I believe Uniloc’s so-called invention is nothing more than a rehash of much older ideas and technologies that already existed. Firstly, the whole try before y

I believe Uniloc’s so-called invention is nothing more than a rehash of much older ideas and technologies that already existed. Firstly, the whole try before you buy idea was popularised by Bob Wallace in 1983 with the release of his shareware software PC-Write, a word processor that you could trial for free and register if you liked it. (see http://computersandcomposition.osu.edu/archives/v2/2_4_html/2_4_08_Waddell.html http://computersandcomposition.osu.edu/archives/v2/2_4_html/...). This concept was adopted by hundreds of software authors in the 80’s, and quickly evolved to include time limits and activation keys long before Uniloc. Users enjoyed the ability to try a fully functional product before purchase. However, even Wallace acknowledged he got the term shareware, which embodies the whole try before you buy idea, from a computer column that appeared in Infoworld magazine in the 70’s. Secondly, software protection schemes that relied on hardware to generate security keys were common-place in the mid 80’s. Australian software company Pittwater Distributors developed an application called Cashbook in the early 80’s which used a plug-in hardware dongle (a small hardware key) in order to secure the application. Other companies such as Alpha-Micro and Sun-MicroSystems used serial numbers stored in the physical hardware of the computer. I personally worked on a software encryption and protection systems in 1984 for game publisher Electronic Arts which relied on keys derived from the physical software media (a tape or disk). This approach was extremely common-place at the time. In short, software trial mechanisms and protection systems were obvious, common-place technologies and marketing models long before Uniloc. I agree with the judge.