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Patents

SightSound Patent Case to Move Forward 100

Posted by timothy from the patent-absurdia dept.
Masem writes: "CNet reports that a preliminary hearing has allowed the case that SightSound Technologies brought against CDNow over patent infringements to proceed forward, indicating that the judge believes that SightSound has a chance of defending it's case. Sightsound claims that patents it filed in the late 80s covering the "electronic sale" of music and video over a "telecommunications line" cover most of the methods used today on the Internet to peddle music or vidoes, whether by CD/DVD or by MP3/mpeg tracks. Not mentioned in the article, but there are notable parallels between this and BT's patent claim on hyperlinks, in that both patents have an overly broad language, and were filed before the Internet became what it is today, and in both cases the defendants are arguing that the non-specificness of the patents to the Internet make them unapplicable to the specific case."
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SightSound Patent Case to Move Forward More

SightSound Patent Case to Move Forward

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  • SightSound = large brick & mortar music shop


    CDNow = Dot.com survivor, yet damaged and broke


    Both sides purchase a legal team and guess which one is going to win?

    I'm ashamed to be american when unbiased judicial branch of government can be so easily manipulated.

    sighs>

    • Thomas Kyd Spanish Tradgedy William Shakespeare Hamlet Sightsound "sound of music" CDNow "sound of music" ???? borrowing is one thing but owning the method of creation and distribution . . . whatever happened to American ingenuity?
    • CDNow = Dot.com survivor, yet damaged and broke

      Bertelsmann, the company that owns CDNow, is a VERY big company with lots of money to spare. If they want to fight this to the death I think they can long outlast SightSound.
    • The end may not be near after all. I look at it this way. With BT jumping the Atlantic pond and asking American companies for money, legislator's may just take notice. If the cash is just moving from one American oligopoly to another, then fine, but when it flows out of this country, then those in power (might/will) take notice. There hasn't been a better time to write your congress person and vent.

      Really though, there will come a point when the absolute frivoulus nature of these suits hits a nerve, where those with the power to do something are finally pushed to change the system. Perhaps this SightSound lawsuit, or maybe Microsoft suing the President for using their patented decison making process. It will happen sooner if we (/.'ers who want to make a diff) make some noise. I sent a mail to Senator Fitzgerald about the SSSCA and even though I just got a response a couple of weeks ago, it was in fact hand signed (the letter was laser printed, but you can tell the sig was done with one of those 10 cent bic pens).

      My point is, there is a wall to which these lawsuits are running. How far we have to go depends on how greedy those on top are (go Enron), and how diligent those with some knowledge on the subject can be. Write your senator! [senate.gov] Write your Representative! [house.gov]

  • have I got this right.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mlk ( 18543 )
    They have patents on "selling music online".

    Quick, get on to the patent office NOW! Own your patent on "Selling Drinks Online", "Selling Pizza Online", (well the list is endless...)
    • Why not just patent "Selling Items Online" and be done with it?
      • Well, I was hoping the each /. poster could get there own line...

        This might be the way forward for OSS companys, no longer will developers need to use a "real life" job to support there opensource programming ;)
      • Someone did patent that. A university professor. Some company baught the patent from him for a few thousand (I think) and proceded to try to sue everyone (this was a couple years ago). I don't know what happened.
      • Nope, selling items online is probably already patented.

        Though a less generalized form would be "Selling merchandise or service through an electronic means." Guess what, Pay-Per-View on Sattelite TV/cable, telephone "shop at home", and using your credit card at all would be covered.

        See technically banks have been "wiring" money to places long before 1980's, the entire idea of buying something through an electronic means could even apply to vending machines...

        I think software patents should start requiring actual source code to prove that it indeed works, then maybe the perpetual-motion machines of the software world would die (that's compressing totally random data.) Then people could only patent working things, not generizations or absurdities.
  • We just need to talk to the first guy who played a cassette, 8-track, or vinyl album over the telephone to get this all straightened out.

    ;-)

    • Not in my 80's yet, but RSN.

      OTOH, I wrote a magazine article in the 80's (never published) in which I predicted that the "normal" way of selling music would be to go into your local music store, where you slot a coin into a machine like a jukebox to select the tracks you wanted, the music would then be downloaded over the phone line, and burned into a CD, separate micro payments being made to the artist, producer, and songwriter by the jukebox, so as to prevent the record companies from scamming the artists.

