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."
..in august 2000 (Score:4, Interesting)
which still works,btw..
(does the patent say something about hd then or something? seems like you can patent just about anything)
Not a laughing matter anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope breathing fresh air is never patented.
from the willie-sutton-working-overtime dept...
Q: Who is Willie Sutton?
A: This is Willie Sutton. [fbi.gov]
Suspicious (Score:5, Interesting)
Difference in 'reasonable' (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm, who wants to bet that their version of reasonable differs from their view? That is an outrageously large amount. Let's examine their claim.. From the blog (complete with poorly written English):
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.
Probably you have use it before
Certainly sounds like their dubious claim is worth 12%, eh? Does anybody think this is legitimate, and shouldn't be laughed out of court ASAP? Basically, they can't even be bothered to formulate their case well - the article is actually worth reading in this case, if only for a chuckle.
Outstanding (Score:3, Interesting)
bullshit patent (Score:1, Interesting)
How ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They Patented WHAT? (Score:2, Interesting)
They actually admit they don't know how to do this, but they have taken out a patent so that when someone does do it, they can claim royalties.
There is something seriously wrong here.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Interesting)
Their press releases (Score:2, Interesting)
News Febraury 15, 2005
Pat-rights finished first round of FUND raising
Febraury 28, 2005
Pat-rights demanded 12% from iTunes
March 7, 2005
Apple remains silent
Investment
As it can be expected the license fees collectable from infringers will be staggering, we are willing to offer very generous return for investors, in a short term.
hoax (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wait until China starts enforcing patents it decides to grant to it's own companies on any foreign company that wants to operate there. The fun'll really start then.
Re:The solution is to ban licencing of patents... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. But it would not prevent him from selling it to that firm. Or if it is a good idea, in a competitive market, auctioning it to the highest bidder. So the small time inventor can still get what his idea is worth.
It also doesn't stop him from getting someone to make his product under license, and then marketing it himself.
What it really stops is people developing a set of patents and cross licensing between a group of firms so that there is an effective monopoly, which is where the computer industry stands at the moment.
Regards,
-Jeremy
Patent Holding Companies (Score:3, Interesting)
Patent holding companies are a relatively new phenomenon. The main complaint about them by traditional companies is that they are immune to cross-license agreements. This tends to make "defensive portfolios" useless for negotiation, since there's nothing that the holding company wants, except to extort money.
The only good news is that *usually* a patent holding company - one that exists solely to hold patents, and does not produce products of its own - will not actually try to charge more for their patent royalties than some amount smaller than what it would cost to litigate the patent. That prevents them from having to defend and potentially lose a shaky or questionable patent.
The bad news is that they can't be scared off by claims that the patents are invalid, either through obviousness, prior art, or that their patent is, in fact, not being infringed. Admitting that would be admitting that their business model is fundamentally unsound.
The other bad news is that if a patent is valid, they can "camp" on an idea, and prevent anyone else from bringing a product to market, at least for the term of the patent.
You could argue that they permit small inventors to band together, and allow them to press suits against giant corporations that they would otherwise have no hope of winning. This is true, but this is not the way these companies are typically being used, at least in the software industry.
If used correctly, a patent holding compnay would permit a small inventor to not be squeezed out of markets by large companies who cross-license defensive portfolios amount themselves, effectively stifiling their competition.
IMO, the one good thing that will come out of cases like this, particularly when their opening royalty request is unrealistically high - enough that surely it'll be worth litigating, rather than simply rolling over - is that there will likely be enough cause here for companies like IBM, Apple, Sun, Microsoft, and others who depend on their defensive portfolios to encourage real reform of the patent system.
-- Terry
Re:..in august 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:These people are professional parasites (Score:3, Interesting)
Somewhere down the line? Governement has ALWAYS been about capital. Governments have always been of the few by the few and for the few. Any benefits the small guys may have expierienced at any time were likely unintended side effects.
Most modern free market theories hold that the purpose of government is to facilitate commerce and NOTHING else. They hold that taxation is theft, social programs are criminal, and governments supporting trade unions amounts to treason.
To quote Gekko:
Greed works, greed is right. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Re:..in august 2000 (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two defenses:
1) The definition in the patent is "A method for protecting publicly distributed software from unauthorised use". This is not publicly distributed software. It is privately distributed.
2) Software, in the definition of this patent, is executing code. The patent is for an authorization system to enable the execution of specific software. With iTunes and every other DRM, the authorization is to access the content, not execute software code. There is quite a difference. Not all bits are the same. Different bits do different things.
Yes, you have to execute code to access the content but that is not the information in the patent. In fact, this particular patent seems more focused on authorization to access and use software program updates. I think Microsoft's update service is closer to this patent, as Microsoft checks your product ID before allowing you to obtain things like Service Pack 2 for XP. However, MS doesn't do any user specific authorization so that would exclude it anyway.