Companies Claim iTMS, iPod Patent Infringement

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."

Wow

[TheKidWho (705796)]

So they can't come up with their own products, they just decided to sue Apple?

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...

Re:Wow

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Well ... if the courts and/or Congress needed a reason to rethink the whole idea of software patents, this is certainly a good one. So they want to force Apple to license their "patent", and pay a twelve percent fee for the privilege. Is that off the top or after taxes? Either way, that would probably eliminate any incentive Apple would have to continue in that market. *poof* No more iPods, no more iTunes ... probably no more portable music players since this outfit would presumably go after anyone else in that market if they are successful with Apple.

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 ... what would you bet that the RIAA would buy that patent outright, and only license "oligopoly friendly" players after that?

Re:Wow

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Not in this case. This has nothing to do with suppressing competition, since "Pat Rights" or whatever doesn't have a music download service nor do they manufacture a music player ... they just have a patent. So this isn't an anti-competitive measure at all. It's just a blatant attempt to extort money from a successful company, and that makes it even worse.

But you're right ... something does need to be done about software patents. As in "eliminating them completely." So far as improving the economic health of the nation, or "promoting the useful arts and sciences" goes, or indeed anything other than "enriching the few at the expense of the many" they serve no purpose and should never have been permitted.

These people are professional parasites

[Scrameustache (459504)]

So far as improving the economic health of the nation, or "promoting the useful arts and sciences" goes, or indeed anything other than "enriching the few at the expense of the many" they serve no purpose and should never have been permitted.

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.

is this applicable?

[Mr.Coffee (168480)]

Verbatim, the second line of the article is: "Pat-rights named the technology as 'Internet/Remote User Identity Verification', earned a US Patent 6,665,797 therefor, and world-wide patents pending"

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?

The actual patent link

[millahtime (710421)]

The actual patent is interesting to read. Click here to read it [uspto.gov]

Re:is this applicable?

[laughingcoyote (762272)]

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:is this applicable?

[damiam (409504)]

There's more to IP than just patents, buddy!!

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.

Not a laughing matter anymore.

[sanityspeech (823537)]

I guess the "patent pending" avatar used in the story was a tongue-in-cheek joke when it was created. However, with these kind of stories, I fear that it may someday become a reality.

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]

This is sad.

[natrius (642724)]

Reading the linked claim made me want to cry. Based on the reasons they say Apple is infringing on their patent, they must have patented password protection. Or at least password protection over the internet. Novel. The article's worth reading though. It made me giggle and tear up at the same time. Not many things do that.

Suspicious

[kebes (861706)]

Is it just me, or is it kinda suspicious that these companies are only getting angry now. I mean, iTunes/iPod is new and hip, but it's been around long enough for other companies to notice patent violations earlier. Seems like these companies only decided to file suits once they saw how much money was being made off the idea (whereas their somewhat similar patent was a total waste...). On a first pass, it sounds like silly lawsuits that will go nowhere.

Great!

[Realistic_Dragon (655151)]

The more big companies that get sued for patent infringment, the faster the law will change.

Go scum, inflict some pain!

How ironic

[offensiveweapon (761301)]

Does anyone else find it incredibly ironic that a Hong Kong-based company is suddenly concerned about patent and IP rights, when China as a whole often turns a blind eye to the whole matter? Yes, I know Hong Kong is a special case within China, but still...talk about a double standard here...

Woo!

[theparanoidcynic (705438)]

Time for Apple's Ninja Attack Lawyers to do something productive! They've been kinda bored and . . . . suey lately. Now they'll be distracted kicking an ass that deserves it for awhile.

business plan.

[aitsu (592587)]

1. Take out patent on "FUD".
2. Take out patent on "Prior art".
3. Profit!

I wonder

[mcc (14761)]

I wonder if maybe Apple will be the first big American company to finally break the silence and speak out against software patents. Microsoft had their "see, bad law affects you too" moment with Eolas, but their reaction (quietly settle the matter in court and suddenly start jacking up the size of their patent library) has been so odd it almost seems like "Whoa, you mean patent law can be abused? Cool!"

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...

Only defence is be a patent-only company...

[Goonie (8651)]

This is the problem with the software patent situation. As it's virtually impossible to write a non-trivial program that doesn't arguably infringe, say, IBM's patent portfolio, if you actually produce anything you can't sue IBM for patent infringement because they will countersue you into the dirt. However, if you don't actually produce anything, you can't infringe on their patents, leaving you free to sue them.

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.

Coming soon to the European Union

[cortana (588495)]

Coming soon to EU member states, unless *you* write to your MEPs and request that they attend (and vote against) the European Parliament's second reading of the computer-implemented invention laws.

What do you expect from a company called Pat-Right

[Paco23 (555645)]

From their own website:

"Pat" stands for PATENT, "Pat-rights" means patent rights.

Early in 1995, Founder of Pat-rights, Mr. Philip H.K. TSE visualised Internet as the most promising environment for digital content distribution and began to develop ideas and technologies essential for these changes.

As a result of his long term efforts, several national patents are being issued. And, some of them are being infringed by Global Industrial giants."

http://www.pat-rights.com/

The company's whole business model is built around going after companies over IP.

Darl, is that you?

Paco23

Reading the patent claim...

[kidgenius (704962)]

The Hong Kong patent doesn't apply to Apple according to the "Field of Invention."

The present invention relates to protection of software, and particularly, to protection of software against unauthorised use or copying.

Let's see, iTMS does not use logging in to protect software. It only "protects" files such as the MP3's that you download. iTMS also doesn't care about unauthorised copying of iTMS because you can download it whenever you want, for free, from Apple. Lastly, iTMS doesn't use logins to prevent the unauthorised use of iTMS, but instead, only the unauthorised use of the music. The biggest distinction is that this patent is to protect a software program (from what I can gather). iTMS, and many other website, etc., use login to protect either A) Information or B) Files of some kind. A file is not necessarily a piece of software. Hell, I know that every word document I have ever written is a file, but it is most certainly not a piece of software. Yes, we all know that this is a bogus patent, but this shows that it definitely does not apply.

Totally disgusting

[Artega VH (739847)]

Everyone knows that iTunes allows a user to play purchased music tracks to up to 5 computers, without repeated payment, under the condition that the computers are registered. The computer registration involves a process of identity verification in which a user is required to key in into the computer the correct Apple ID and password he used to purchase the song.

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.

This patent crap is getting absolutely absurd.

[Caspian (99221)]

When will a company have the balls to respond to such a patent claim by FedExing a piece of paper containing two words: "Fuck off"?

It's about time someone did something like that in response to this sort of BS.

Re:This patent crap is getting absolutely absurd.

[by Anonymous Coward]

That's a sweet idea. I suggest you patent it . . . QUICK!

Re:This patent crap is getting absolutely absurd.

[lspd (566786)]

There is some prior art. [wikipedia.org]

Re:..in august 2000

[pbranes (565105)]

Read the article dude. They are claiming a patent on user login. Straight from their site:

Everyone knows that iTunes allows a user to play purchased music tracks to up to 5 computers, without repeated payment, under the condition that the computers are registered. The computer registration involves a process of identity verification in which a user is required to key in into the computer the correct Apple ID and password he used to purchase the song. 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.

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?