of it, so I assume Laminar chose a different protection scheme from the Google one? I am referring to the documentation on the Android developer site on how to implement licensing and protection/obfuscation.

 

Going back to my first point, I would also assume that someone somewhere (possibly at Uniloc) reverse engineered X-Plane and found out that it was theirs? I was under the impression that reverse engineering a product was also an infringement on licensing. If this is the situation, can Laminar counter sue? I haven't used X-Plane on Android but I find it slightly strange that one can identify a licensing scheme without some form of reversing involved (unless it has a trademark written in bold, such as StarForce, et al...)

 

Regards,

MJ

What I'd like to know is how Uniloc found out Laminar was using their system in the first place.

 

To be clear, Ric's patent is not a "system" ... is a patent on a commonly used coding practices that we software engineers (me included) use as one of many solutions available to us ... we still define the process, write the code that calls the OS resources/DLLS that return the hardware ID's and then we use a hash to generate a value ... this is ALL our own code that we write, there is no "system" in place.

 

Ric's Lawyers don't need to reverse engineer anything, they file a lawsuit under the assumption this "concept" was being used and then offer a cheaper out of court settlement - this is what Ric's lawyers expect. And yes I wouldn't be surprised if Ric's army of lawyers is running low on funds and needs to generate more, hence they're going after the smaller companies ... bottom feeders. A more disturbing idea is that Laminar's competition may have tipped off Ric's Lawyers ... but whomever or however, it's too late now.

 

Personally I don't know how Ric Richardson is able to sleep every night.

 

Laminars options:

 

1. Get the Patent revoked

2. Get US government to stop these ridiculous patents (hence this petition)

3. Relocate the company (Laminar) to a country that will do nothing with patent litigation (such as China)

 

Sadly, it looks like the end of any future X-Plane development if this lawsuit continues.

Laminars options:

 

1. Get the Patent revoked

2. Get US government to stop these ridiculous patents (hence this petition)

3. Relocate the company (Laminar) to a country that will do nothing with patent litigation (such as China)

 

Sadly, it looks like the end of any future X-Plane development if this lawsuit continues.

 

I would say the fourth option is to not run the company in to the ground which I think you implied could happen if options 1-3 did not pan out.

 

Rather than walk away with nothing and loosing my company I would consider paying the scumbags. I am still not sure if we know how much the royalties would be. We could consider it to be none of our business but if LR has asked us to help fund the $1.5M then I would like to know if I donate $50 is this to save myself a future additional $1 in pricing to pay for the license. That does not make sense. Paying far more in lawyers fees than you would ever pay in licenses doesnt make sense at all - from a business perspective.

 

His other option is to remove his products from android store, he may get a lot of publicity doing that. It would no doubt raise the profile of the problem somewhat. Even if he was to only do it for a little while as a stunt. That is the kind of thing developers said they would do which got apple in to the fray to sort it out.

Jason,

 

I think the problem is that Laminar would have to pay for existing infringement in addition to paying a royalty for continued "use of concept". But keep in mind Ric has only successfully sued 25 out of 73, so Laminar have about a 66% chance of winning their case. However, I'm not a Lawyer so I don't know if Laminar can also recover legal costs if they do indeed win their case.

 

There are other ways to get exposure that are probably more effective than pulling his product from the Android store -- that will just reduce revenue towards potential legal fees.

 

I think fight and stand a 66% chance of success would be a better option. It does seem very suspecious that this lawsuit was filed just about when XP10 is released with a 64bit beta -- so we really don't know if competitors are involved or not ... if this was instigated (aka tipped off) by a competitor then it's unlikely any settlement is going to be a good thing for Laminar.

 

This is all conjecture and I have no idea of Laminar's financial state ... I do know they've sold over 1,000,000 units (combined over various platforms) over the years (I think they did actually pass up FSX sales numbers but that's a combined number).

 

But what this could mean for existing FSX 3rd party developers should also be a BIG CONCERN ... I know several 3rd party FSX products that use Ric's same "concept" in Product Activiation. I think Laminar is just a start and Ric's lawyers have found a big lake of potential legal revenue ... I can easily see how this lawsuit will spread to many of the 3rd party vendors represented here and elsewhere ... a stand needs to be made.

