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Patent Troll Sues X-Plane
symbolset writes "X-plane is a cross-platform flight simulator app, notably the only serious one that supports Mac OSX and Linux. It was the first to include NASA data in their terrain modelling. It's now under threat by an NPE (Non-Practicing Entity) called Uniloc. Uniloc is suing for things X-Plane has done for decades. X-plane cannot afford to defend this suit, so if somebody doesn't step up and defend them then we lose X-plane forever. Quoting: 'I have spoken to a lawyer about this, and I am told that it will cost me about $1,500,000 (one and a half million dollars) to defend this suit. He also told me that it should take about two to three years to defend. This is more money than I have made selling Android Apps in the first place.'"
...but (FTFA)
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Where did "selling Android Apps" enter the picture? Turns out the patent has nothing to do with "things X-Plane has done for decades". Couldn't the editors have checked that?
It enters into the picture because x-Plain is using a standard Android API developed by Google and shipped with Android to check if the user bought the package before allowing it to be used.
This pretty much means Google is going to go after the Troll since the patents cited have plenty of prior art that the patent office overlooked.
The editors could have checked for this, but quite frankly you could have clicked a link an RTFA.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
One day I'll come on slashdot and read "Patent Troll had his legs broken by unknown assailants, was tarred and then dumped in a bin of shredded legal papers. :
* Laminar Research is being sued specifically for the Android version
* Uniloc is suing Laminar Research because X-Plane phones home to validate it's license
* X-Plane is using a system for license validation provided by Google. Nearly everyone else in the Android market is using this same code, so Uniloc is not going to stop here.
I would say Laminar Research needs to get EFF on the phone but I don't know if they would help defend a commercial product.
You need to move to a free country. Innovation is dead in this country. If you don't have several million dollars, you're nobody. You aren't entitled to legal protection, you're just a consumer waiting to be extorted. I'm not saying this to be sarcastic or political; I mean it. Move your development overseas, contribute under an alias, use Tor, whatever it takes. The United States is not a place for innovators or creators to be right now. It is, however, a great place for lawyers and thieves.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Isn't it cheaper, not to mention more socially responsible, to simply bomb that company's headquarters?
Ezekiel 23:20
Actually he says he does have that kind of money:
And it sounds like not only does have have that kind of money, but he has lots more too.
The summary is, as usually, fairly terribad.
The patent (filed 2001, granted 2005) is for remote license checking. This, you may surmise, is ancient technology. It's ubiquitous technology. It's an egregiously bad candidate for a patent (in my non-lawyer opinion). But, there it is.
The "decades" part has nothing explicit to do with X-Plane, or with the Android license checking API. It has entirely to do with the fact that remote license checking has been done for decades, not that X-Plane has been doing it for decades.
Way to misinterpret TFA when constructing the summary, Original Submitter. (Assuming Editor didn't botch the summary and make it look like they're quoting the Submitter's pristine words.)
I love this place. It makes "finding the real story" into a bizarre and almost-entertaining "Where's Waldo" game.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
What makes X Plane more serious than Flight Gear, let alone the only serious one?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
You Bastard! Now Uniloc will know who else to sue!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"...without the user's permission"
You click an "Accept & Download" button when installing anything from the Play Store. listed under that button is the permissions the app requires.
I got hit by a patent troll a few years back. I used the same technique that I'd used when MSFT once approached us and said they thought we might be infringing on their IP and could we prove that we're not. And again when another large company said we needed to change our logo because it looked like we had dotted a capital 'i', and they owned that. Just ignore them. We got one additional letter from the patent troll, and that was the last ever heard. As someone else has said, these people are looking for deep pools of money.
In the first instance, ignore. If they demand that you must do something by some certain date, ignore. When they send the follow-up, ignore. If they come back a third time, then send a really badly written letter produced on a manual typewriter or written in crayon with a hand-written envelope telling them what they're claiming isn't applicable, but provide no details. Make yourself look small, impoverished and hard work.
Oh, this must be that trickle down economics I hear so much about
"Hey everyone, Im rich, but I need help defending the thing you all love because I dont really wanna pay for it."
Wait, what?
So... he got sued because his proprietary software's DRM system infringes a troll's patent on DRM systems?
He's the lesser of two evils. I hope he wins, but it's hard to give a crap, really.
If he wins, a patent troll is defeated, which is good.
If he loses, DRM becomes harder to do, because of the patent, which is also good.
Either way, money changes hands from two asshats to their lawyers, who, quite likely are equally asshats, which is thus neutral.
X-Plane does aerodynamic simulations on that no other civilian solution can touch.
It would be nice if Google actually went after this troll; however, this troll obviously knows they're probability of surviving against Google is 0 so they went after these 8 developers. Heck, even Oracle didn't survive against Google.
The trick shot there is these 8 developers convincing a judge that the patent is invalid because of "prior art" if you will (see this link from Laminar Research); or if it's considered valid that the plaintiff should go after Google instead. If the judge agrees the case is over for the plaintiff.
"X-plane is a cross-platform flight simulator app, notably the only serious one that supports Mac OSX and Linux."
And here I've been using http://flightgear.org/ all this time. I thought I was using a serious, free, GPL open-source flight simulator that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.. I'm glad this slashdot post came up to tell me I was wrong.
Dude charges for X-plane.. When you decide to charge for software you accept all the financial responsibility for defending it against litigation. Welcome to it.
FAA certification?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This is known as Asshat Economics. Money slowly trickles into the hands of asshats, and once there, it just moves around between the asshats to create the illusion that they are doing something meaningful.
The patent (filed 2001, granted 2005) is for remote license checking.
You mean like this patent, which they failed to list as prior art?
I call that "the honest definition of capitalism."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel