uniloc

[danny_galaga]

http://www.uniloc.com/


I had never heard of this company until i saw a short doco on the tv last night. It's a series called "Australian Stories'. So last nights story, 'The Big Deal' was about Ric Richardson, who started Uniloc with a friend. They were a tiny business producing some music software. They were trying to figure out a unique way of distributing their software. They came up with the sort of 'hardware fingerprint' system that Microsoft now use. They realised that was a much more marketable product than the software they had designed it for so that was the direction they went. In fact, since Richardson had patented it, Uniloc successfully sued Microsoft. The case was finally ruled in their favour in April this year:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25312670-5014239,00.html

No, i hadn't heard about it either! Pretty important news though, since that tech seems to be the basis for Windows security, at least since XP. And the judge summed up by saying that not only was there a patent infringment, but that it was wilful. The damages awarded does not include any royalties or such that might be owed.

A really interesting guy. You can probably see that episode here:

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/catchup

if you have good broadband, you'll have to navigate to the episode...

[danny_galaga]

I know everyone was really excited by my post three years ago 

Latest is that the case has finally been settled:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/417711/uniloc_microsoft_settle_copy_protection_patent_case/

This is pretty significant in the geek world we live in, especially since:

“Uniloc now intends to pursue numerous other cases against alleged infringers of its patent,” the statement read.

Uniloc has already sued at least 73 companies for alleged infringement of the patent, including Sony America, McAfee and Activision, and has negotiated at least 25 settlements.