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Oprah Sued For Infringing "Touch and Feel" Patent
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Jan 07, 2009 01:03 AM
from the where-the-money-is dept.
from the where-the-money-is dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Oprah Winfrey, or to be more precise, Oprah's Book Club, is being sued by the inventor/patent attorney Scott C. Harris for infringing upon his patent for 'Enhancing Touch and Feel on the Internet.' So Oprah's Book Club is now one of many people and entities being sued over this patent because they allow people to view part, but not all, of a book online before purchasing it. Mr. Harris also sued Google Books for infringing upon this patent. He actually was fired from his position as partner at Fish & Richardson for that, because Google is a client of that law firm and they had conflict of interest rules to uphold." It would be entertaining to see Oprah give very wide and mainstream publicity to the abuses enabled by our current patent system.
Update: 01/07 22:03 GMT by KD : The blog author Joe Mullin wrote to point out that the lawsuit was not filed by the inventor, Scott C. Harris, but rather by the shell company Illinois Computer Research, which seems to exist for the purpose of filing lawsuits based on this particular patent.
Update: 01/07 22:03 GMT by KD : The blog author Joe Mullin wrote to point out that the lawsuit was not filed by the inventor, Scott C. Harris, but rather by the shell company Illinois Computer Research, which seems to exist for the purpose of filing lawsuits based on this particular patent.
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Firehose:Oprah Sued for Infringing 'Touch and Feel' Patent by Anonymous Coward
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Would she fight it? (Score:5, Funny)
It would be entertaining to see Oprah give very wide and mainstream publicity to the abuses enabled by our current patent system.
It's more likely she'd just give him a car.
HAHAHAHA (Score:5, Insightful)
He filed a frivolous law suit against....Oprah
Like her or not, she is one of the most influential, and hence powerful, women on the planet.
Of course she will fight it. She will also win. A mouse just picked a fight with a dragon.
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing though, I'm surprised more companies don't fight the trolls just to get a reputation among trolls that you're willing to go Thunderdome on them on occasion. Then they'll get the message to find someone else to mess with. The way I see it, the only reason patent trolling is profitable is because companies take a short term view of it and just settle, encouraging the prospect of a death by a thousand paper cuts.
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is the companies often ARE the trolls.
They just do a slightly different version of trolling.
Fighting sets precedents. precedents set decisions, and while you may want a decision one day the next it will hurt you.
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he's going to get roasted. I've been waiting for a patent troll to piss off the wrong person. Looks like that day has arrived. I guess I never thought it would be Oprah Winfrey though.
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:4, Informative)
He may actually have a case.
It is theoretically possible that it is a good case even outside his own head.
It is possible still that he may win and status-quo be affirmed.
Oprah, Sony and Google are all powerful but they also all depend on IP laws themselves.
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:4, Funny)
So what you're really saying is that Oprah is Trogdor in disguise?
OPRAH! Burninating the countryside, Burninating the patent trolls. Burninating all the peoples. And their thatched-roof COTTAGES!
Thatched-roof COTTAGES!
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:5, Funny)
Just look at paris hilton! What did the 'infamous' sex tape do to her? Shot her popularity through the roof!
I really hope we don't end up with a similar video featuring Oprah.
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Re:HAHAHAHA (Score:5, Funny)
It will be called, "A Day at the Oprah".
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Re:Would she fight it? (Score:5, Funny)
It's more likely she'd just give him a car.
Oprah and this guy are in the pre-trial conference...
Oprah: "Look under your seat!"
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Re:Would she fight it? (Score:5, Insightful)
She makes money from the media, and the media companies like the current patent and copyright laws. No one in that business is going to step forward and say 'the system is broken.' I hope she does, but I don't consider it very likely.
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Re:Would she fight it? (Score:4, Insightful)
While she may be a media icon and corporate power in her own right, do you think her handlers are silly enough to let her counter attack this guy? She makes money from the media, and the media companies like the current patent and copyright laws. No one in that business is going to step forward and say 'the system is broken.' I hope she does, but I don't consider it very likely.
