Slightly off-topic.<p>Years ago when I was working at a small ISP in Columbia, SC I had lunch with Austin Meyer. He came in to upload the latest release of X-Plane to his FTP servers. We went across the street to get some shrimp and grits.<p>The man oozes genius. Over lunch he was rambling about some technique he discovered to render scenes at a much higher frame-rate. Something to do with culling and inlining a series of functions responsible for a very particular set of expensive transformations.<p>His almost hysterical, passionate, hyper, consuming personality made it a completely one-sided encounter. It was my pleasure to just sit and listen.<p>While we were walking out, I noticed the tail of his plaid shirt had come partially untucked. He had also missed 2 belt loops.<p>We're reading today about a man who legitimately doesn't have the cycles to spare for belt loops, let alone a patent battle. If for no other reason than to stop distracting people like Austin from doing what they do, we desperately need software patent reform.<p>Anyway. He probably thought I was a dope, but I still recall that lunch as one of my fondest memories while starting out in the industry.
More detailed look at the patent:<p><a href="http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...</a><p>If you want to check a unique serial number securely, either over the phone or net you are violating this patent.<p>Seems a little broad.
Maybe if people like Ric Richardson see consequences for being a part of the patent trolling machine, they'll be less likely to do it again in the future. It's hilarious to me that he wants to simultaneously claim credit for 'inventing' this patent and founding the company responsible for this patent trolling while avoiding any of the responsibility for the damage the company creates.<p>"Oh, I'm not a principle at the company anymore" yeah, sure. If you're really not involved, why are you calling their victims thieves in news articles? I bet you sold all your shares, right?
I honestly don't even know what to say when these things come up nowadays. It just seems like the bullshit won't end. I can't think of any options that even exist to fix this broken patent system.
"Just think about the logic here. The people complaining about the law suits here are complaining that a company is trying to protect it's own right to make a living from a technology that the patent office has verified as unique and novel. If you disagree then track the patent office and voice your problems with the patents as they are published."<p>Because the patent office verified it as "novel," that's the reason he isn't a patent troll. <i>sigh</i> The only way you can be a patent troll is to have the patent office verify a patent that you can sue people over!
Google has completely jumped the shark and is now being controlled by mindless business drones that will drive the company into the ground in just a few years. For your consideration:<p>They allow a patent troll to potentially set a legal precedent for what constitutes a big part of their app infrastructure. They probably figured that its cheaper to build around the patent and let this one developer eat shit.<p>They are killing net neutrality by saying mobile networks are somehow special and don't need it, a very obvious move to bolster Android and their telco relationships. They are now apparently paying Orange in France for mobile traffic related to services like YouTube [1], again trading short term business sense for eventually losing the net neutrality fight and turning the whole internet into many walled gardens at the hands of ISPs.<p>They have settled with news websites in France [2] to avert legal repercussions by a government that is essentially being blackmailed by press. 60 millions is pocket change for them, but the precedent this sets will endanger their business in many countries where press is dying and abusing their power to force governments to pass laws that will benefit their old business models very much to the detriment of Google. They are facing the same thing in Germany right now. News websites by the old printing press garde are the antithesis to the web. They do not understand hyperlinks, they do not understand the importance of giving access to raw material in a Wikileaks era. This move by Google perpetuates their dying business model and damages its own products like News or YouTube, which is thriving as an alternative to the old publisher model in media and music.<p>They let media companies patrol their data (and search rankings) and remove content by automatically generated requests, no questions asked, at exponentially growing scale [3]. They pretend to be under legal obligations to do so, but intentionally muddle the process to the point where if your content is contended, they give you no recourse under DMCA [4].<p>Sorry, I'm somewhat consumed by rage after reading the comments of the UniLoc persona non grata.<p>1: <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipkAQJJNgj69HxLbKppH80WjUQJg" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipkAQJJNg...</a><p>2: <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipwetvKBf0rT6uQw7YbPOaGoOeag?docId=CNG.1c0d4a8b5d27b9690ad122821fc8b6ac.201" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipwetvKBf...</a><p>3: <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/</a><p>4: <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/youtube-universal-megaupload/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/youtube-universal-m...</a><p><pre><code> Universal said Google’s private system doesn’t count as an
official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, and thus it was immune from legal liability.</code></pre>
IANAL But this patent screams of "obviousness", or technically "would a person skilled in the art or science, consider this non-obvious and novel". Most likely not.<p>I find it stupid how by obfuscating, rephrasing and refactoring claims to avoid a prior art search by the examiner, and by making it sound confusingly novel, patents actually get granted for things like this.
