
Creator Of The X-Plane Flight Simulator Seeks Help Fighting A Patent Troll - adambenayoun
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/02/creator-of-the-x-plane-flight-simulator-seeks-help-fighting-a-patent-troll/
======
spligak
Slightly off-topic.

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.

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.

His almost hysterical, passionate, hyper, consuming personality made it a
completely one-sided encounter. It was my pleasure to just sit and listen.

While we were walking out, I noticed the tail of his plaid shirt had come
partially untucked. He had also missed 2 belt loops.

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.

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.

~~~
ScottBurson
Heh - - I think you'll find that listening raptly to someone's ravings is a
great way to leave them with the impression that you're very intelligent.

------
andrewfelix
More detailed look at the patent:

[http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false)

If you want to check a unique serial number securely, either over the phone or
net you are violating this patent.

Seems a little broad.

~~~
rossjudson
20 years ago I (and many others) had shareware registration systems that did
this kind of thing. ShareIt ring a bell with anyone?

There's absolutely no way that there isn't prior art for this.

~~~
beering
Funnily enough, this patent was reexamined in 2011 and 100% reaffirmed.

~~~
chris_wot
And yet they missed obvious prior art. Thus shows the patent system is broken,
nothing else.

~~~
dsl
If you have some specific evidence that the prior art did in fact apply please
feel free to share it.

Dismissing the due process of a patent holder simply because you disagree with
it and claiming the whole system broken because you didn't see the outcome you
had hoped for is childish.

~~~
chris_wot
I believe the GP might have found something.

------
kevingadd
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.

"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?

------
Permit
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.

~~~
devmach
I'm studying in Germany abroad and i have a u.s. green card. After reading so
much crap about u.s. patent system, i'm really considering staying in Germany
or immigrate to another country ( like Singapore ?? ) and start a business
there.

I know, one person doesn't make a difference furthermore i'm not a "very
important super mega top ninja hipster talented programmer" and every county
has it's own problems. The thing is, i really don't like the idea that, my
company can go to bankruptcy because law doesn't protect me and i have to live
with fear and try to stay out of some patent troll's radar.

~~~
beering
Singapore is where Uniloc, this patent troll, is incorporated. Just an
interesting bit of trivia.

------
darkarmani
"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."

Because the patent office verified it as "novel," that's the reason he isn't a
patent troll. _sigh_ The only way you can be a patent troll is to have the
patent office verify a patent that you can sue people over!

~~~
pi18n
If you disagree then watch every patent as they are published to make certain
they are non-obvious? This guy is full of it. Of course you would have to be
full of it to think this patent was non-obvious.

------
revelation
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:

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.

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.

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.

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].

Sorry, I'm somewhat consumed by rage after reading the comments of the UniLoc
persona non grata.

1:
[http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipkAQJJNg...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipkAQJJNgj69HxLbKppH80WjUQJg)

2:
[http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipwetvKBf...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipwetvKBf0rT6uQw7YbPOaGoOeag?docId=CNG.1c0d4a8b5d27b9690ad122821fc8b6ac.201)

3: <http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/>

4: [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/youtube-
universal-m...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/youtube-universal-
megaupload/)

    
    
      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.

~~~
sneak
<http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2013/01/26/takeover/>

~~~
throwaway2048
That is a ridiculously black and white analysis, people doing evil don't set
out with some vague malevolent goal to make the world a worse place for
everyone else. Many times they view what they are doing as a good thing.

I am very afraid indeed of people claiming to do things for my benefit.

Evil is banal, it is every day, and more than likely it happens right in front
of your eyes.

People need to shed this comic book villain version of evil, where anybody
that acts evil is clearly just a bad person, and starts out with a goal of
wanting to hurt everybody else.

~~~
lilsunnybee
Evil persons act selfishly, with seemingly no respect or consideration for the
common good. That seems pretty clear cut to me.

~~~
throwaway2048
not at all, an example of evil that counters that statement is the forced
sterilization programs of the last century in many western countries. That was
all about the common good.

------
neurotech1
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.

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.

------
mkhattab
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?

[1]:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas#Patent_litigation)

~~~
jpark
Yes, that is why it is very difficult to get a change of venue out of the
Eastern District.

That's just one of the reasons why ED Texas is so deadly.

Others:

In the ED, it is extremely difficult to get a motion to stay pending review of
the patent by the USPTO. The court also moves very quickly, which compresses
the financial burden of defense into a short time period. The fast moving
court also makes it difficult to get a review completed by the USPTO in time
before trial.

