Congratulations, you can read the letter of the law and completely ignore the intent. Go be a lawyer and get filthy rich screwing people over.
If it was that simple we wouldn't have courts and judges. Courts and judges are there to just the intent of the law, and judge whether the law being broken is in fact a legal law at all.
Actually, you and Nicksterr both missed on that one...
The following are some patent scenarios that if found out to be true, will make the patent invalid.
The invention is not useful or new.
The invention was already made by someone else or used by someone else that described the invention in a written publication. The publication date was before the invention date.
The invention is too obvious, that is, someone could have easily recreated the invention.
The invention does not benefit the general public in any way.
The patent itself does not describe the invention in enough detail that someone can recreate it.
The maker of the invention did not include a description of what is the best way of using the invention.
The patent application was filed over a year after the first time the invention was used in public.
This isn't a topic that should be on these forums. First of all, considering this is a Minecraft forum, most, if not all, responses will be biased. Secondly, there's always two sides to every story. Granted, the plaintiff may very well be doing this just to earn some quick cash in an albeit dodgy fashion, it doesn't mean they are "cheating" Mojang out of their money. Lastly, whether or not the patent is fair or not is of no importance. If someone had a patent on taking a ****, and someone infringed that patent by taking a ****, they would be in the wrong, regardless of how stupid said patent may be.
I'll grant that nearly all of the commentary being made on this forum is by people who don't even understand what a patent is, where there is some real confusion about the differences between copyright, patents, and trademarks (three very different concepts). Part of this is due to several politically involved people (mainly a bunch of organizations that have acronyms ending in *AA like MPAA and RIAA) who want to invent the concept of "intellectual property" out of whole cloth and deliberately want to confuse people that there is some general notion called "intellectual property.
While it is a political essay and not really legal opinion, this essay is well worth reading if you are confused about the three concepts or even the notion of "intellectual property":
All this said, I think it is a very relevant topic for the MC Forums, particularly because there really isn't a formal relationship between Curse (the "owner" of these forums) and Mojang. Mojang recognizes these forums and has "blessed" them so far as linking to this forum and even visiting these forums from time to time, but it shouldn't be seen as necessarily a fiduciary conflict of interest or other reason to not post this.
Besides, it is of intense interest to the Minecraft community and is one of the few cases that it is real news being posted by Curse rather than the drivel which is claimed to be newsworthy. Trying to gauge what the Minecraft community's reaction to this bit of news is worthwhile.
The great thing about Minecraft is that even if a lawsuit did cause Mojang to go under, the community would likely band together to rebuild the company and rehire all the old staff.
Of anything said on this thread, I think this is the most relevant. If Mojang went under financially, especially if they went under because of this lawsuit, I'd have to agree that money would literally be thrown at Notch where he would likely end up with more money after the lawsuit than he had before. Notch certainly does respect the player community of Minecraft and hasn't done a whole lot to burn that good faith either.
Unlike many other small businesses, there is virtually no downside for Mojang to fight this lawsuit to the bitter end and even throw nearly all their resources at not just resisting this patent troll but to even counter-sue the troll and pummel them into the ground and turn this Texas company into a Mojang subsidary by the time everything is done (with Notch's final act to shut the company down I might add).
Uniloc has no clue what they have got themselves into by filing this lawsuit, particularly against Mojang.
Sounds like a typical American company. All these American companies seem to be is sue sue sue it's kinda pathetic. I'm a little confused about this as I thought since Mojang was a Sweden based company that an American company couldn't take them to a American court since they aren't in the same country so might have different laws but apparently not.
As said above, please save your anti-American hate speech. There are a whole bunch of decent American companies who do not file lawsuits, and in fact the largest use of patents in America is for defensive purposes. Typically if somebody is stupid enough to file a patent lawsuit against you, there are likely patents you own that they are violating so what happens is the companies get into cross-licensing deals and the lawsuit is dropped even before the trial preliminaries happen.
Still, don't get a knee jerk reaction about the actions of a few of the 300 million people in the USA and try to overgeneralize your mind view of those people.
Hmmm... I read over the PDF, and Mojang has never made a game called Mindcraft. Therefore all of it is a false claim and has no effect.
Please, get over this whole thing about Minecraft/Mindcraft. It will be considered a clerical error alone, and doesn't have any impact in terms of the law or the ability to prosecute this lawsuit. Yes, small details do matter, but this is one that will be fixed in due time and doesn't change the rest of the claims of the lawsuit. Of all of the things to obsess over, this one ranks dead last in terms of reasons to dismiss the lawsuit.
