The developers did know about it

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/world-without-end-raffi-khatchadourian

More recently, he had noticed geological formations that an artist had hand-designed for another video game, and realized that the algorithms of No Man’s Sky were not equipped to make them. The problem nagged at him, until he found an equation, published in 2003 by a Belgian plant geneticist named Johan Gielis. The simple equation can describe a large number of natural forms—the contours of diatoms, starfish, spiderwebs, shells, snowflakes, crystals. Even Gielis was amazed at the range when he plugged it into modelling software. “All these beautiful shapes came rolling out,” he told Nature. “It seemed too good to be true—I spent two years thinking, What did I do wrong? and How come no one else has discovered it?” Gielis called his equation the Superformula.

Murray, sitting before his monitor, typed the Superformula into the terrain of a test planet. He began simply, creating walnut-shaped forms that floated in an infinite grid over a desert. The image resembled a nineteen-eighties album cover, but the over-all look was not the point. Whenever he refreshed the rendering, the floating shapes changed. Many were asymmetrical, marred by depressions and rivulets. Game designers refer to lines of code that require lots of processing time as “costly.” The Superformula is cheap.

Ofcourse no clue how far they went through with it in the end.

He envisioned using the Superformula throughout the game, especially at the center of the galaxy, where landscapes would become more surreal. With only small shifts in its parameters, the equation was producing impressive variability. In one rendering, it produced rolling hills. Murray refreshed the screen: a star-shaped rock formation appeared. He seemed pleased. “It’s always a good sign when I am clicking the button, and there is that slight amount of excitement,” he said.

The main problem that Genicap is also trying to tackle is how to get all that beautiful variety without getting the unwanted stuff.

Yeah, they have tried and failed for 12 years. Let someone else give it a shot.

I'm sure they would have been willing to do that if someone who have had enough respect to ask them. 

They gave him the credit for it. Maybe they should have let him know they were using it, but thats about it.

There's not maybe's about it. Any self respecting human being would have asked that man for permission. It's no surprise though that people disagree. In this day in age where you can torrent/download peoples work for free all over the world people don't give a shit about taking something that doesn't belong to them and using it to make money.

honestly that sounds to me like they just want to know how Hello Games is making their game, in an attempt to use the same technology in their software. sounds like a scam to try copy/steal what Hello Games did, and try come out as the "nice guy" in the attempt. 

Agreed. I don't get the vibe that this is what Gielis is after anyway. It seems to me he's the science guy that's simply very interested in what Hello games has done based on his ideas. It's all the people around it that want to make money of it that make things difficult and then you get the media to stir things up at the right time.

Actually I think this lawsuit is handled better than most as the game hasn't even come out yet and haven't made any money.

The real douchebags are the ones that file lawsuits like the one guy that was suing Nintendo for a patent on the 3DS that the 3DS has already been out for years making tons of money, thus that person was asking for alot more money.