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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."
It would seem, that in light of recent IT events, a business model build around patent litigation isn't as stupid as it sounds....
I would have run out of lightning bolts to throw by now...
Filed : April 7, 1995
Granted : September 9, 1997
This might be hard to beat. Anyone using a cd burner 8 years ago?
And in related news, the United States Patent and Trademark Office is being sued by SCO due to their patent on the process of reviewing and approving patents ;-)
That's old news. The lawsuit was dismissed, on the basis that the patent covers "reviewing and approving" patents, and USPTO doesn't do any reviewing of patents prior to issuing them.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Just look at their home page:
Their "accomplishments" consist mainly of suing the pants off everyone they meet!Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The technique may apply to DVDs too. Hard to say.
See you, space cowboy...
In looking over the patent, it does seem to describe exactly what DirectCD does - allows the disc to be continually written upon and accessed by other computers with a DirectCD-like reader on it. So it looks like Roxio might be screwed.
But does this affect the general user? I've personally never used DirectCD for anything; around our office we just burn a CD once, close the disc, and ship it out wherever it needs to go. Is there really a need for a continually writable procedure on a CD when there are so many other mediums more suitable and with more capacity than a CD?
Roxio Response: /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Roxio
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 16
(Nasdaq: ROXI), The Digital Media Company(R), today responded to Optima
Technology's allegations of patent infringement.
We are aware of the Optima '531 patent and the claims within and believe
that any claim of infringement by Roxio's software products is utterly without
merit. At Roxio, we respect the legitimate intellectual property rights of
others but in this instance there is no colorable argument that the claims set
forth in the patent read on any Roxio products. We intend to aggressively
defend ourselves in this litigation.
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!
Apple free since 1990!
please let me know when we can begin the DOS attack on their web site, mail server, etc.
thank you.
Method of stylus-induced pits into clay, one tablet at a time.
I usually use a felt-tip pen, as it has much better marking characteristics than a ball point. I've written several things on my CDs, including "Pictures" and "Document Folder Backup 11/2003". This patent is obviously frivolous.
paintball
If, as it initially appears (I'm no expert in this area), this patent represented a useful step forward in CDROM technology at the time, and the technology was picked up and used by Roxio and others without license, then why shouldn't Optima get due credit and compensation?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
http://www.petitiononline.com/pasp01/petition.html
I don't know if it will really do anything but any bit helps. Of course, getting someone into the patent office who actually has a clue as to how computer software/hardware works would be much more effective. These kinds of patents are akin to a rock band having a patent for a standard rock song chord progression and suing everybody who uses the same chords. Ridiculous.
-- tokengeekgrrl
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.
Consider supporting the following groups:
Free Software Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
... and read
The Danger of Software Patents
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
The Recording Technique provides a directory which indicates the location of only the last version of any stored information or modified entry of stored information, prior versions being transparent to the operating system. The Recording Technique further provides a directory recorded on the CDROM which is transportable to other computers having the Recording Technique installed thereon. As a result, the user of a computer with a CDROM reader will interface with the CDROM in the same manner as with a non-volatile memory device that is read only.
OK, so I'm not a CD engineer, but:
All these things existed well before September, 1997, AFAIK!!
I cringe everytime I check Slashdot. The world is getting downright surreal. Above this posting is a story about a broad patent on packet writing, and above that an ad for Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX, and to my left the Slashdot logo.
... hell?
Am I dead?
Did I blow it and not believe in Jesus the right way and now I'm in some sort of
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.
Stupid like a fox!
I worked for a company that bought a "WORM" (Write Once Read Many) drive for backup purposes in 1987. We were amazed at a technology that could store over 650 megabytes on a single replacable CD-like platter! It cost something like $10,000.
The cake is a pie
good thing that this is a hardware patent, then.
Actually, I live in the DC area I know someone who works at the patent office and what you describe is actually pretty close to how it happens. Although, they do actually have people help them understand the processes described, they do no research on prior art what so ever. Apparrently there is not time. The validity of a patent is for the courts and ultimately the tax payers to figure out.
Is the Optima Technology patent the ONLY way to write to CDs? If not, then somebody else can innovate around the patent. The nice thing about patents is that they fully disclose the invention so that others might create even better inventions.
