Company Claims Patent on CD Writing

rborek writes "According to CNet News.com, Roxio is being sued by Optima Technology over Patent 5,666,531 which covers 'Recordable CDROM accessing system'. It looks as though the patent describes DirectCD and its packet writing technique. Many different programs and operating systems use this - including Linux, which opens the door for widespread patent licensing issues if the suit is valid and the patent upheld."

Comments

patents

[mr_tommy]

It would seem, that in light of recent IT events, a business model build around patent litigation isn't as stupid as it sounds....

Re:patents

[jafuser]

And as long as the patent office makes more money by rubber stamping approvals than it gets by rejecting, they will continue to approve everything they can get away with...

Re:patents

[Frymaster]

Don't law firms build their business model around litigation? They seem to do pretty well.

yes. but tbey deal with litigating and defending against litigation. they sell to both sides - kind of like the krupps.

companies that pursue litigation as a business model, however, only play one side: offense. there's no money to be made defending.

Re:patents

[johnnyb]

"Um, I'm pretty sure the PTO gets paid whether your patent is granted or not. So there's no profit motive for them in granting patents."

Yes there is. To _reject_ a patent, the PTO has to give a valid reason, including relevant prior art. This includes searching for the prior art and documenting it. To accept a patent, you just have to say that it's all okay.

I've heard that it takes 7 times as long to reject a patent than it does to accept one.

We all live in a yellow....

[Remlik]

It took Optima 5+ years to figure out that all CDR Software/Hardware infringed upon their patent?

Just another happy case of

1) Patent some tech
2) Wait for tech to become standard
3) Collect the underware
4) Sue for profit!

Re:This just in...

[Aviancer]

Patents aren't stupid -- the patent office is. It seems to me that they're taking the approach that if the applicant can hold a reasonable argument for a process they don't understand, they issue the patent under the assumption that the courts will sort out the garbage fromt the useful patents.

I say that it's time for an examination of the whole patent application/approval process.

Patents vs. Trademarks

[AaronStJ]

It seems to me that copmanyies very often sit on a patent until their 'invention' becomes very popular before enforcing the patent. Perhaps patents should be more trademarks, either enforece it, or lose it. As it stands, each copmany that wants to bring a product to market would have to do a thorough (and costly) patent search to avoid litigation. This seems counter-intuitive for ideas that have established themselves, or even become standards, such a packet writing. After all, if countless other companies are producing it, why should I expect to have any trouble myself? But then, boom, the company holding the obscure patent comes out of nowhere.

It's unfair of a company to keep quiet about patent infringement until their invention has become a standard, and then try to leverage their way into a monopoly with patent litigation. If they had been forthcoming about their patent in the first place, perhaps other (better?) standards would be invented. Or, if the idea behind the patent really is that good, the original copmany would en up with most of the market share, and come by it honestly.

In conclusion, patents should be more like trademarks. Use 'em or lose 'em.

Re:Predatorial practices

[Zathrus]

it covers a specific method of creating the image

In which case it should be moot under US Patent law since it is neither inobvious nor novel.

Or are you trying to tell me that other programmers have not preformatted data in memory or on disk prior to writing it out -- whether out is a pipe, a socket, a floppy disk, a hard disk, shared memory, or (gasp) an optical disk?

Whoever approved this patent was not an expert in the field, as the PTO is supposed to utilize while vetting patents.

I haven't read the patent. Maybe there's some twists in there that The Register didn't cover (yeah, I'd be shocked at poor "news" out of The Register). But I doubt it.

Applying a well known technique to a new media is not a patentable idea. Please.

Re:Doubles?

[MechaStreisand]

No, if you're dumb you'll short it. For that to work effectively, you not only have to know that it will go down, but when. And you don't.

And the amount of money you could lose is limited only by your imagination.

Not really that important

[johnlcallaway]

Part of the patent states:

The current technique which is used to write to a recordable CDs involves mastering software which has the following drawbacks:

1) It incorporates a file interface that is unfamiliar to the user.

2) The copying process is generally accomplished through track-at-once or disc-at-once recording. This means the user must take great care to pre-plan the copying and dedicate storage resources (the source disk(s)) ahead of time.

3) The user cannot access data being stored on the disc until the track-at-once or disc-at-once recording is completed.

4) These recording techniques are very susceptible to data under run. This means that dedicated high speed data sources are needed.

5) Other mastering techniques may support incremental writing but the data on these discs can only be read by the mastering software. They cannot be used or accessed by the computer operating system or other applications.

Thus there is a need for a technique which allows the CDROM, whether blank or partially written, to appear to a user exactly as would any other storage media, such as a hard disk.

To my non-legally trained mind, this appears to apply to a process that lets someone 'mount' a burnable CD and just drag and drop files onto it, making the CD appear to be a normal disk drive. It doesn't appear to cover creating a CD project (for lack of a better word) that includes a bunch of files, then burning the CD.

If this is true, what's all the hubbub, bub?? I have never used this function of my Adaptec software, and have no desire to. I prefer to build a list of files, and burn my CDs once.

While the arguments about taking too long to sue for infrignment have merit, I think the actual impact to most users will be minimal.

Why that is so difficult (as the patent claims) I don't know. Probably a PEBKAC issue.....

Re:This just in...

[Dashing Leech]

But in fact, they did nothing, absolutely nothing for the technical realization of it.

Which is why they should return to the requirement of having a working example in order for it to be patented.

Re:Not if the PTO does it right

[cmarkn]

Logically, it would even be the other way - once you find one existing patent or example of prior art, you could stop looking, which would usually be before you exhausted the entire database. To grant one, you would have to search the entire database, which would take longer.

But hey, it means nothing anyway - the courts decide everything.