

Angry Birds maker Rovio sued over app patents - watkdab
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14245047

======
wccrawford
So yet another 'You've violated our patents, but we aren't saying which ones'
story?

I don't say this often, but I'm going to this time:

That should be illegal.

It's a threat, clear and simple. It's an attempt to force them into action
without actually having to have anything concrete. It causes a ton of pain and
anguish, and costs a lot of money, even if they never actually sue. It's
absolutely ridiculous and should never be allowed.

Is it really that different than libel or slander? You're accusing someone of
something without providing any proof that it's true. And if you just say
'whoops' afterwards, you're scott-free, but they've still got damages to their
reputation and bottom line.

It's disgusting and cowardly.

~~~
greatreorx
The amended complaint clearly shows what patents Lodsys is accusing Rovio of
infringing.

"On May 22, 2007, U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 (the "'078 patent") was duly and
legally issued for "Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units
of a Commodity Across a Network."

...

Rovio makes, sells, uses, imports, and/or offers to sell infringing
applications, including but not limited to Angry Birds for iPhone and Angry
Birds for Android, which infringe at least claims 1 and 24 of the '078 patent
under 35 U.S.C. § 271."

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/60587096/11-07-21-Lodsys-
Amended-C...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/60587096/11-07-21-Lodsys-Amended-
Complaint)

~~~
wccrawford
There are 2, actually.

Rovio makes, sells, uses, imports, and/or offers to sell infringing
applications, including but not limited to Angry Birds for iPhone andAngry
Birds for Android, which infringe at least claim 27 of the „565 patent under
35 U.S.C. § 271.

U.S. Patent No. 7,620,565 - 27. A tangible computer readable medium having
stored thereon, computer executable instructions that, if executed by a
computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:
monitoring a product for an occurrence in the product of a trigger event of a
predefined plurality of trigger events, incrementing a counter corresponding
to the trigger event upon detection of the occurrence of the trigger event in
the product; displaying a user interface, configured to probe for information
regarding a use of the product, if the counter exceeds a threshold; storing an
input received from the user interface on a device; and transmitting the input
to a server.

Rovio makes, sells, uses, imports, and/or offers to sell infringing
applications, including but not limited to Angry Birds for iPhone and Angry
Birds for Android, which infringe at least claims 1 and 24 of the '078 patent
under 35 U.S.C. § 271.

U.S. PATENT NO. 7,222,078 - 1. A system comprising: units of a commodity that
can be used by respective users in different locations, a user interface,
which is part of each of the units of the commodity, configured to provide a
medium for two-way local interaction between one of the users and the
corresponding unit of the commodity, and further configured to elicit, from a
user, information about the user's perception of the commodity, a memory
within each of the units of the commodity capable of storing results of the
two-way local interaction, the results including elicited information about
user perception of the commodity, a communication element associated with each
of the units of the commodity capable of carrying results of the two-way local
interaction from each of the units of the commodity to a central location, and
a component capable of managing the interactions of the users in different
locations and collecting the results of the interactions at the central
location.

U.S. PATENT NO. 7,222,078 - 24. The system of claim 1 wherein the two-way
local interactions comprise a transaction for sale of a product or a service
contract for the commodity.

That first one looks like a counter that triggers a data push to a server when
it reaches a certain number. Really?

That second one is a simple feedback form that pushes the data to a server?
Really?

I can't believe these. Cripes.

IANAL.

~~~
sukuriant
IANAL.

The second one looks more like some sort of ad-hoc network that's generated
and used for transactions of some sort. I could imagine a bit-coin app that
creates an ad-hoc network between two phones and transfers funds in the ad-hoc
network. That's my read of the patent. Am I way off here? And, does Angry
Birds really violate that? We very much need a lawyer here to expound upon
this.

~~~
wccrawford
OMG. I just realized it's probably the feedback in the Android Market. That's
why the second part talks about sales. It's not even part of their app!