Aside from the stealthy nature of the patent application process, I would think that most technologists would think patents irrelevant. After all, a patent assumes fairly slow moving rates of innovation -- that the patent wil be valuable for tens of years. Yet I would think that the rapid pace of innovation would make any patent useless after a few years.
Its time for innovation.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
According to the patent: "The Recording Technique provides a directory which indicates the location of only the last version of any stored information or modified entry of stored information, prior versions being transparent to the operating system."
Packet writing does not leave behind the old data and only make it "transparent" to the operating system....it in fact rewrites the sectors that are not allocated in directory entries (file allocation table??); I would also assume that this multi-session writing is already an ISO standard.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
3)Sue until your stock price doubles!
SCO stock didn't just double, it went up twenty-fold at one point. If you are as smart, you'll short the stock like some of the smarter geeks out there. The stock will eventually be sued into the ground and you'll have made 100 percent on your investment (minus comission and interest).
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Why does their patent's number appear on this page at the USPTO website:m ?
http://www.uspto.gov/go/og/2001/week46/patexpi.ht
How can they enforce an expired patent?
As far as my own opinion of this debacle, I'm confident that prior art will be found to invalidate the patent, whether it's expired or not.
But if Roxio settles, this company is going to come after small companies. You bet they won't tangle with Microsoft or Dell or anyone like that.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Of course, IANAL and this was gleaned from the web:
It's been mentioned here before, but a patent holder has to make reasonable efforts to secure their patent in the marketplace. If a patent holder neglects enforcement of their patent when an infringement occurs, the patent holder may be guilty of a "submarine patent", where the patent holder specifically withholds action on infringement to maximize allowable damages. The defense to such ocurrences is termed the doctrine of laches and was laid out in a Supreme Court ruling.
The doctrine of laches defense has two elements:
- The alleged infringer will suffer serious harm to their business if the patent were enforced or if the period of time before action was such that important evidence or witnesess were lost.
- The patent holder delayed action for an unreasonable and inexcusable period of time.
Typically, six years is held to be a reasonable amount of time before the doctrine of laches may be used as a defense. Note that the burden of proof rests with the infringer and that both elements must be proven on the proponderance of the evidence and any further infringement is actionable.
That's as much as I could find.
(Disclaimer: I wrote the UDF support in FreeBSD, but I have offer no other legal or technical advice)
/. headline is vague and misleading. This doesn't look like it applies to CD recording itself, or even packet writing. Instead it looks like it applies to the VAT in the UDF >= 1.5 spec. Basically, the VAT is a sector remapping table. Since CD-R media can only be recorded sequentially, and obviously cannot overwrite existing sectors/packats, the VAT makes this linear recording look like a normal random access filesystem. The VAT is not used on CD/DVD RW media so those are probably clear, and definitely is not used in iso9660 volumes. So at worst this means that the UDF spec becomes encumbered when using the VAT. I'm not clear on whether the OSTA, IEEE, and/or ECMA bodies knew about this patent when they ratified the various specs that contribute towards UDF, but this definitely looks to be an abuse by the patent holder.
As usual, the
Worst case scenario is that this patent is upheld and Roxio (and others like Nero) start paying royalties. The Linux distributors might have to remove VAT support from their kernels. Commercial OS vendors would have to decide on whether to license it or remove it. I'm not sure if DVD mastering software will be affected since the VAT is not part of the UDF 1.0 spec. mkisofs might be affected also if it impliments VAT. Whether the OSTA committee responds with an alternative remains to be seen. But, it's not the end of the world. Like I said, I don't think that this has any bearing on CD-R's that are recorded with traditional iso9660 filesystems. Supporting write-once media and VAT is a PITA anyways, so this gives me a good excuse to not care about it in my implimentation =-)
Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
WORM file systems using such techniques have been around since at least the 1980's.
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.....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
In order to address the issue with the patent system, the RIAA, SCO, the MPAA, and any other acronym you decide to dislike today, we have to figure out what it is the patent / copyright holders are requesting and what customers want (i.e., the reason innovation is Good).
Firstly, let's say I have just come up with a neat little gadget. Now if I'm a small operation, I don't want some giant company to come and use my idea to beat me out of business through mass production. I simply want to be able to make a living off my idea. If I'm an artist, or an author, I want to be able to make a living off my concepts / performance. There's a little difference between both these concepts, so I'll focus on the patent idea.
