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Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

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Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#51

Post by mdc »

ktizo wrote: post #44
huhtenberg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> selling Minecraft in the US This I don't understand. Mojang sells Minecraft in Sweden. You come to them , not the other way around (unless they have a US-based webshop). A person from the US can fly to Sweden and buy a bottle of Absolute Absinthe (made-up) and then bring it back to the US. She may not succeed getting it through the customs, but it will be the US customs who enforce the import restriction, not the S…

They are legally obliged to for any sales to the US territories. So if you are in the US and buy Minecraft, then they are exporting software to the US and have to comply with relevant law and any trade agreements between Sweden and the US.

Right. huhtenberg's analogy was flawed. His analogy to selling liquor only works if you remote-access a computer in Sweden and then buy Minecraft from that computer. Then when you copy Minecraft from the remote to your home system, you're the importer. If you buy from a US-based computer then it's Mojang acting as an importer to the US.

The liquor analogy would be if you ordered a bottle of liquor to be shipped to the US and the liquor store would be expected to comply with US import rules.

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#52

Post by hmmmmmmmmmm »

Vivtek wrote: post #47
sigkill wrote: post #45

This article suddenly reminded me of another link that was on front page a few weeks ago. That one was on how to incorporate a company in another country without being there. People wanted to incorporate their software startups in the US due to ease of payment processing and stuff. After seeing these kind of patent trolls, I wonder if anyone would even think of incorporating the the US. If your product is internation…

Which is why you would set up a subsidiary LLC in the United States, and dissolve it if it's sued.

Would this be a viable way to escape some frivolous patent lawsuit? I've often wondered about this, and even tried to research it somewhat, but I'm still unsure about it.

Suppose I have an LLC for my small (one-man) business in the U.S., and then I get targeted by a patent troll with some ridiculous claims. Can I simply start up another LLC in another country (one with saner patent laws), transfer my domains/hosting/whatever else to it, and dissolve the U.S. LLC? It seems too easy.

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#53

Post by true_religion »

huhtenberg wrote: post #36
rwmj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dangerous ... A default judgement could prevent them from selling Minecraft in the US, and could implicate other companies helping them who are based in the US (ie. Google & Appple because their stores are presumably located there).

> selling Minecraft in the US This I don't understand. Mojang sells Minecraft in Sweden. You come to them , not the other way around (unless they have a US-based webshop). A person from the US can fly to Sweden and buy a bottle of Absolute Absinthe (made-up) and then bring it back to the US. She may not succeed getting it through the customs, but it will be the US customs who enforce the import restriction, not the S…

> Why should Mojang be enforcing US e-com restrictions?

They wouldn't be expected to enforce any restrictions. The US will simply demand that all US financial branches refuse Majong business---that is VISA/Mastercard and your bank will not send money into his account or process payments for transactiosn related to him.

In addition, if he has a .us or .com name, they may try to seize it.

It'll be a headache for Mojang to try and fight it, so might as well 'self regulate' rather than have the government and use the only tool it knows 'the club'.

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#54

Post by huhtenberg »

mdc wrote: post #51
ktizo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are legally obliged to for any sales to the US territories. So if you are in the US and buy Minecraft, then they are exporting software to the US and have to comply with relevant law and any trade agreements between Sweden and the US.

Right. huhtenberg's analogy was flawed. His analogy to selling liquor only works if you remote-access a computer in Sweden and then buy Minecraft from that computer. Then when you copy Minecraft from the remote to your home system, you're the importer. If you buy from a US-based computer then it's Mojang acting as an importer to the US. The liquor analogy would be if you ordered a bottle of liquor to be shipped to th…

Neither your nor my interpretation of an online purchase is a correct one. An online purchase from a computer in one country at a web server in another can be treated as both an import (by a purchaser) and an export (by a seller). But since a sale is typically solicited by a purchaser (it's driven by those who purchase), I'd say it's an import rather than an export.

> liquor to be shipped to the US and the liquor store would be expected to comply with US import rules

It may want to comply with the rules, because the parcel will bounce at customs, but if there are no export restrictions, it has no other reason not to send a bottle into the US.

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#55

Post by atirip »

ktizo wrote: post #44
huhtenberg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> selling Minecraft in the US This I don't understand. Mojang sells Minecraft in Sweden. You come to them , not the other way around (unless they have a US-based webshop). A person from the US can fly to Sweden and buy a bottle of Absolute Absinthe (made-up) and then bring it back to the US. She may not succeed getting it through the customs, but it will be the US customs who enforce the import restriction, not the S…

They are legally obliged to for any sales to the US territories. So if you are in the US and buy Minecraft, then they are exporting software to the US and have to comply with relevant law and any trade agreements between Sweden and the US.

First. A company in whatever country is legally obliged only to that country's law. Export means that company is selling something in his jurisdiction to somebody who is not. That somebody is importer. Importer has to comply with the law of the country he/she is importing. One can not expect that exporter burden is to know all UN members laws.

Second. There cannot be and there is none agreements between Sweden and US which would prevent swedish companies producing something that infringes US-only patents. Also any swedish company can produce anything that is banned in US. I guess absynthe is.

Third. Pay attention to the HTC & Apple cases. Apple is trying to prevent import of HTC phones. That is the key! Apple can not sue taiwanese company of US patent infringement, not in US, not in Taiwan. What they can do is complain to ITC and ban import and that is exactly what they ar doing: http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/12/apple-wins-itc-ruling-of-...

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#56

Post by sycren »

DrJokepu wrote: post #30
Kiro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what happens when they don't have a legal entity in the US? Who will enforce it?

They can stop the distribution in the United Stares. In addition, Swedish courts would probably honor the decision of the US court.

Why would Sweden honor damages from a patent from the US which does not exist in the EU?

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#57

Post by georgespencer »

wedtm wrote: post #7
citricsquid wrote: post #5

This is confusing. Minecraft on Android doesn't have any Minecraft specific authentication service, it's tied to your google account just like all other Android (market) apps. You can find the app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mojang.min... The entire suit is based on something patently (ha ha ha) untrue. Minecraft on the PC /does/ authenticate with a licensing server, but this suit specifie…

It's alright, the actual product cited is MINDcraft.

Mindcraft doesn't exist, so I'm guessing that this is a mistake by the legal team.

If it were significantly wrong (e.g. "Photoshop" rather than "Minecraft") then they'd have to file again. In this instance it's similar enough that most courts will allow it, although it looks bad for the lawyers involved.

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#58

Post by fchollet »

DrJokepu wrote: post #30
Kiro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what happens when they don't have a legal entity in the US? Who will enforce it?

They can stop the distribution in the United Stares. In addition, Swedish courts would probably honor the decision of the US court.

Swedish courts would not honor such a ruling if it were to be, since it would be against European law (there are no software patents in Europe). Generally court decisions almost never have international validity (especially business related ones).

Re: Mojang, makers of Minecraft, sued by patent troll

#60

Post by sigkill »

hmmmmmmmmmm wrote: post #52
Vivtek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why you would set up a subsidiary LLC in the United States, and dissolve it if it's sued.

Would this be a viable way to escape some frivolous patent lawsuit? I've often wondered about this, and even tried to research it somewhat, but I'm still unsure about it. Suppose I have an LLC for my small (one-man) business in the U.S., and then I get targeted by a patent troll with some ridiculous claims. Can I simply start up another LLC in another country (one with saner patent laws), transfer my domains/hosting/…

Even I would like an expert to answer this. Assuming my domain is a .com domain, does the USA have jurisdiction over the company even if say, it's registered in Sweden?
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