Companies Claim iTMS, iPod Patent Infringement 506
ryan_fung writes "A Hong Kong based company, Pat-rights, is claiming that Apple's iTunes Music Store is infringing their patent on 'Internet User Identity Verification' and is demanding Apple pay 'a reasonable license fee, 12% of gross sales of iTunes music tracks and iPods.'" (They also claim infringement by eBay, porn sites, and others.) Reader bblazer links to a Register article which mentions both the Pat-Rights claim and another suit entirely. From the article: "Apple has found itself facing a pair of intellectual property challenges that separately claim its FairPlay DRM system and its iPod music player contain technologies to which the Mac maker does not have a right. First up, Lake Forest, Illinois-based Advanced Audio Devices (AAD) alleges its patent, number 6,587,403, for a 'music jukebox,' filed in August 2000 but granted in July 2003, covers the kind of thing Apple has brought to market as the iPod."
Arg (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Ohh and a patent for a digital jukebox? Hello ever hard of the Nomad Jukebox?!?
Ohh and then, umm 12% of sales form iPods? Holy shit thats a lot of fricking money...
is this applicable? (Score:5, Insightful)
now, i'm not a patent lawyer, but since this company is based in hong-kong, and has no worldwide patents, wouldn't that mean that the patent does not apply? or is an overseas company holding a us patent still able to enforce it's us patents from offshore?
Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
They really need to do something about software patents, like set them to only 3 years.
This is sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Go scum, inflict some pain!
Internet/Remote User Identity Verification (Score:4, Insightful)
So much for ssh, telnet, FTP, terminal services, and remote desktop.
These patent lawsuits must stop. They're getting ridiculous.
Plain English (Score:3, Insightful)
From the "press release":
The US Patent 6,665,797 is written in plain English, even a layman can read and understand it.
Too bad the press release isn't in plain English.
Patentable Technology? (Score:2, Insightful)
It shouldn't be.
User names and passwords go back to at least the 60's, if not earlier.
Re:..in august 2000 (Score:5, Insightful)
This company is patenting USER LOGINS OVER THE INTERNET ! This is a basic, fundamental technology of today's Internet. Obviously they are full of crap, but how do we stop patent-whoring companies who can steamroller anyone using the US Court system?
patent (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:is this applicable? (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe you're confusing "trademark" with "patent". BMW has the exclusive right to make cars called "BMW", but they are NOT trying to claim an exclusive right to make cars period.
Re:..in august 2000 (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
But now that Apple's finding themselves up against a frivolous patent suit, maybe it will finally occur to them they aren't really getting anything out of patent law but they're having to pay for frivolous patent lawsuits and only have to pay more and more as IP abuse looks more and more like a growth industry...
They Patented WHAT? (Score:4, Insightful)
"It is related to using a payment account information to verify the identity of a user, the payment account may be a credit account, before providing the user access to computer software/apparatus."
Apparently, Pat-Rights has a patent which covers ANY logins in which a payment account is used to verify the user. So companies such as shareware companies, online websites that accept subscribers (redvsblue.com, slashdot.org, userfriendly.org, etc.), Amazon, Buy.com...
Who hasn't violated their patent rights?
Fitzghon
Coming soon to the European Union (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:..in august 2000 (Score:3, Insightful)
Sue away... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully this will lead some people with influence into realizing the patent system needs an overhaul. Probably not though... Has anyone patented the binary numbering system yet? Just imagine how many companies could be sued...
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're right
Re:is this applicable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there's nothing to IP whatsoever; IP is a meaningless concept. Trademark, copyright, and patent law are distinct entities with different rules and purposes. It's fallacious to lump them together under "IP". Your statement about trademark law is almost entirely irrelevant when we're talking about patents.
That said, your basic point was correct; non-US companies can file US patents (as well as trademarks and presumably copyrights) as long as they have a US presence.
Excellent (Score:2, Insightful)
This ridiculous, inhibitive patent suit should be thrown in the faces of the European Parliament prior to their ratification of software patents in Europe as an example of the damage that patents cause to businesses. If they don't see the problems with software patents now, they never will.
Totally disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
This is certainly a patentable technology. If iTunes does not patent it, there must be a very good reason for them not to do so- someone else has patented this.
Certainly patentable? Perhaps apple's version is although it's a bit of a stretch. It's a huge assumption to make that because apple didn't patent it then someone else must have. Perhaps apple considered this to be an obvious technology and therefore NOT patentable? Perhaps they didn't patent it because they wanted everyone to be able to use this technology?
Pat-rights named the technology as "Internet/Remote User Identity Verification", earned a US Patent 6,665,797 therefor, and world-wide patents pending. In the end of 2003, Apple indicated in its communication to Pat-rights that Apple had no interested in licensing it and remain silence ever since then.
As far as I can tell it's called "Protection of software again against unauthorized use" who knew we could "again" protect against unauthorized use?