      I am ready to appear as an expert witness saying that any or all of this technology is not patentable on the grounds that "it is obvious to anyone suitably skilled in the relevant technology", which fails a patent in the UK.

      I probably have the text of the original article on OS/2 backup tapes (but can't read them at present).

      If you want me to appear in a US court, you will have to pay my trip across the Atlantic, and swear an affidavit that the opposite side is not connected to the mafia.

  • doesn't this case kind of show how over the top patents can be? i mean, is there no limit to the broadness of patents? surely one company shouldn't own an entire industry like that? oh wait, Microsoft already do...
    • You do not understand how patents work ...

      The patent office grants you a patent, but its validity is only determined when it is challenged in court.

      Filing the patent with the patent office ONLY establishes the date at which you claim to have invented it, so that you can show you were first. It does not mean that the claims are meaningfull, let alone valid.

  • Overly Broad Now, Maybe (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sure, now we think it's overly broad, when we have more internet sites than grocery stores and more ways for computers to interoperate than was imagined when the patent was filed. Maybe, just maybe, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Happens all the time.
  • Since no one has apparently thought of it, then I guess I can patent it. I am going to apply to get a patent on selling brocolli of the phone.

    While I am at it I might as well patent selling everything else no one has apparently thought of selling over the "telecommunication lines"

  • Pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by J.D. Hogg ( 545364 ) on Thursday February 14, 2002 @10:17PM (#3011691) Homepage
    "The 6-year-old company has been in court since 1998, suing Bertelsmann division CDNow for violating patents filed in the late 1980s."

    6 year old little Johny has been in the director's office since noon, complaining that 8 year old little Bob stole his lunchbox last week.

    The sad thing about this, and the other kajillion petty court cases between multimediocre companies trying to position themselves as yet another toll booth between artists and listeners, is that, in the end, it's the consumer who ends up paying the attorney bills.

  • Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wirefarm ( 18470 ) <.ten.cdmm. .ta. .mij.> on Thursday February 14, 2002 @10:21PM (#3011706) Homepage
    I seem to remember that one of the early uses of telephone technology was a subscription service that let you listen to musical performances (live opera, etc.) over an ordinary telephone.
    I'm pretty sure this was in Europe somewhere and would have probably been about 1905 - I read this about eight years ago in a colleague's thesis on the telecom industry.
    An interesting side note was that they could give you a 'stereo' performance if you had two telephones.

    Does this 'ring a bell' with anyone?
    Perhaps we can ask Bob Bemer? ;-)

    Cheers,
    Jim in Tokyo

    • Found a link (Score:3, Informative)

      by wirefarm ( 18470 )
      Try here [ipass.net] for one version of this story.
      Gotta love Google.

      Cheers,
      Jim in Tokyo
    • I seem to remember that one of the early uses of telephone technology was a subscription service that let you listen to musical performances (live opera, etc.) over an ordinary telephone.

      Yes, i know what you mean, can't think of the name though, something starting with 'tele'. There's a variant on it that's existed for over 75 years, it transmits church services over the phone to people who want to listen to them but can't get to church. It's simply called "churchphone" here in the Netherlands.
    • I present to you...

      ...Thaddeus Cahill's Teleharmonium [synthmuseum.com]!!!

      Not only one of the first (the first?) synthesizers for electronic music - but his very idea was to send electronic music over telephone lines to "listeners"...

      When? Idea in 1893, granted patent number 580,035 in 1898, and completed the first machine in 1901 - prior art, methinks!!!

      Hmm...
    • That's all well and good, but you need to read each and every element of the claims. In order to invalidate a claim (by anticipation), a prior art reference must disclose each and every element of the claim. I haven't looked at the SightSound patents in about a year, but I believe the broadest claim has payment by a credit card as an essential element.
      • True, to invalidate a patent the art must show every element. But obvious elements can be very easy to show. If the claim says "payment by a credit card" then a prior art reference that says only, "payment" can make the claim obvious, because once you teach "payment" then "payment by credit card" is obvious. And you can combine references (as long as one of ordinaly skill in the art would have been motivated to combine them).

  • Nonobvious? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by andaru ( 535590 ) <andaru2@onebox.com> on Thursday February 14, 2002 @10:28PM (#3011735) Homepage
    I thought that the process defined in the patent had to be nonobvious.

    The judge says that it covers "any means of transferring information so long as it can occur over telecommunications lines." That sounds like it would fail the nonobvious test by definition, since we were going to end up moving data across telecommunications lines like crazy without ever knowing about SightSound's ridiculous patent.

