Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Patent Troll Claims Minecraft Infringement

Posted by timothy on from the two-varieties-of-blockhead dept.

First time accepted submitter ubrgeek writes "Popular game Minecraft has hit the big time: It's being sued for infringement by patent troll Uniloc who claims the game infringes a patent it holds on copy protection software. Developer Markus 'Notch' Persson sounds like he's up for the challenge: '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.'"

17 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. I hope.. by JustNiz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He pounds the troll into the ground then sues them for damages, defamation and costs.

    1. Re:I hope.. by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Good to see that someone truly understands the prisoner's dillemma. On the whole in society, it's best to always choose what's best for everyone and not best for you, but if you come across a group like this, it makes perfect sense to single them out and punish them. I really wish more corporates, companies and people did this. It would really help to diminish the amount of successful selfish people in the world.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    2. Re:I hope.. by Afecks · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Good to see that someone truly understands the prisoner's dillemma.

      Life is not prisoner's dilemma. It's iterated prisoner's dilemma because people can actually build up reputations. It's been shown that the best stable strategy is tit-for-tat plus forgiveness.

    3. Re:I hope.. by Genda · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can't even begin to tell how many ways this comment is a brain fart, but here are some of the high points;

      1. Get your facts straight, the oldest U.S. patent is from 1790, but that only because of the age of the U.S. central government. The oldest patent in North America goes back to 1641 and there are Greek writings of registered disclosure of invention going back to about 500 B.C., so yes, patents have been here for a wee bit.

      2. Nobody said get rid of patents. At least in this culture, the original purpose of patents was to spur invention by protecting an inventors rights to his own creation for some fair period of time, allowing to benefit from his creativity and productivity. These laws were instrumental to the explosion of ideas and technologies that made the United States an industrial and economic force in the 19th century.

      3. Since then, the patent has been hijacked to build ever larger and higher fortifications from which to control greater bodies of IP, and the free flow of ideas and invention. Existing patent law is antithetical to its original purpose and is becoming an increasing impediment to invention, innovation and technological advance.

      4. Therefore, when extremely bright, articulate and educated people discuss the dilemmas facing society and speculate on possible solutions that address the needs and wants of corporate America vs. the needs and wants of the human race, you might want to refrain from painting everyone with the idiot brush. The only one who actually ends up looking stupid is the guy holding the brush.

      5. Microsoft paying the patent trolls with what amounts to folding money for Bill Gates, functions out of simple expedience, its easier feeding the trolls than spending ten times as much on the court costs. The trolls only ask for what they know they can get way with... think of mosquitoes.

      6. Minecraft may or may not have a superb chance of wining their case, the point here is that they will not be bullied or threatened by a blood sucking parasite, and I for one hope the troll get's it head stomp.

      I don't know if you get any of this, it may be beyond you. There is a time when the right thing transcends the easy thing, I applaud the makers of Minecraft for doing the right thing, and I would love to see permanent changes written to the body of patent law to remove the growing flood of idiot patents plaguing society.

    4. Re:I hope.. by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with that suggestion is this: Depending on the company even if you win...you'll lose.

      I had a friend that was running a little ISP that was basically railroaded by one of the bigger carriers. It was obviously an antitrust slam dunk, not to mention they had ignored the contracts they had signed as well as making sure nobody else would deal with his little company. So why isn't my friend sitting on a beach enjoying his victory? Because his lawyer said "Oh there isn't a doubt in my mind you'll win, none at all, but it'll cost you a good million and a half and 10 years of your life to get to the end" so needless to say since my friend didn't have a million and a half nor 10 years of his life he wished to through away in court he walked away.

      Look at how long it took to finally end the SCO mess, and that case was so damned obvious Ray Charles could have seen that SCO was full of shit. The reason that many settle is that unless you have nothing better to do with years of your life, not to mention great piles of money to piss away, its simply smarter to make it go away.

      Think about it, this guy is just a little developer....how many more games is he NOT gonna put out and NOT gonna get the money from, because he's too tied up in court bullshit to be working on games? Now do i think that is right? Fuck no, I think the system stinks. But what the system IS and what it OUGHT to be are sadly two different things and as it is this guy will in all likelihood lose a ton of money he'll never see again even if he wins. Lets face it friend, if they lose they'll just fold and start up a new firm doing the same shit tomorrow while this guy won't see a cent.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    5. Re:I hope.. by StillAnonymous · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I disagree due to the fact that people can reverse engineer almost anything, making most trade secrets useless. If someone figures out your trade secret, you're hooped, that's all. If you have a patent though, even if someone else doesn't know about it and comes up with their implementation on their own, you still get to sue them. The patent lottery continues.