"We have kept a close watch on every development of iTunes. We believe this is willful infringement", said CEO of Pat-rights, Mr. Philip H.K. Tse,"We lose face. Apple shows no respect to us and our patent rights!"
The US Patent 6,665,797 is written in plain English, even a layman can read and understand it. "They are playing unfair to their customers, not us." Mr. Tse further commented.
Plain english is debatable, here is the abstract: "A central program comprising a EI sub-program for providing identity information of the rightful user thereof for accessing a network central computer to obtain service(s) or software product(s) or alike, in which a secure operation on an account of the rightful user for payment therefor involved; and a AS sub-program for using the existence of the EI sub-program in a computer as a precondition for authorising use of those software products obtained on that computer. The central program is for managing the use of the individual sub-programs therein so that the AS sub-program can be protected from being copied individually."
That's a whopping TWO sentences! Although I guess it is "plain" english.
To me this seems overly broad and stupidly obvious. Authentication is a security mechanism covered in any undergrad network security course so it seems a bit of a stretch that this isn't obvious to anyone skilled in the arts.. hmmph.. disgusting.
Re:bullshit patent (Score:3, Insightful)
This introduces a nice catch 22 situation.
- Patent office is so overloaded they rubber stamp most applications without due research.
- Companies realize this and flood patent office with useless patents that will get rubber stamped because of so many applications to process.
- Rince, repeat.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
In the same vein as Microsoft's indirect funding of SCO to make trouble for the competition, Apple should follow the money here too. Is this strictly about enforcing a probably-bogus patent in order to extract money from a successful company (can you say, "submarine"?) or is this an attempt by a third party to bring Apple to heel. Seems kind of fishy right on the heels of the RIAA wanting to jack up iTunes prices. In fact, speaking of the RIAA, and assuming that Apple were to lose this case
Re:Obvious invention (Score:3, Insightful)
> for a patent being valid that there must be no
> prior art and that the invention must not be
> obvious for those versed in the art?
Ah, clearly you missed the all-important qualification "...on the Internet", which instantly created a whole new area of patentable IP.
"Sir, we're suing you for patent infringement"
"On what grounds?"
"Not sure yet, but since you've done things on the Internet we're pretty sure you'll have infringed a patent somewhere. If not one of ours, then we'll track down one owned by someone else and collect a spotter's fee. So, do you want to confess now, or take us on in court?"
Does iTunes use "audio signals" or data (Score:3, Insightful)
"music jukebox which is configured for storing a music library". The device includes a "housing, audio input structure... for receiving audio signals, and a data storage structure... for storing audio signals".
This is the big question in the register story. I would argue that iTunes does not receive audio signals but digital data. iTunes does not have any means to directly record audio signals, only to convert data from one format to another (either from a digital medium known as a CD, or from another file format) , and of course to output audio signals. Same with an iPod. They both do not except input of audio signals only input of digital data. Maybe i'm making too much of a connection between acoustic sounds and audio signals
Anyone with a better background in audio want to weigh in?
Re:Woo! (Score:3, Insightful)
These people are professional parasites (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhere down the line, government stopped being about the people, and became about capital.
The usefull arts and sciences are those that increase profits.
The economic health of the nation obviously is directly linked to the economic health of the owners of the nation's infrastructures.
When people are obsessed over the enemies abroad, they don't notice the enemies within.
Re:Does iTunes use "audio signals" or data (Score:3, Insightful)
However; my statement regarding digital audio signals should be construed to apply solely to real-time digital audio over such mediums as SPDIF (coaxial or optical, either way), ADAT-O, TDIF, AES/EBU, and similar. A audio data file is not a digital audio signal; it is a digital audio signal that has already been received and processed. By patenting the receiving portion, I think AAD has pretty much eliminated applying it to signals that are already received and recorded, limiting themselves solely to real-time recording (streams would seem to be a grey area here).
All that said, I think the patent is bullshit, and next time I'm in Lake Forest I might feel the need to throw something at their offices.
Only defence is be a patent-only company... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the patent system is creating an incentive for small companies to concentrate on acting as IP toll collectors on ideas reinvented independently by other companies, rather than actually producing products, or for that matter actively selling their IP to companies to produce new products.
That's my explanation for why software patents are bad for people to whom the ideological arguments are lefty blathering.
Re:The solution is to ban licencing of patents... (Score:3, Insightful)
If some inventor develops an interesting idea but doesn't have the production facilities or the investment capital and other prerequisites to build them, he's basically screwed.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think that is deserving of a patent? Are companies going to stop trying to make their interfaces better just because they can't stop others from taking their UI ideas? That hasn't stopped anyone so far. How exactly does being able to do one thing and then just sit back forever better (in terms of encouraging progress in arts and science) than being forced to keep on innovating in order to stay ahead? What do you think the state of spreadsheet software would be like today if someone had patented the whole concept of laying out data in the form of, well of a spreadsheet?
