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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.'"
* 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.
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.
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?