    Is it true about the nonobvious issue, though? Anybody out there a patent lawyer (preferably one specializing in defending against frivolous patent claims)?

    • "Transport Mechanism" (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )
      One thing I notice is that most of these silly patents simply substitute (update) the "transport mechanism".

      For example, delivering pizza by car is clearly not patentable. However, if you subtitute "car" with "eletronic wire" or "internet", you THEN have something patentable by today's standards. It does NOT matter that you did not invent the wire, nor the transfer protocol. It is simply substitution of delivery mechanisms.

      I am gonna patent delivering pizza by ion rocket "or any other interplanetary device". No, I won't have invented the pizza, nor delivery, nor delivery of pizza, nor rockets. But put the 3 together and Shazam! Holy Patent, Batman!

      Know that Dilbert Mission Statement Generator? I wonder if the same cannot be done with patents. The pattern is "deliver X by Y" where X is all the normal stuff we get now, and Y is a bunch of warmed-over dot-com buzzwords.

    • Re:Nonobvious? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Artagel ( 114272 )
      Non-obvious has to be qualified: "A patent may not be obtained ... if the differences between the the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made."

      1) The last sentence got rid of the "flash of genius" test. If you have to try bamboo, eyelashes, feathers, paper, iron, thread, silk, etc. before finding tungsten as the right filament for a light bulb, the fact that you worked really, really hard rather than had a lightning bolt of inspiration does not keep you from getting a patent.

      2) "as a whole" - you do not ask if each of the pieces, in isolation, was in the prior art or obvious. You have to look at the whole thing with all of its cooperation, function, relationship of the parts, etc. The question is not whether Edison invented tungsten -- he never claimed to have invented tungsten. You have to include the voltage, the vacuum, the glass enclosure, etc. and how those elements are related to each other.

      3) "at the time the invention was made" has two consequences.

      First, you cannot use hindsight to say "oh, that was easy." Sure, tungsten glows bright white when hot, tungsten has a high melting point, tungsten is strong. Was tungsten obvious? I don't think so, but it is easy to construct hindsight analysis that makes it appear so.

      Second, the level of skill in the art is assessed as of the time of the making of the invention -- not the state of knowledge today.

      3) Ordinary skill in the art. Gosh knows if I was a Swiss inventor and my examiner was Albert Einstein it would suck. The man thinks everything is obvious. Well DUH. Consider from the level of ORDINARY SKILL IN THE ART. And get Albert Einstein out of the dang patent office.

      4) The art. Solving a problem might be obvious out-of-field. For example, There is a problem with a printing press. The solution might well be obvious to an engineer in an oil refinery. That doesn't make it obvious in the printing press art.

      "any means of transferring information" makes the claim broad. That is good and bad for the patentee. Good because it covers a lot of infringers. Bad because it does not differentiate him from the prior art. Odds are claims shouldn't be written to cover only transfers mediated by 8 bit microprocessors. The invention does not reside in how many bits the microprocessor had.

      You can only evaluate a patent claim as being either infringed or obvious by using the entire claim. The judge has to interpret bits and pieces because the Supreme Court gave him that job. Once you figure out what the words or phrases mean individually, you still have to apply them as a whole to the case.

  • Patent the concept of money! Get rich! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by prisoner-of-enigma ( 535770 ) on Thursday February 14, 2002 @10:33PM (#3011753) Homepage
    I wonder if anyone has ever patented the concept of money. No, really! If totally obvious shit like selling stuff online can be patented, then anything can be. What's next? Patent breathing and eating? You could make a killing!

    [sigh] Our wonderful U.S. patent system has once again shown us how horrifically broken it is. While patents serve a useful purpose of allowing inventors to (hopefully) recoup their R&D expenses and actually make some money, now they are being used as legal cudgels to prevent someone else from even doing business.

    Anybody got any brave ideas on how we could overhaul the patent system? Doing away with it is NOT a fix, BTW.
    • I had the patent on stupidity. Since most of the dot com ideas were "stupid," I thought I would get rich. But when it finally got down to the suing, I found out I filled in the forms wrong, and it didn't work as planned.
    • Another rant of the uninformed. Selling "stuff" online was not obvious in the late 80's. They also don't have a patent on selling "stuff". They have a patent for a technique for "electronic sales and distribution of digital audio or video signals," specifically over a "telecommunications line."