Re:Arg (Score:5, Insightful)
It gets worse. This pat-rights outfit has retained some patent lawer:
Well, a search on Attorney Zito reveals that he was the patent attorney for some guy who has patented gravity [epimedia.com]! Talk about an all-encompassing patent. So this is the nut they've hired to enforce their patent. Somehow, I suspect Apple doesn't have a whole lot to worry about from these opportunists.
Re:This is sad. (Score:3, Insightful)
They claim
A way to keep unauthorized users from using software by:
1) checking to see if it knows the user ("existing identity information")
2) Only allowing access if the user is known, "wherein"
3) this identity information can "enable e-commerce" (which I assume to mean the userid is tied to a credit card, based on following claims).
4) That last line is total gibberish, but I think (and I'm not a lawyer and I don't speak gibberish) that it means that you can download the software WITHOUT identity information, but then you will be unable to operate it.
If I were apple, I would contend that most of this patent does not apply since (aside from the fact that MUSIC is not software) the itunes music files are not publically available and cannot be downloaded at all without first identifying yourself to itunes.
Later claims (starting at 6) discuss individually distributed "software" which I take to mean me giving you a DRM'd copy of something I bought, however each of these claims specifically mentions e-commerce operations which I understand to mean some way of allowing you to buy access to the file I gave you, which you cannot (you have to buy and download a whole new file directly from itms)
The hilarious part is that if this company goes around charging everyone 12%, they'll probably single-handedly kill DRM unless they're in the pocket of some other player in the music sales arena, who will be benefitting from their patent royalty-free.
Re:..in august 2000 (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe you forgot... (Score:3, Insightful)
That was only the begining. They caved in once, now they are a target. It is their own fault...look at them going crazy sueing journalists because they are (LEGALLY I might add) protecting their sources. There is no end to apple's foolishness. Maybe this will be the nail in their coffin. (I wish)
Re:prior art (Score:3, Insightful)
The remainder of the claims could be performed on any PC with a cdrom drive and winamp before 2000 as well, leaving a patent good for a voice-controlled media player with the ability to record voice and attach those voice files to tracks and to rip DVD-Audio, and which has separate physical gain controls for left and right channels, as well as a physical gain control for line in.
And Apple suppoted the EU CII directive!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Well they were supporting the EU council proposals that have just progressed today:
http://www.patents4innovation.org/docs/pr070305tc
I say that they deserve everything they get.
Everybody reacts with "OMFG".... (Score:3, Insightful)
And in the end, most of them are sent packing for the jokes that they are.
Easy with the drama, people.
Re:Wow (Score:1, Insightful)
So, in your your proposed scheme, new intuitive interfaces that didn't cost X dollars to develop don't qualify for a patent? Sorry, but that seems like a pretty poor standard.
IMHO, software patents as a whole are a bad idea. They're the equivalant of new syles of story-telling qualifying for patents. Do you think that the first person to write a choose-your-own adventure book should have been able to patent the idea? Hey, it was a new, intuitive book interface, right? It's ridiculous.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference between this idiotic patent and MS's patent application for the above is simply the size of the organization making the application. In both cases the patent is frivilous, but let me ask you. Which would scare the small-time developer with a few thousand bucks in the bank, a mortgage to pay, a wife and two and a half kids? Some nut trying to patent musical jukeboxes, or the world's largest consumer operating system maker? You can laugh this time, but there are just as idiotic patents out there, but the key difference is that they are held by corporations with large legal departments that can destroy you.
Software patents are bad, and I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to make them good. Corporations will abuse them, mentally handicapped legislators getting checks pumped into their back pockets will always be willing to sell the smaller developers up the river, and when you get your eight hundred pound gorilla on the table with a notice stating "Cease and desist, or pay us $x gazillion dollars" what are you going to do?
Parasites on the host (Score:1, Insightful)
Excellent news. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wait patiently for the day that intellectual property law is reined in.
Cheers.
Correct, as far as you go (Score:5, Insightful)
People who deal in the industry call it IP. It's only a stupid Slashdot meme that "IP is meaningless".
It may be pedantic, bad politics, or (frequently, here) misinformed, but distinguishing between different types of rights bundles granted by the state is not "onlya stupid Slashdot meme". The state granting those rights does the same, and one way to oppose those who wish ideas to become perpetual cash fountains is to point out the concepts, law and history that underpins the reasons why the state grants those rights in the first place. Of course, to do so, one must explain the difference between different types of things that fall under the umbrella term "IP".
Um, would you care to explain what exactly is wrong with the construction "it is [adj] to [verb]Re:Arg (Score:2, Insightful)
"Your rights online" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wel,, there's your out then (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:These people are professional parasites (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright as originally intended was all about maximizing capital.