Patent Issued For Podcasting

pickens writes "The EFF is reaching out for help after a company called Volomedia got the Patent Office to grant them exclusive rights to 'a method for providing episodic media' that could threaten the community of podcasters and millions of podcast listeners. 'It's a ridiculously broad patent, covering something that many folks have been doing for many years,' writes Rebecca Jeschke. 'Worse, it could create a whole new layer of ongoing costs for podcasters and their listeners.' To bust this patent, EFF is looking for additional 'prior art' — evidence that the podcasting methods described in the patent were already in use (PDF) before November 19, 2003. 'In particular, we're looking for written descriptions of methods that allow a user to download pre-programmed episodic media like audio files or video files from a remote publisher, with the download occurring after the user subscribes to the episodes, and with the user continuing to automatically receive new episodes.'"

Not exactly related to the patent

[Brazilian Geek]

But weren't there a few guys, back in 1999 that used to have a pretty neat weekly show. Back then I don't think they were called podcasts but I do remember that the shows were really fun.

Anyway, I found a link to it on Wikipedia but I'm sure there are more links around.

It was called Geeks in Space [wikipedia.org], or something like that, and the site's admins that used to make the show was called flashdot, dashdot, slashdort or something like that.

en.swpat.org/wiki/VoloMedia's_podcasting_patent

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

More info on swpat.org:

• http://en.swpat.org/wiki/VoloMedia's_podcasting_patent [swpat.org]

Re:Not sure

[dotHectate]

According to wikipedia Valve's Steam content delivery system was initially released on Sept 12, 2003. I didn't get it at first so I don't know what functions were available at the time - I seem to remember it being mainly used for updates - but it is definitely used to deliver "episodic" content now, particularly audio and video (interactive and otherwise). I can't imagine that Valve was the first to be doing this either.

What's actually been patented?

[EvilJoker]

This sounds more like a patent on RSS feeds- online episodic media goes way back (Big media had webisodes in 2000, with amateur stuff going back much further) but the patent seems to refer to subscriptions and automatic downloading.

Wikipedia

[Minupla]

Wikipedia has a whole section of prior art in their history section of the podcasting article here [wikipedia.org]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Claim 1, not that anyone will read it

[sir_eccles]

1. A method for providing episodic media, the method comprising:
- providing a user with access to a channel dedicated to episodic media, wherein the episodic media provided over the channel is pre-defined into one or more episodes by a remote publisher of the episodic media;
- receiving a subscription request to the channel dedicated to the episodic media from the user;
- automatically downloading updated episodic media associated with the channel dedicated to the episodic media to a computing device associated with the user in accordance with the subscription request upon availability of the updated episodic media, the automatic download occurring without further user interaction; and
- providing the user with: an indication of a maximum available channel depth, the channel depth indicating a size of episodic media yet to be downloaded from the channel and size of episodic media already downloaded from the channel, the channel depth being specified in playtime or storage resources, and the ability to modify the channel depth by deleting selected episodic media content, thereby overriding the previously configured channel depth.

Re:Not exactly related to the patent

[Garridan]

Similarly, Red vs. Blue has been around since early 2003. They didn't call 'em podcasts, but same deal.

Re:Please help me understand

[maxwells_deamon]

I am not a laywer (INAL)

A patent has to be novel and new at the time it is submitted.

The inventor "needs" to ensure that the invention is not in use currently or in the past

Then it is written up and sent to the patent office. They can at that point start marking items using the invention Pat Pending (might not be required any more)

The patent office looks for prior art as well but only gets money if they approve it. So they are motiveated to do so.

Once approved the patent holder can sue anyone using the invention. They get to choose where to sue (usually west Texas as they have a history of favoring patent holders)

If you can prove prior art when being sued the patent is invalidated.

This is over simplified and thus has some errors. Patent troll companies have also played games with the system by filing a very general patent establishing a date and then resubmitting the patent later with updates.

So no you can not discover that no one has patented the wheel, get a patent on it and own the world. (ps someone did patent the wheel as a joke IIRC)

Re:Not sure

[lena_10326]

Recorded vs live. CD vs radio. Finite file vs infinite stream. Podcast vs shoutcast.