      It is not our patent system that is "horrifically broken". It is up to the court system (checks and balances of our 3 branches of government) to make the final decision on patents. The problem is that people are taking patents that are for something very specific and trying to apply them to general uses. There is nothing wrong with the patent, there is something wrong with the money hungry lawyers who know that there is no such thing as losing a lawsuit for them.
      • There is nothing wrong with the patent, there is something wrong with the money hungry lawyers who know that there is no such thing as losing a lawsuit for them.

        Do you think the lawyer went in to the patent holder, and said, "I've been perusing your IP, and I have decided that it would be good for you if you sued these people because you can win. I would be happy to handle the case"?

        Such a lawyer would have violated ethical rules if s/he did that. It is direct solicitation, and a lawyer can be disbarred for it.

        Everyone hates lawyers until they need one. Lawyers are, unfortunately, a necessary evil. They provide us recourse to a complex body of laws. The threat of being sued is one powerful thing that keeps business from breaking the law, or at least makes them think about it.

        When the Shakespeare character said, "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," they were trying to overthrow the government. They were villians who said that.

  • Markman Hearing (Score:5, Informative)

    by ajakk ( 29927 ) on Thursday February 14, 2002 @11:02PM (#3011840) Homepage
    For those of you who don't know much about patent litigation (ie almost all of /.), this hearing had NOTHING to do with the validity of the patent. In all patent suits these days, there is a preliminary hearing called a Markman hearing where the judge determines what the scope is of the claims(the important part) of the patent. If the judge decides them to be overly broad, it can hurt the patentee because it will make them easier to invalidate with prior art. As of this point, the judge (and/or jury) have not looked at the prior art at all.

    • Do not bother educating the teeming masses of slashdot in legalese. They are geeks proud to hold on to their ignorance of the law. Many, many usernames have come before you attempting the same thing saying witty things like "IAALBMAOAIYPMOR" I Am A Lawyer But My Advice Only Applies If You Put Me On Retainer". Basically no lawyer lasts long on Slashdot because the posters who bleat the loudest are usually 13 years old. No on else is naive enough to not realize that right and wrong have very little to do with the law, especially civil law.

      • Re:Markman Hearing (Score:3, Interesting)

        by raresilk ( 100418 )
        Well, I guess your own ignorant bleating makes you 13 years old, then. Lawyers such as myself who take time away from their revenue-producing work to discuss legal issues FOR FREE (as in beer) to /. readers, are not attempting to be "witty" when we post disclaimers. The disclaimers are required by law, for several reasons:

        At least in the US, attorneys are restricted to practicing law in states where they are admitted to the bar. For example, I am admitted only to the California bar, and cannot practice in any other US jurisdiction without a court's express permission. If I were to post a legal opinion on /., and someone in Montana followed my advice in a personal matter without consulting a Montana lawyer, I might be exposed to the accusation of practicing law without a license.

        Nor is the risk only to myself. Although it is appropriate for purposes of the discussions we have on /. to articulate legal principles in general terms, I would never dream of making a recommendation in a particular case without an in-depth interview with the client, an analysis of the facts and circumstances presented, and legal research focused on that specific scenario. Without knowledge of the nuances, laypersons would be susceptible to misapplication of the general principles articulated in my posts, and might be tempted to charge forward into a touchy legal situation without proper counsel because "I already know the answer from a lawyer on Slashdot." Thus, it is appropriate for me to caution readers that my posts are not legal advice and do not establish an attorney-client relationship, discouraging them from such inappropriate individual reliance.

        I have posted to a number of /. legal issue threads. I do not do this to get people to "Put Me On Retainer" - if you'll notice, I don't even publish my email address here, so how would anyone do that? Instead, my usual purpose is to dispel misconceptions about the law that circulate so widely on /. as to acquire the status of "urban legend" -- something everyone believes because it happened to their sister's husband's friend's employee, but doesn't actually have a grain of truth. I do so despite the virulent anti-lawyer atmosphere that prevails here - that attitude in itself shows the need for my continued contributions.

        And I bet I will last longer on /. than you . . .

  • I'd like to announce to the Slashdot community that I've patented the process of respiration.

    In the future, each time you breathe, I will be collecting a small royalty from every one of you.

    Thank you.
    • No, you can't patent respiration by itself. That is just too obvious, at least for another couple of weeks.

      You have to be more unique than that. Maybe "respiration while sleeping" or "respiration while reading slashdot".