      Have you read a recent patent? It's a joke. Deliberately unreadably-lawyeresque writing style, extremely vague so that they can sue anybody who implements anything even remotely similar (ie. patenting an idea, which is something you're specifically NOT supposed to be able to do), and becoming frequently more and more obvious within the realm the cover. Slip your patent in, then sue anybody who becomes profitable using a similar idea in a product. If you're lucky, they'll setting for millions and you won't even have to go to court.

      Fuck this broken system. It's been gamed to death by filthy, parasitic scum. I seriously hope these patent trolls get crushed hard. I doubt it though. The system is so bought off and corrupt, real justice is as rare as rocking-horse shit.

    6. Re:I hope.. by TechnoCore · · Score: 5, Informative

      Life is not prisoner's dilemma. It's iterated prisoner's dilemma because people can actually build up reputations. It's been shown that the best stable strategy is tit-for-tat plus forgiveness.

      Do you have a reference? I would be super-thankful.

      I think he might be referring to this where Richard Dawkins explains it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48EWLj3gIJ8

    7. Re:I hope.. by ultranova · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Corporations are made up of people.

      No, they aren't. Corporations are legal constructs made of legal fiction. They may or may not have legal relationships - such as ownership or employment - to people, but they are not made of people.

      People have rights. Those rights cannot be taken away (being inalienable and all). So, no, "corporations" don't have rights, but the people who own those corporations *do*.

      And nobody's suggested taking their rights away. But tell me: if I draw a cartoon, do the characters in that cartoon have legal rights? Do I get in trouble if I draw a piano falling on them? No? Then why should any other fictitious construct - such as a corporation - have them?

      In a sense, those corporations sure are people.

      By your logic, Pythagora's Theorem is a person.

      You want to rail against corporate abuse? Get rid of the lack of responsibilities. It's that, more than anything, that makes corporations misbehave. The problem isn't the "personhood" of the corporation, but the half-personhood.

      So how do you propose throwing a corporation behind bars? The worst you can do to a corporation is give it a (usually ridiculously small) fine, and even then we get a chorus of people bitterly explaining how it'll simply pass it on to the customers (not that that's relevant for a patent troll or other nonproductive parasites).

      A fictitious entity cannot be held responsible for anything because it does not exist, thus it shouldn't have rights either.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  2. Let's see them ... by Spacejock · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... dig their way out of this one.

    Sorry, but it had to be said.

    --
    Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
  3. Fuck Patent Law in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Enough of this crap. Patent and copyright trolling needs to end now!

  4. Watch out Blizzard you're next by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 5, Funny


    ...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...

    Sometimes Battle.net 2.0 is all about logging on to a server to play a singleplayer or LAN game.

    Software patents are so dumb. Just because some idiot patents something obvious doesn't mean the rest of us should not be able to do the obvious thing. What if someone patented walking in a straight line? The rest of society would be relegated to drinking heavily, or inventing silly walks.

    --
    God spoke to me
  5. Not just Minecraft by ildon · · Score: 5, Informative

    They're also suing Square Enix, EA, and Gameloft (basically everyone).

    http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/365540/20120721/minecraft-notch-mojang-lawsuit-patent-troll-software.htm

    1. Re:Not just Minecraft by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Honestly it would be cheaper to just put a hit on the guy doing all the lawsuits.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    2. Re:Not just Minecraft by Ronin441 · · Score: 5, Funny

      But in the case where they're suing many different people, it might not be cheaper for any one party to pay for the hit.

      What we need is a way to crowdfund assassination of patent trolls.

      Hitstarter.

  6. Re:Damn by Ouchie · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bought two more copies of Minecraft just to fund their defense.

    --
    "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." ~Ozzy Osborne
  7. More specifically by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    in the initial round it is best to be the nice guy, after that just mirror what the other side has done to you. Of course this assumes a closed system with an unlimited number of interactions.

    So in this case one party is being negative to another and has a reputation for always doing so. The appropriate thing for Notch to do is to be as ruthless as possible within legal restrictions. It is unlikely the patent troll will have a second round with you, and will never not take the negative option. Therefore it is best to take them for all they are worth, if you can.

    Amazing how common sense and game theory comes to the same conclusions given the same input.

  8. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    What hard work? Did you even read the patent? This guy had an idea and patented it. He built no product. He did no work. He is attempting to steal the hard work of people who actually created unique inventions and products which happened to have a (what should be considered obvious) method of verification.

    Literally, the entire patent is: Take smart card (someone else's hard work), insert into smart card reader (someone else's hard work) attached to a computer (someone else's hard work) that is also attached to the internet (someone else's hard work), and communicate to server (someone else's hard work) to receive authentication (someone else's hard work) for the smart card's contents.

    There is not a single part of that that is not someone else's hard work that Uniloc is leeching off of, and you have the gall to defend these asshats?