It's interesting to note that the number of patent cases in East Texas quadrupled from 2003 to 2004, from 14 to 59 cases, then increased again to 236 in 2006 [1]. Is there an economic benefit for the citizens in that district?<p>[1]:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas#Patent_litigation" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...</a>
What if someone could get a patent on "a method of starting a business whose sole purpose is acquiring many patents and then suing large companies"? Could they destroy all patent trolls?
Google won't defend someone using their technology in their ecosystem?<p>I hope there's more to this story, because otherwise that is a <i>mind-bogglingly</i> stupid move. Talk about a chilling effect.
Actual case docket:<p><a href="http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2383637" rel="nofollow">http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2383637</a>
<p><pre><code> Under the spreading patent tree,
I sold you and you sold me.
</code></pre>
When we're done with the well-deserved two minutes hate of patent trolls, lawyers and the broken legal system, perhaps we can consider the willing and eager participation of thousands of engineers in the corporate patent process. While it does not apply to the patent under discussion, the majority of software patents are produced not by individual inventors in garages but by employees in cubicles, then assigned to their employers.<p>Rationalizing comes easy, especially with the prospect of a fat per-patent bonus: "Everyone else is doing it, it's just self-defence", "If I don't, someone else will, might as well be me", "Most of these are silly and will get overturned in court anyway", "My promotion prospects depend on it"...<p>I was one of them. Forgive me, for I have sinned.<p>I fear few of my ex-colleagues would agree, though. When will the penny drop, I wonder? Will you be shocked - shocked! - when one of your patents is used offensively in a lawsuit? When you hear about Lodsys and Uniloc and realize that it's not just impersonal big companies who can afford it, but individuals who are victims?<p>Oh well. I'm off to buy an indulgence by contributing to X-Plane's defense..
I think the software patents regulation should to be reviewed but I see the current situation with software patents regulation very similar to what happens with copyrighted closed source software.<p>To my understanding, they both prevent innovation.<p>Wikipedia on copyright: gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights.<p>Wikipedia on patents: The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented invention without permission.<p>To me it looks like Laminar Research decided to use their right to distribute the software with a license which prevented people from distributing the sources, from copying the binaries, from improving/redistribue the software, from studying the software.<p>They decided to raise some money for their hard work forcing people to pay for the usage of such a software.<p>Isn't Uniloc just trying to raise some money from a patented invention, forcing Laminar Research to pay for the usage of such a patent?<p>To me it looks very similar to what Laminar Research did. They're playing by the same rules.<p>If Laminar Research has rights to protect its source code, why hasn't Uniloc rights to protect its invention? What am I missing?<p>I don't think the problem is just about who had invented firstly the technology. We shall all be paying Tesla for the AC current then!
There should be no copyrights, period. They are based on the idea of most people working in coalmines while 2 people are out there 'innovating' because they had rich parents and the fantasy in which we are all unique and all have unique ideas. Nowadays we can all be 'innovators'; or rather, we have enough wealth to be able to afford not spending all of our times slaving on our hands and knees and give our brains a little stroll in the park coming up with 'creative' ideas.<p>Lets face it, we are not unique and every idea you have was already had by someone else, or someone is having it right now, ideas are sluts that way. A big software project is just a stack of ideas. Rather than having to reinvent everything, and risk plagiarising anyway, lets just accept that the way we have come so far as humans has been to build on knowledge created by others.
I'm not really sure on this, but Uniloc owner Ric Richardson doesn't seem prima facie to fit the normal patent troll profile: he appears to be a bona fide inventor, but then I only looked at wikipedia and his blog <a href="http://ricrichardson.blogspot.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">http://ricrichardson.blogspot.co.uk/</a> .
Doesn't mean I support his action, of course and the whle legal system is fcked, hence the problem of the trolls, like Nathan Myrhvold's "Intellectual Ventures" <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120811/02060619993/nathan-myhrvold-its-ok-to-kill-innovation-if-youre-also-killing-mosquitoes.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120811/02060619993/natha...</a>
Why don't just register companies offshore in jurisdictions that reject/ignore patent law and avoid this mess? I don't think patent trolls would have much chance offshore.