      Hey I got it... "Loud respiration over the telephone". I don't think anyone has done that before :)

  • What % of the total downloaded data would have to be audio or video to constitute violating this patent? What do they consider audio and video? I have paid for and downloaded games for my computer that had both audio and video in digital format before. What about the tax software I paid for via credit card and downloaded this year? It has both digital audio (wav files) and digital video (advisors and such) included in the download, does that mean they have violated the patent also? IANL so I don't quite understand the legalese of the patent but it seems to be rather vauge. Could CDNow get around this by including some non audio data with the download, like a text file or jpg picture of something? Where do you draw the line?
  • Does anyone know the patent number of the SightSound patent (or patents)? I was thinking about checking it out on the PTO website, PTO Patent Search [uspto.gov], to see what it actually says. I thought it might be a good idea to read the patent before I made any sweeping generalizations about the patent system, American jurisprudence, or the character of the people enforcing it.
    • . I thought it might be a good idea to read the patent before I made any sweeping generalizations about the patent system, American jurisprudence, or the character of the people enforcing it.

      You are one of the few sensible people here. Maybe you can patent the idea of getting the facts before you spout opinion. It is certainly a novel idea here on these boards.


  • As of right now, I'm officially patenting the clicking noise a keyboard makes when you type.

    That's *MY* noise, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let any of you MONKEYS use my incredible, edible invention without my written consent.

    That is all.

  • The Litigants (Score:2, Funny)

    by IgD ( 232964 )
    Kudos to Slashdot. I love this Patents topic!

    I'm an avid Star Trek fan and I'd like to propose a new Trek Race: The Litigants. Picture this non-violent species with me. They are a sort of compromise in between the Pherengi and the Borg. The whole society is based around the courtroom. They fly around the Galaxy and use the legal systems of other races to assimilate intellectual property. They wear powdered wigs and carry quill pens. Every form of communication is a legal negotiation. Their cultural rituals like marriage are all a series of legal wranglings between man and woman. This race never attacks races through weapons. They attack only through legal manuevering sort of like the ACLU.

    Oh, this is patented IP too:)
    • Sorry, prior art exists - an episode of Farscape where the majority of society are all lawyers and the rest are the oppressed minority.

      Whatever you do, don't cross the street against the light.
      :-)
  • Another abuse of patent laws. What we need is to have people go through all the patents and just yank out those that are blatently stupid or overbroad. Like this one. Oh, wait. No, that takes money, and we need the money now for other purposes. Like, oh, tax cuts, bloating up the military some more, etc. Just for once, can't someone with a bit of intellect--no, common sense--run the government?

  • Prior art? MUZAK! (Score:2, Informative)

    by rakeswell ( 538134 )
    From Muzak Corporation's website [muzak.com]:
    When Gen. George Squier patented the transmission of background music in the 1920s, that is music from phonograph records delivered over electrical lines...
    I recall reading a long time ago that telephone lines were actually used for the transmissions. Companies paid a subscription for this service. So how is SightSound's claim in any way novel or innovative over what Muzak corp. did in the 20s?
    • that patent would apparently only cover the delivery of music over the transmission medium. SightSound's patent is on the sale of music over the lines. Seems odd that you can patent a way of selling something though - I thought business methods were off limits, or am I just stupid?

  • If the law was simplified, thousands of shady people in busy jobs would be on the streets. It wouldn't be pretty. Keep them legal :)
  • Just a general question that seems to apply to this story....

  • All this patent debate could've been avoided... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by yeOldeSkeptic ( 547343 ) on Friday February 15, 2002 @02:47AM (#3012450)

    if congress didn't mess with the patent law that essentially says...

    1. You can't patent an idea.

    2. If you want to patent something, you must build it first.

    The patent office grants patents based on a written description nowadays.

    The patent law was supposed to be a way for inventors and tinkerers (the engineers of this world) to benefit financially from their work. Now it has become a way for bored lawyers to make money. I'm getting sick.

  • This was around in the mid 80's rather than the late 80's. QLink was the precursor of AOL and was designed for Commodore Computers. Later sold to AOL, which now owns what Bill Gates doesn't. For a stroll doen memory lane and to hear what music sounded like 15 years ago visit LI Dave's SID Collection [replayer.com] He even has a Winamp Plugin as well as 'freestanding players available. I visited a while back, and was stunned at how bad the sids sound now, when we used to listen to them all the time, and actually enjoyed them..times change.
  • Even if one agrees with the ridiculous notion that someone can have a patent on a mode of sale, rather than a physical creation, it makes no sense that people who sell audio tracks from countries outside the country in which the patent is held would be bound by the patent. ie, if you sell MP3s from Australia, you are not bound by the US patent.
    Another question which further highlights how ridiculous this patent is that someone from the States who downloads an MP3 from an Australian seller may in fact be breaking the law.