------
krobertson
These patent lawsuits are getting ridiculous. Going to get to the point where
it stifles innovation. Progress on platforms is slowed, indie developers who
are hoping for a viral hit will get smacked with some BS lawsuit, etc.

~~~
suking
I think we're already at that point unfortunately.

------
flocial
Now the Angry Birds have something to be angry about. Weaving this into the
game would be epic. The Angry Birds Lodsys Defense Fund Edition where your
favorite birds destroy the patent pigs.

~~~
JacobAldridge
And Congress give up half-way through Level 1, not because it's too hard, just
because they don't care enough to win?

------
seles
I kept expecting lodsys to just go away. It is now clear they won't.

Now that they have demonstrated how profitable it can be to exploit the laws
of patents, there probably will be new companies popping up trying to do the
same thing, and it won't stop until their is patent reform.

------
bcl
Software Patents Must Die.

~~~
protomyth
Some patent must die, but I am not sure defining it as software is going to
help. I get the feeling the goal should be all "business process" patents. Not
mechanical or chemical, but the the patenting of procedures. I think that
would take care of this stupidity. I worry that saying software will allow
another open avenue.

------
smokeyj
I never understood how the patent office measures "non-obvious". If two
companies are using the same technology, it couldn't have been that non-
obvious. Add that to the list of central planning gone awry. Of course it
started with the best of intentions tho.

------
talmand
For a while now I have considered getting into development for mobile devices.
With all the stupid lawsuits lately I think I'm close to deciding not to
bother. At the least not release anything I do for public consumption.

~~~
gte910h
They can only really effect the American sales. MOst apps sell a very sizable
percentage overseas (I've seen about 45%, I've seen other devs with more like
60-80% overseas).

Don't let these assclowns stop you.

~~~
dpcan
I only develop on Android at the moment, and sell in the Android Market, and
if I limited sales strictly to overseas, I'd be dead in the water. ~80% of all
my sales are in the U.S.

~~~
gte910h
iOS is a much deeper base more willing to pay. It's worth the cost of a mini
or air, and would also happen to safeguard you against patents more (Apple's
already batted down lodsys for instance).

------
null_ptr
Looks like they went after big companies and studios too, maybe they will get
counter-sued out of existence.

~~~
roc
How? At best, the big pile of big defendants will manage to get the patent(s)
in question invalidated after millions in legal expenses. But as we've seen
with Lodsys, they have no shortage of patents in their portfolio.

There's nothing to stop them from taking another patent out of their portfolio
and applying the same strategy: shake as much easy settlement money out of the
small shops as possible, then swing for the fences.

~~~
gte910h
The could lose the other patents as part of a counter suit if they step out of
line.

------
wallflower
Ideally, a consortium of Apple+Microsoft+Nokia+Google+HTC+Samsung would buy
out Lodsys to silence it.

The price would be in the 9 figures though.

However, if only Apple bought out Lodsys, would it go after Google with its
new weapons?

~~~
orangecat
_Ideally, a consortium of Apple+Microsoft+Nokia+Google+HTC+Samsung would buy
out Lodsys to silence it._

That would be very bad. It would provide a strong incentive for future patent
trolls to do exactly the same thing.

~~~
dmooney1
So maybe get these companies to spend nine figures founding a non-profit to
systematically challenge the patent trolls' portfolio.

------
shareme
anyone notice that MS and Nokia are not sued?

This is a MS patent troll dog and pony show..

~~~
astrodust
It's because Microsoft would rip their head off. You don't patent troll a
bigger patent troll. Paul Allen is much bigger than Lodsys.

~~~
Meai
And how exactly would that work? They don't have any products of their own, so
they can hardly be sued for infringing on anything.

~~~
eftpotrm
But a company on the scale of Microsoft have the resources to systematically
dismantle their patents, track down prior art, produce material demonstrating
that the patent in question is demonstrably 'obvious to anyone skilled in the
art' and so on.

Lodsys's product range is their patents which they license and / or sue on.
They lose by their patents being demonstrated as the worthless nonsense they
truly should be, at which point they're gone completely - it's a bigger loss
than having to pay a license for a product or rewrite a component.

