CDDB Joins The Bad Patent Club

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Today I received a very ominous package from GraceNote, owners of CDDB. Already infamous for turning a wonderful open project into a quagmire of heavy contracts, licensing fees, forced user registration and anti-competition clauses, the package from GraceNote contained one thing: copies of their patents, freshly awarded. "Don't even think about using FreeDB", the packaged seemed to silently imply, "because we own the patents, period." That patent? "Method and system for finding approximate matches in a database." Ouch. Thanks, USPTO." Scary: I use freedb constantly. I'd hate to lose it.

Comments

Isn't CDDB GPL?

[enterfornone]

CDDB was originally GPL right? And FreeDB still uses the original GPL code before CDDB changed their licence. The GPL states that if patents are granted they must be freely licenced. It would be interesting to see a court test this one out.

Once again: READ THE PATENT

[Masem]

The idea is based of CDDB, but it's NOT the CDDB database directly. The patent describes actions that a browser can take in synch with musical content that is played from a CD player. So, for example, the streaming of music lyrics to a Java applet, the synching of a music video to the music from the CD, or actions in a chat room. Yes, the idea of retrieving the CDDB database entry for a file from this could be covered, but the claims don't appear to do this. (And as others pointed out, they really have no way to defend this aspect in court). The title is very poor, as the patent's more focused on how to time and synch with musical playback, as opposed to fuzzy searching.

Re:Curious

[David Hume]

Couple of problems. Since the original developers licensed the program that had cddb code in it under a fairly free license, doesn't that mean, that they can't later revert it?

I'm not sure what you are saying here. I think you may be confusing copyright and patent law. Or you may be raising a very interesting question regarding the operaton of the doctrines of waiver, estoppel, and/or an implied in fact or implied in law patent license.

Assume you invent something. The invention is embodied in software. First, you have a copyright on the writing -- i.e., the code. You then -- as and only as a matter of copyright law -- grant a license to others to copy and modify the code. It could be the GPL, BDS license, whatever.

Further assume that -- perhaps unknown to everyone -- you apply for a patent on your invention. The patent is awarded. Does the fact that -- again as and only as a matter of copyright law -- you licnesed others to copy and modify your code effect the validity of your patent? No.

However, the fact you licensed others to copy and use your code may effect the enforceability of your patent -- at least against your copright licensees. A court may say that you have waived any right to obtain damages against such copyright licensee. A court may find you are estopped from obtaining any damges from them for past use. (I would certainly hope, and expect so.) Whether it would prevent you from obtaining injuctive relief regarding future use is an interesting question. A court may find that you have waived such relief, are estopped from seeking such relief, and/or that you granted an implied in law or implied in fact patent license when you granted the copyright license. Again, an interesting issue.

Second, the actual database itself is composed of submissions. Unless, I explicitly disclaim ownership of the submitted data, how can cddb claim to own it? As far as I know, you need to explicitly give away rights.

They don't claim to own the information. They don't claim to have a copyright on the information. They don't, as far as I know, even claim to have a copyright on any particular database. They are claiming a patent on a method of operating, utilizing or making a database. Again, it is important not to confuse patent law with copyrhight law.

Curious

[Outlyer]

Couple of problems. Since the original developers licensed the program that had cddb code in it under a fairly free license, doesn't that mean, that they can't later revert it?
Second, the actual database itself is composed of submissions. Unless, I explicitly disclaim ownership of the submitted data, how can cddb claim to own it? As far as I know, you need to explicitly give away rights, they cannot be taken. Also, none of the CDDB programs have any sort of EULA about this?
I don't claim to be a lawyer (sorry, IANAL sounds weird) but this doesn't seem like it holds a lot of water.

p.s. don't bother making (Funny +5) comments like "I'm going to patent breathing or whatever" We've heard it before.

Donate to EFF

[tbo]

This insanity has got to stop, and it falls on us geeks to do something.

Your average citizen doesn't realize how software patents affect them (and will affect them). All they see is higher prices and less innovation, but they don't know why.

Write to your elected representatives, to industry leaders, and to news organizations. We need to make people aware of how patents are stifling innovation instead of rewarding it. If you're too lazy to do any of that, please please please at least join EFF. They even have student rates.

stop whining and do something about it.

[ZeroLogic]

like it or not, patents have evolved into a corporate weapon, under the current model, how can anyone fault cddb, or amazon for patenting anything they can.

If you are sick of this model, then why not send your congressmen a letter (a *real* letter, one you wrote on paper!). Until the laws regarding copyright are changed, we are just going to see more of these patents rewarded.

Here are the patents in question

[ttyRazor]

Haven't seen links posted yet, so here they are

http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05987525__
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06154773__
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06061680__

Re:Refused rocks

[plunge]

Yeah, well I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."

Vague, but sounds enforcable

[gbnewby]

Yes, the USPTO is clueless. But it sounds like the patent (filed July 1999, granted May 2000) applies to a wide variety of applications that link metadata to content on the Internet.

The patent description is actually more specific than some of the drivel the USPTO has granted (like one-click shopping). It clearly applies to multimedia content (e.g., music), and linking "complementary entertainment content" (e.g., most anything including ads, metadata, external links, etc.).

Yes, boys and girls: they've applied for international patents as well under the EU and WIPO. So, don't plan on getting relief from moving offshore. Although a naive (aka reasonable) point of view would think it's more expensive to pursue non-US infringers by US patent owners, in fact WIPO makes it (a) cheap; (b) biased; and (c) fast.

• Greg