Jurisdiction in eastern Texas is a bit more of a stretch, but I would dare say that there are at least a few Mojang customers in eastern Texas. The big thing is the claim of the patent itself, where the best way to attack this lawsuit is to suggest that either the patent was issued in error by the USPTO, or that due to prior art and obviousness there should have been additional claims on the patent that would reduce its scope to the point that Mojang was not infringing the patent. Looking through the patent, I have a hard time even being able to see if Mojang was violating the patent either.
Certainly a patent granted for doing something that has been done countless time before but to say "I deserve a patent on this because it is now being done with mobile devices" is really lame. On the positive side, Mojang might even get a formal precedent saying that all such patents are invalid... and that would be a sweet victory for Notch.
Actually, you and Nicksterr both missed on that one...
Like I said, judging whether the law (or in this case the patent) is itself illegal. I'm honestly not sure how their patents haven't fallen through yet.
this is really stupid they figured that if they could win against Microsoft they can win against anyone and everyone, I will be lol when they lose to MOJANG and the other big corporations. If MOJANG wins they should sue them back for making them look like the bad guys when they really are not and to cause them tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal coasts.
I'll note that Microsoft had a reason to settle that goes beyond any loss they may have temporarily taken by "losing" against a company like this. While back in the 1970's and 1980's Bill Gates was on record against software patents and Microsoft for many years didn't have any, they quickly went to "the dark side" and now has more patents than anybody besides IBM and perhaps AT&T. A win here by Uniloc could ultimately be beneficial for Microsoft as well, particularly for overly broad patents that are seen in favorable light by courts.
I certainly wouldn't use any lawsuit against Microsoft as an indication of precedence or how a a court may react as opposed to a group of companies who are active in fighting this lawsuit that want to stomp on even the very idea of a software patent and grind it into dust.
It's worth noting that even if Mojang loses it's unlikely it'll do them any serious damage. As an indie dev team, their overhead costs are very slim compared to larger software houses, and with the continuing success of both MC and MCX360, as well as the presales of their other games, their income so far outstrips their expenses that they could sue them for their net worth and they'd be back up and running within a week.
The Mindcraft =/= Minecraft issue is completely invalid. Even if it didn't say "but not limited to", it would be an invalid issue - SO STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.
They're suing several companies for the same thing, when some of them didn't do anything wrong, AKA, abuse of process.
Nobody can afford to fight Square Enix, Electronic Arts, Mojang, and a whole lot of others at the same time. Especially when they get countersued under rightful claims. They won't get a cent out of Mojang, EA, or Square Enix and they're likely to go out of business.
Also, the expired patent issue is invalid because they reapplied.
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Hahahaha. This is hilarious, Electronic Arts, Squenix, and Mojang should team up and sue them for being lazy idiots bumming money off of companies that actually accomplish something with their time. Pathetic.
Oh god. According to wikipedia he's known for SUCCESSFULLY suing microsoft. Mojang is a whole different game than microsoft though... Mojang is way better. xD
So, in theory they could sue any company that makes software that uses password protection as well? That's a system for preventing unauthorized usage of electronic data. Why don't they patent the wheel for all the good it will do them?
Oh god. According to wikipedia he's known for SUCCESSFULLY suing microsoft. Mojang is a whole different game than microsoft though... Mojang is way better. xD
They successfully sued MICROSOFT?!? Oh yeah, the password protection on the user login screen. Jees...
Christianity in a nutshell: We have all sinned, so we deserve eternity in hell. But God (God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit) loved us so much he sent His Son to die for us, to take the punishment meant for us. All we need to do is accept it, and we have heaven headed our way.
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Actually, you and Nicksterr both missed on that one...
I'll grant that nearly all of the commentary being made on this forum is by people who don't even understand what a patent is, where there is some real confusion about the differences between copyright, patents, and trademarks (three very different concepts). Part of this is due to several politically involved people (mainly a bunch of organizations that have acronyms ending in *AA like MPAA and RIAA) who want to invent the concept of "intellectual property" out of whole cloth and deliberately want to confuse people that there is some general notion called "intellectual property.
While it is a political essay and not really legal opinion, this essay is well worth reading if you are confused about the three concepts or even the notion of "intellectual property":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
All this said, I think it is a very relevant topic for the MC Forums, particularly because there really isn't a formal relationship between Curse (the "owner" of these forums) and Mojang. Mojang recognizes these forums and has "blessed" them so far as linking to this forum and even visiting these forums from time to time, but it shouldn't be seen as necessarily a fiduciary conflict of interest or other reason to not post this.
