Patent Troll Claims Minecraft Infringement [Slashdot]

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First time accepted submitter ubrgeek writes "Popular game Minecraft has hit the big time: It's being sued for infringement by patent troll Uniloc who claims the game infringes a patent it holds on copy protection software. Developer Markus 'Notch' Persson sounds like he's up for the challenge: 'Unfortunately for them, they're suing us over a software patent. If needed, I will throw piles of money at making sure they don't get a cent.'"http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png (http://twitter.com/home?status=Patent+Troll+Claims+Minecraft+Infringe ment%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FSNUZGn)http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fsto ry%2F12%2F07%2F22%2F0219242%2Fpatent-troll-claims-minecraft-infringement%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium% 3Dfacebook)http://www.gstatic.com/images/icons/gplus-16.png (http://plus.google.com/share?url=http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/07/22/0219242/patent-troll-claims-minecraft-infringement?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=googleplus)

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[Clownzilla]

Here is a link to the panent:

http://www.google.com/patents/US5490216

It seems to be a patent that covers the use of an algorithm that creates a key based on the exact hardware configuration of your computer. I think this type of system is what forces you to re-activate Windows after your install a new computer part. I guess if it's just a general patent for the "idea" then this guy is a troll and should not get a penny. It's too general of a concept to be validly patented. However, if this guy actually made some crazy complex algorithm that would be very difficult to reproduce without knowing about the algorithm itself then I would have to side with Uniloc (given that you can actually patent an algorithm). After a quick look of the patent it seems that it's your typical troll filing but there could be more complexity deeper in the patent.