Minecraft developer sued by aggressive litigator over DRM patent

Copy protection company Uniloc has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Mojang, the development company behind popular block game Minecraft. Uniloc claims that the Android version of Minecraft infringes patent number 6,857,067 describing a “system and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data.”

Uniloc is a serial litigator that has filed lawsuits against nearly 80 companies, including Microsoft, Adobe, and Sony. The company contends that its suite of copy protection patents broadly cover common practices for digital software licensing, protection, and activation.

Mojang founder Markus Persson, also known as Notch, briefly discussed the lawsuit on Twitter and vowed to fight against it. He also published the full text of Uniloc’s filing, which indicates that the company is seeking damages and ongoing royalties. The filing erroneously calls Mojang’s product “Mindcraft.”

“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,” Persson wrote on Twitter. “Software patents are plain evil. Innovation within software is basically free, and it’s growing incredibly rapid. Patents only slow it down.”

Uniloc has a number of licensees and has succeeded in winning settlement payouts from some of the companies that it has sued. Uniloc’s eight-year lawsuit against Microsoft ended in March when the Redmond giant agreed to settle under undisclosed terms.

A 2009 jury ruling found Microsoft guilty of infringing one of Uniloc’s patents and called for the Redmond giant to pay a whopping $388 million in damages. The 2009 damage computation was later thrown out by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a landmark decision that eliminated the so-called 25 percent rule.

It’s worth noting that the patent at issue in Uniloc’s lawsuit against Microsoft was one that specifically focused on product activation, not the ’067 patent that the company is citing in its lawsuit against Mojang. Alongside Mojang, Uniloc is also suing Electronic Arts, claiming that the popular game Bejeweled 2 violates the ’067 patent.

Both suits have been filed in the Eastern District of Texas, a court system that is often sought by major patent litigators due to the perception that it tends to be more favorable to plaintiffs in patent disputes.