JaBbA's Hut

A court ruling in Illinois has dealt a blow to those who would use the DMCA as an anti-cometitive tool. Skylink, which makes a universal garage door opener, figured out that the "rolling code" technology used in some garage door openers has a pretty serious logical hole, that makes it pretty much useless. They used this fact to build a universal garage door opener.

It still needs the basic code, which means it's not a burglar tool. But Chamberlain, which makes the garage door openers that have the flaw, sued under the DMCA, claiming that Skylink was using their intellectual property.

They argued that Skylink's remote made their rolling code technology useless and put their customers at risk for "code grabbing", or scanning the airwaves looking for a static code and using that code to open the door. But the judge wasn't fooled by this piece of attempted legal legerdemain. It wasn't Skylink's remote that caused the problem, it was their flawed logic. The problem existed, Skylink simply took advantage of it. And the problem is, many judges have NOT been as clear-thinking, and have allowed companies to use the DMCA to hurt competition.