Ric Richardson

Ric Richardson
Born Frederick Bailier Richardson III
1962
Sydney, Australia
Residence Northern Rivers, New South Wales and California [1]
Nationality Australian
Occupation Inventor, founder
Known for Winning, then losing, then winning an appeal for a large patent infringement case with Microsoft
Home town Sydney
Spouse(s) Karen Richardson
Children Lily Richardson

Ric Richardson is an Australian inventor. He is the holder of multiple granted patents including the Uniloc patent US5490216 and the Logarex patent 6400293. Although he spent twelve years in California to promote and develop products produced by Uniloc, Richardson grew up in Sydney and currently resides just outside Byron Bay.

He is the founder of Uniloc, a company based on the technology he first patented in 1992. The machine fingerprinting technology is used to stop copyright infringement; it was developed as Richardson worked on his own software called One-Step and later Truetime. He is now an independent inventor working on inventions as diverse as ship designs, shark warning systems[2] and password replacement technology.[3] The latest technology to be spun off into a stand alone company by Richardson is the Haven Authentication Protocol which is currently developing password-less authentication with banks.

Richardson began tinkering with bicycle design in the mid-1970s.[4] Richardson and one of his brothers are the progenitors of the "shade saver", cords used to keep sunglasses on the wearer.[5]

Microsoft court case

Uniloc was awarded US$388 million in a lawsuit against Microsoft for their infringement of a product activation patent held by Uniloc.[6] The application before the court to go to trial was originally blocked by a summary judgement for Microsoft.[7] Uniloc appealed the ruling, eventually sending the case to a federal appeals court in 2008. Microsoft products Windows XP, Office XP, and Windows Server 2003 were found to infringe the Uniloc patent by a federal jury in Rhode Island.[7] They found that damages were due and Microsoft's conduct was willful. On 30 September 2009, The Melbourne Age reported that US District Judge William Smith "vacated" the jury's verdict and ruled in favour of Microsoft.[8] This ruling was appealed and won by Uniloc.[9] Microsoft then agreed to finally settle out of court, paying an undisclosed amount in compensation to Richardson.[10]

Profile as an Australian Inventor

As a result of the publicity surrounding the case, Richardson has been the subject of two Australian Story episodes. The first called "The Big Deal" aired in August 2009 and covered the initial win of $388 million by a jury in Rhode Island. The second entitled "A Done Deal" aired in April 2012 and covered the subsequent ups and down that followed the original story culminating in the eventual settlement with Microsoft.

Richardson has become well known since the airing of these two shows for his practice of helping inventors with their inventions on Friday mornings to help them get protection for their ideas and to give them some pointers on going in the right direction.

See also

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ Elloise Farrow-Smith (27 December 2015). "Byron Bay residents test shark sonar in bid to keep surfers safe". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2009-08-26.
  3. ↑ Andrew Colley. "Microsoft patent victor Ric Richardson working on no-password security breakthrough". Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax Media). Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  4. ↑ Tim Elliott (20 April 2009). "How the man in a van outsmarted Microsoft". Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax Digital). Retrieved 2009-08-26.
  5. ↑ Lex Hall (16 April 2009). "Aussie inventor Ric Richardson wins over Microsoft". The Australian (News Limited). Retrieved 2009-08-26.
  6. ↑ "Australian Story - The Big Deal - Transcript". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 24 August 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2009.
  7. 1 2 Renai LeMay and Ina Fried (15 April 2009). "Aussie first wins US$388m MS suit". ZDNet Australia. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
  8. ↑ Moses, Asher (30 September 2009). "Aussie inventor's $445m Microsoft windfall wiped out". The Age (Melbourne). Retrieved 2009-11-07.
  9. ↑ Moses, Asher (8 January 2011). "Inventor wins Microsoft appeal". The Age (Melbourne). Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  10. ↑ "Ric Richardson wins multi-million dollar legal battle with Microsoft". news.com.au. 15 March 2012.

External links

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