Besides, it is of intense interest to the Minecraft community and is one of the few cases that it is real news being posted by Curse rather than the drivel which is claimed to be newsworthy. Trying to gauge what the Minecraft community's reaction to this bit of news is worthwhile.
Of anything said on this thread, I think this is the most relevant. If Mojang went under financially, especially if they went under because of this lawsuit, I'd have to agree that money would literally be thrown at Notch where he would likely end up with more money after the lawsuit than he had before. Notch certainly does respect the player community of Minecraft and hasn't done a whole lot to burn that good faith either.
Unlike many other small businesses, there is virtually no downside for Mojang to fight this lawsuit to the bitter end and even throw nearly all their resources at not just resisting this patent troll but to even counter-sue the troll and pummel them into the ground and turn this Texas company into a Mojang subsidary by the time everything is done (with Notch's final act to shut the company down I might add).
Uniloc has no clue what they have got themselves into by filing this lawsuit, particularly against Mojang.
As said above, please save your anti-American hate speech. There are a whole bunch of decent American companies who do not file lawsuits, and in fact the largest use of patents in America is for defensive purposes. Typically if somebody is stupid enough to file a patent lawsuit against you, there are likely patents you own that they are violating so what happens is the companies get into cross-licensing deals and the lawsuit is dropped even before the trial preliminaries happen.
Still, don't get a knee jerk reaction about the actions of a few of the 300 million people in the USA and try to overgeneralize your mind view of those people.
Please, get over this whole thing about Minecraft/Mindcraft. It will be considered a clerical error alone, and doesn't have any impact in terms of the law or the ability to prosecute this lawsuit. Yes, small details do matter, but this is one that will be fixed in due time and doesn't change the rest of the claims of the lawsuit. Of all of the things to obsess over, this one ranks dead last in terms of reasons to dismiss the lawsuit.
Jurisdiction in eastern Texas is a bit more of a stretch, but I would dare say that there are at least a few Mojang customers in eastern Texas. The big thing is the claim of the patent itself, where the best way to attack this lawsuit is to suggest that either the patent was issued in error by the USPTO, or that due to prior art and obviousness there should have been additional claims on the patent that would reduce its scope to the point that Mojang was not infringing the patent. Looking through the patent, I have a hard time even being able to see if Mojang was violating the patent either.
Certainly a patent granted for doing something that has been done countless time before but to say "I deserve a patent on this because it is now being done with mobile devices" is really lame. On the positive side, Mojang might even get a formal precedent saying that all such patents are invalid... and that would be a sweet victory for Notch.
Version 2.1 now updated for MC 1.6.2
I'll note that Microsoft had a reason to settle that goes beyond any loss they may have temporarily taken by "losing" against a company like this. While back in the 1970's and 1980's Bill Gates was on record against software patents and Microsoft for many years didn't have any, they quickly went to "the dark side" and now has more patents than anybody besides IBM and perhaps AT&T. A win here by Uniloc could ultimately be beneficial for Microsoft as well, particularly for overly broad patents that are seen in favorable light by courts.
I certainly wouldn't use any lawsuit against Microsoft as an indication of precedence or how a a court may react as opposed to a group of companies who are active in fighting this lawsuit that want to stomp on even the very idea of a software patent and grind it into dust.
Version 2.1 now updated for MC 1.6.2
Until I read this:
Oh. Another crazy guy suing out of greed I guess. More power to Mojang then, don't let this scumbag get what he (probably) doesn't deserve.
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Contact EA and team up on these faggotsAlso Guys don't forget Notch has AN ENTIRE COMMUNITY AND FANBASE to back him up.
I'm not worried.
But he has plenty of followers, and one person in the community could very well be a lawyer and figure out counter arguments for Mojang.
They're suing several companies for the same thing, when some of them didn't do anything wrong, AKA, abuse of process.
Nobody can afford to fight Square Enix, Electronic Arts, Mojang, and a whole lot of others at the same time. Especially when they get countersued under rightful claims. They won't get a cent out of Mojang, EA, or Square Enix and they're likely to go out of business.
Also, the expired patent issue is invalid because they reapplied.
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That's a little harsh.
Sue-able.
They successfully sued MICROSOFT?!? Oh yeah, the password protection on the user login screen. Jees...