 

Rob

Sigh. I am still hoping for a good outcome for Laminar. But I would be lying if I said I was not worried about them. Selfishly, I want x-Plane to continue to improve and grow! And let's face it, legal troubles are more than expensive - they are enough to consume the resources of even the most brilliant of minds! I'd rather have Austin and his team writing x-Plane code than worrying about a court case. Period.

But keep in mind Ric has only successfully sued 25 out of 73

 

Those 25 companies settled, they didn't win in court. They probably settled because even if they thought they could win in court, it would cost far too much in time and money to do so. After fighting Microsoft for years in court, Microsoft settled in the end as the final appeal was overturned in Uniloc's favour.

Sigh. I am still hoping for a good outcome for Laminar. But I would be lying if I said I was not worried about them. Selfishly, I want x-Plane to continue to improve and grow! And let's face it, legal troubles are more than expensive - they are enough to consume the resources of even the most brilliant of minds! I'd rather have Austin and his team writing x-Plane code than worrying about a court case. Period.

 

Agree, but I think this is only beginning for Flight Sim software related companies ... XP or FSX or otherwise.

Agree, but I think this is only beginning for Flight Sim software related companies ... XP or FSX or otherwise.

 

Sadly - I am afraid you may be right, which is why (I think) Austin is so hell-bent on fighting this case - because in his heart he knows that if he 'settles', it will only serve to engender a floodgate of similar claims, just or unjust - it doesn't matter. I admire Mr. Meyer for his courage and determination. I hate the fact that in this country, you can be a very small fish, and left alone - but perish the thought you actually 'become somebody' - then you're a 'target'. What happens is the American Dream becomes the American Nightmare (Litigation). It's worse than cancer. At least there is a possibility of finding a cure for cancer. There is no known cure for greed and avarice. And like cancer, when you read about someone in Laminar's situation, you feel sorry for them and glad it's not you at the same moment.

Laminars options:

 

1. Get the Patent revoked

2. Get US government to stop these ridiculous patents (hence this petition)

3. Relocate the company (Laminar) to a country that will do nothing with patent litigation (such as China)

 

I think the first two are hopes rather than options. I'm not an expert in such matters but if I was faced with an infringement lawsuit like this, my only (legal) options with be:

a. File for bankruptsy

b. Settlement

c. Fight, in return for somebody buying a controlling stake in my company (somebody acting as a proxy for a competing company maybe?)

 

I've made my contribution to the fight fund, but it would still need 14999 other people to make a $100 contribution to mount a credible legal fight. Going by the number of petition signatures so far, that just ain't gonna happen.

 

In the face of that reality, the best chance of winning (legally) is mount a strong publicity campaign. Getting on to the news is a good start, but I feel that really it's not to win hearts and minds, it's to get funding from someone with deep pockets - which brings me back to option c.

 

I don't know chance of winning there is if LR simply ignores uniloc. I'm guessing uniloc could get fed up, and the thing wouldn't go to trial.

 

There was a similar case involving a company in the UK called ACS:Law. They sent out speculative letters to alleged copyright infringers demanding money. Plenty of people settled out of court, but plenty more simply ignored the letters. One case was won by default (defendants didn't show up in court) and another due to go to court but I believe it went belly up when ACS tried to play silly games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS:Law

ACS went into administration soon after. Good Riddance!

The base patent is flawed.

 

The method covered by the base patent is a method that was in use on desktop computers long before the patent was applied for. However, to allow for said patent to exist the individual who filed for the patent simply made it apply only to cell phones.

 

Thus what they did was take an idea that alread existed, claimed it as applying only to cell phones (mobile devices) and thus claimed it was a 'new and original' idea.

 

It's a scam, no more, no less.

 

The reason they get away with it is because the patent office doesn't recognize that a smart phone is simply a computer that makes phone calls.

Maybe this will be the relief that Mr. Meyers and Laminar Research are looking for. http://news.yahoo.com/obama-steps-rein-patent-lawsuits-white-house-124154119.html