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Mojang, EA, and Others Sued For Patent Infringement in Android Games

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A company called Unliec is suing Mojang over an alleged patent infringement in Minecraft for Android, and Notch (creator of Minecraft) isn’t very happy about it.

According to the BBC, the lawsuit comes from a Texas-based company called Unilec and it includes other companies like EA, Gameloft, and Square-Enix. The lawsuit claims the companies violated a patent that covers ways of authorizing players for mobile games. The patent involves checking if a user can play a game, and locking them out of the game is they aren’t authorized.

Unsurprisingly, Notch took to Twitter and Tumblr to voice his opinion on the lawsuit. The developer certainly isn’t a fan of software patents. In his blog post, Notch says “sharing ideas is how we improve.” He goes on to question why we protect the first person to think of something if others can come up with it easily?

On Twitter, Notch said he will “throw piles of money at making sure they don’t get a cent.” He doesn’t believe we should have software patents, and will do everything he can to prevent companies like Unilec from profiting off such patents.

To defend the company, Unilec founder Ric Richardson wrote a blog post saying he had nothing to do with the lawsuit. He does, however, defend software patents. He said “having a great technology without a patent is like having a Lamborghini and leaving the keys in it.”

Like most patent lawsuits, this one will likely take a long time to go anywhere, but it’s nice to see an independent game creator standing up for what he believes in. Even if that belief costs him piles of money.

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