    It doesn't change the fact that whoever allowed the patent to be registered initially should probably be shot. That's if pulling the trigger of a gun was not already patented by someone else.
  • I keep reading these stories about software/mew media related patents and clearly there's something very wrong in the USPTO (and probably other nations' patent bodies too, to be fair), however there's something in here that never seems to be addressed.

    What resposibility does the patent attorney hold in these situations. I realize that there's no requirement that an attorney be involved in any way with a patent application process, and many larger companies likely handle them internally (albeit, i would guess, through their own office of general counsel). Most smaller companies though, and certainly individuals, would hire a patent lawyer to handle the intricacies of the patent application. It's not an easy process and that's why there are specialists, and it was my understanding, though i could be wrong, that part of what the patent attorney does before filing a patent is perform research for prior art and/or other patents which would conflict with the current application. The signature of the attorney on the application, I thought, was primarily to say "I'm an expert and I see nothing wrong about this application."

    That being said, it seems that for any patent for which there is very obvious prior art, or which attempts to patent something obvious, there's a patent attorney who didn't do his job quite well enough (for whatever reason).

    So then, what responsibility does this lawyer hold for such a misrepresentation, or, perhaps, what responsibility *should* he/she hold. Can they be disbarred? Or does the issue not really matter.

    If I'm wrong about all this, by all means, educate me, but it seems like the USPTO can't take all the blame, nor be responsible for deeply researching each patent application it gets. Lets find a way to properly weed out lame patents before they even get to the USPTO, perhaps through greater accountability for the handlers of the pre-application process.

    -k
    • Someone on /. (other than a lawyer) acknowledging that a bit of legal advice and knowledge might enhance their efforts to protect intellectual freedom? No way. . .

    • It's not an easy process and that's why there are specialists, and it was my understanding, though i could be wrong, that part of what the patent attorney does before filing a patent is perform research for prior art and/or other patents which would conflict with the current application.

      Patent attorneys aren't required to do prior art searches, though they are a very good idea. As long as you don't KNOW of any relevant art, you are off the hook. That might sound like incentive to not research, but you must also include the cost of patents, and the desire of business not to waste $5k-$10k on an application that is easily knocked out by some art.

      So then, what responsibility does this lawyer hold for such a misrepresentation, or, perhaps, what responsibility *should* he/she hold. Can they be disbarred? Or does the issue not really matter.

      If the lawyer does misrepresent something, or knowingly withhold relevant material, there can be serious consequences. I believe there are even criminal penalties possible for misleading the PTO, not to mention being disbarred.

      The PTO is responsible for doing the searches, that is one of their main tasks in prosecution. If they fail, and a bad patent gets issued, it isn't the end of the world, because when the owner of the bad patent tries to enforce it (by suing for infringement) the defendent can invalidate the patent by showing it should never have issued to begin with.

      These extremely broad patents we are discussing will be easier to invalidate, because they are so broad. If someone can show art that existed at the time of patenting, then any anticipated patent claims will be invalidated. If someone can even show multiple references that together make the invention obvious, the patent can be invalidated.

      If you want to improve this process, then let the PTO keep its money. It has a fee structure that allows it to take care of all its expenses by the fees it collects (which are numerous). But congress sees fit to appropriate that money, leaving the PTO understaffed for the job it is required to do. If there were more examiners, better paid, then our patent system would be more robust, and less "bad" patents would issue. But the taxpayers (i.e., us) don't want to pay for much of anything. Especially something so far away from our everyday lives.

  • These guys are still around? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheRealFixer ( 552803 ) on Friday February 15, 2002 @01:20PM (#3014082)
    Wow... these SightSound guys with their lucky patent are still around? I remember the first made a name for themselves trying to sue MP3.com (back when MP3.com was still cool) for distrubuting MP3s online for a fee.

    Have you ever read their patent? It's so vague it's pathetic; and there's so much priot art it isn't funny. It basically says they invented the concept of selling digital music over communication lines. That's all? I remember BBSs back in the day that were pay-membership, having MIDI and MOD music files for download. long before they "invented" it.

    But what surprised me is how many large corporations just caved in to this little two-bit operation waving around their bogus patent! I'm really surprised it hasn't been struck down yet.

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