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SightSound Patent Case to Move Forward
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."
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>
Bringing irony to the Slash-masses
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...)
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
1's and 0's.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
;-)
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
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.
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.
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
-- My Weblog.
Try here for one version of this story.
Gotta love Google.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
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)?
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
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.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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:)
All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. - Johann Sebastian Bach
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 :)
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.