Patent link: <a href="http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+registration" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+...</a><p>didn't serial-code-based shareware registration schemes exist before the 1993 filing date? certainly shareware and the concept of "registering" did -- maybe the novel part of the patent is the idea of an identifier tied to your environment as a constituent part of the serial #?
<i>but the Uniloc damages fee only amounts to about eight days of profit for the company</i><p>Thats nearly 50m USD profit PER DAY. few companies can match that I guess.
I hate software patents, but in this case since its being used against microsoft instead of them using it to bully linux vendors, it makes it a little easier to swallow.