She's in a position where if she does have "handlers", they probably need her a lot more than she needs them.
Also, saying "this is an abuse of the system" isn't necessarily an admission that the system is broken, only that it is imperfect. She could take the stance that fighting this is equivalent to working within the system to correct an abuse of it and that therefore it's not so broken at all. I'm not saying I personally feel this way, only that this is not necessarily the losing proposition you describe.
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Wide? (Score:4, Funny)
Did anyone else read that as : "It would be entertaining to see Oprah get very wide" ?
This is a title, since I must have one (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a title, since I must have one (Score:5, Interesting)
"Tonight on Larry King live, he had 3 guests, Oprahs personal trainer, her spiritual adviser and some other guy, talk at length about GASP, OPRAH GETTING FAT. What the hell is wrong with our world, I don't know where to begin anymore."
TV != World.
I do not watch TV. So I can't judge of the state of the world by watching Larry King show. There is not much Oprah in my world, fat or thin.
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Only in America. (Score:5, Interesting)
The land of too many lawyers without enough viable work to find.
Oh the opportunities that have been missed or shut down for fear of litigious people and the grinning lawyers that represent them.
As true as this is, I will probably be modded a flamer.
Summary of the patent (Score:5, Informative)
I've just skimmed the patent. The basic situation is they have the entire book on computer, you can choose any pages to view, but once you've viewed a certain number, it won't let you view any more. There was also a bit of stuff about supplying image and text in different formats/resolutions, and (I think) using keys to scroll around the image of one page.
How do they know that it is you, not someone else asking for more pages? They specifically include the use of cookies, but allow for other methods. There is no mention of (e.g.) using IP addresses, but I expect this would be covered. The interesting problems (How do you know the user isn't deleting the cookies? How do you know whether there are 200 people behind that single IP address?) are not addressed.
IANAL, and I didn't read it carefully, so I might be wrong about some details.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the operating procedure of an Ice Cream shop.
Yes, you can sample this. That too. That. That....
But once you've had "enough" samples, you need to buy something.
So, essentially, this patent is... "Something that's already happened for hundreds of years... on the internet"
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Mod "Insightful", not "Funny" (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless of the underlying ironic humour in the parent post, Kalriath really comes across (to me at least) more as insightful than funny. This case is another prime exemplification of how bizarre the legal situation becomes once any activity takes place via the internet, as if engaging in business online somehow changes everything (beyond just the medium of exchange).
Cheers,
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Re:Unlikely (Score:4, Interesting)
This is patent not copyright. Big content would love to see the patent system tightened up. With the possible exception of drug companies and the democrats already hate them.
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Re:Unlikely (Score:4, Insightful)
The big content providers would likely love to see a much looser patent system, then they wouldn't need to pay royalties to the patent holders of e.g. MPEG for all the content they distribute.
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Re:Unlikely (Score:5, Informative)
You have to be careful with regard to "loose" and "tight" w.r.t. the patent system. Patent lawyers tend to view a "loose" patent system as one which allows patents on everything and a "tight" one as one that's very restrictive about what can be patented. People who oppose patents (i.e. any sane programmer or engineer) tend to view a "loose" patent system as one that allows a lot of actual progress to be made - i.e. strongly limits what can be patented, and a "tight" patent system as one that is very restrictive to people who want to just get things done - i.e. allows patents (monopoly grants on doing stuff by definition) on everything.
Thus, both sides were initially calling for a "less restrictive" patent system in the european software patent debate, thoroughly confusing politicians - the pro-software-patent patent lawyers and corporate types were talking about a patent system that allowed them to patent more stuff i.e. was less restrictive about what can be patented, and the anti-software-patent software writers and such were talking about a patent system that was less restrictive to people who write software due to not allowing software patents.
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Re:Unlikely (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that would be entertaining -- but most unlikely. The sad truth is, Big Content is to Democrats as Big Oil is to Republicans.
Actually, the pertinent truth is that she is being sued, and if her lawyers are doing their jobs, they've advised her not to say anything publically that would jeapordise her case.
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