That said, the AIA compels the USPTO to rule much quicker, increasing the
probability that you can get the patent invalidated before it reaches trial.
However, the cost of the new review process is incredibly expensive: hundreds
of thousands of dollars if you have an average lawyer. Could be a million if
you have a top law firm billing you.

------
christiangenco
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?

~~~
kevingadd
You'd spend more money suing the patent troll organizations than you'd ever
recover, because they could just close up shop and move on, being non-
practicing entities with no real assets or holdings.

~~~
chris_wot
In other words, you put that entity out of business. Sounds like success!

~~~
pi18n
No, there was an article recently on HN about how Intellectual Ventures
"loads" a shell company by transferring a patent to it only days before filing
the dispute. If you put the shell out of business they lose only the single
patent (if that). They don't care about the shell, it's like an eyelash of the
giant.

------
dmpk2k
Google won't defend someone using their technology in their ecosystem?

I hope there's more to this story, because otherwise that is a _mind-
bogglingly_ stupid move. Talk about a chilling effect.

------
incompatible
The moral of the story is don't develop software unless you have the resources
to fight patent lawsuits. I haven't, so I don't.

~~~
rooshdi
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but I've actually concluded the
opposite. The patent system is so ridiculous now that it should be treated as
such and developers should "infringe" as many patents as possible until the
whole tyrannical system collapses on itself.

~~~
hayksaakian
As a software developer you're playing a round of roulette for every 10k you
make. As noble as what you're saying sounds, nobody wants to be a casualty of
war.

~~~
rooshdi
It's not a casualty. It's a cause. What is there to lose? The laws are already
imprisoning us. Might as well see it through.

~~~
yareally
Mostly time, sadly. We all have lots of ideas and aspirations, but time is
always short at hand. If we had more of it, much easier to fight things.

------
thinkcomp
Actual case docket:

<http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2383637>

------
knodi
I don't understand why Google isn't all over this.

------
tubelite

      Under the spreading patent tree,
      I sold you and you sold me.
    

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.

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"...

I was one of them. Forgive me, for I have sinned.

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?

Oh well. I'm off to buy an indulgence by contributing to X-Plane's defense..

------
giulivo
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.

To my understanding, they both prevent innovation.

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.

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.

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.

They decided to raise some money for their hard work forcing people to pay for
the usage of such a software.

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?

To me it looks very similar to what Laminar Research did. They're playing by
the same rules.

If Laminar Research has rights to protect its source code, why hasn't Uniloc
rights to protect its invention? What am I missing?

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!

------
mosselman
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.

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.

~~~
Arelius
You say copyrights, but it seems very much that you mean patents. Could you
clarify?

~~~
giulivo
In another post, I'm also trying to compare the similarities of the two.

The problem I see is that they both, especially when used 'improperly',
prevent people from innovate.

To me it looks like software improves also by recycling and improving existing
concepts so, when it comes to software, patent owners eventually manage to
raise some money, but that's all.

They cause much greater damage to the rest of us by stopping other people from
reusing the concept.

The thing is that from my perspective, the same happens with most of the
grants given to copyrights holders.

Again, when speaking about software, to give a copyright holder the right to
be credited for the work is perfectly fine, but what about the right to
determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who
may financially benefit from it?

How different is that from a patent?

~~~
Arelius
Also, the problem with copyrights disappearing regarding software, is that it
may not help innovation much. Without copyright we still don't get source, and
things that were protected by copyright are just now protected by secrecy. I
imagine a lot of proprietary software would just continue the push into
software as a service, with large blocks of important code never leaving the
walls of the data center.

~~~
Arelius
And also keep in mind, if you are a GPL supporter, without copyright suddenly
the license looses it's teeth. And can now be included in proprietary
products.

It may not be ultimately bad. But I feel it's a fair bit less obvious than
patents.

------
triplesec
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
<http://ricrichardson.blogspot.co.uk/> . 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"
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120811/02060619993/natha...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120811/02060619993/nathan-
myhrvold-its-ok-to-kill-innovation-if-youre-also-killing-mosquitoes.shtml)

~~~
ramblerman
"he appears to be a bona fide inventor"

Not sure what constitutes a bona fida inventor but the first post on his blog
is how he has just taken out a patent on another invention.

It seems he just invents stuff to then patent it. To me an inventor builds
things. This is more akin to coming up with an idea and then cutting off
anybody from every executing that idea without even having executed it
yourself.

------
anovikov
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.

------
L4mppu
Why do people accept these stupid patents?