A patent, historically, applied to a new device or a new way of doing something (there are process patents, but typically they apply to things like "here's what you need to do to make chemical X"). Now, consider a patent to be something like an "implementation right". Basically a patent says that only the patent holder or the holder's approved agent may implement the said concept. This is similar to a copyright, which states that only the copyright holder or the holder's approved agent my copy a work. I don't have a problem with either of these concepts - with some caveats but I won't discuss those here.
Now, we can argue whether or not it is good for society to have a single entity or authorized group implementing some process. It is generally assumed that it is good for the person implementing it - assuming that the implementation yeilds something for which people are willing to pay. However, what about situations where the person holding the rights to implementation isn't really good at it, and someone knows they could do it better but aren't allowed to because the original holder won't give them approval. This would be a Bad Thing.
Now, what we see here is that independent of what is being implemented we can have unintended consequences with any "exclusive rights" kind of philosophy. What it is saying, though, is that such philosophies only work for "the greater good" if people are inherently altruistic, which history continually demonstrates is not the case.
On top of the above idea, there is also the question of "what constitues an idea for which the implementation authority should be limited?" This is the current hot-topic with IP, specifically patents. What implementable ideas should be protected? What are the costs and benefits of both? Who benefits from the choice? Rarely do we see some small company which is unable to manufacture many things, with small market presence, and some company comes and stomps on them by "copying" their idea. Typically we see one guy with a patent, no ability to produce it, not trying to produce it, but only waiting for someone to copy it. From time to time we may see a small entity with a patent and license (i.e., authorize) some company to produce the product. That is the intended purpose of a patent - to allow the authorized to get started. We also see large corporations, with no real risk of losing their "livelihood", with large portfolios of patents - typically they use these to keep other people out of their industry by requiring large licensing fees, which is opposite the desired effect of patents - they prop up artificial barriers to market entry.
As an aside, I have some issues with performance copyrights. For instance, people might be paying to see a particular person perform a song, not hear the particular song performed. For instance, me performing Beethoven's 9th on a kazoo is hardly the same as the London Symphony Orchestra playing it. So performance pieces, oddly, have a weird effect of there is the thing that is being performed i
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
If you read the claims in the patent, simple multi-session CDs are covered as well. The patent was filed April 7, 1995. I'm fairly certain multisession technology was implemented on CD-ROMS before then.
Also, the patent only applies to "CDROM"s. It does not apply to DVD-based media.
I also think the patent is invalid because they had to limit their patent to applying to CDROMs. Meaning it was already in use for other types of media (other filesystems, whatever.). Meaning it is one of the "logical next steps" the patent office isn't supposed to approve.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
It is my understanding that the PTO is quite good at identifying prior art when it takes the form of previously granted patents. Unfortunately, when they started granting patents for software and business practices, which had not previously been patentable, all of the prior art was documented outside of the patent system. At a previous job, we got a software patent application back with some of the claims disallowed due to prior patents, so that much of the system seems to work. I'm not surprised that the PTO can't deal with the outside documentation of prior art; imagine the size of the job to catalog (as a start) all of the ACM journals, the IEEE computer journals, and the software textbooks that have been published since the 1960s so that you can tell if a particular algorithm used for a particular application has already appeared.
Which is why they should return to the requirement of having a working example in order for it to be patented.
How can it take seven times longer to research an application and write a letter citing existing patents or prior art, than to research an application and write a letter granting a patent?
Oh, our poor, poor PTO.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Something like 49% of all litigated patents are deemed invalid by the courts.
That number doesn't surprise me. After all, anyone sued for patent infringement will not actually let the case go to litigation unless they are pretty sure they can win. If 49% ("something like" is + or - how much?), that means that slightly more often than not, the defendant in patent litigation is defeated. That is, they erred in judging that they could win.
However, whether 49% is accurate or not, it's not a useful figure. It only tells us what percentage of litigated patent cases go against the patent holder. A useful number would be the percentage of patent cases that are litigated, from which we could determine what percentage of patents are invalidated, not what percentage of litigated patents are invalidated, which is to us a fairly useless statistic.