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DVDCCA Claims Patent on CSS

Posted by michael on from the patent-leather-shoes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After dropping their suit against Andrew Bunner, DVDCCA has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against 321 Studios. This is an interesting claim, because since patents are published, something can not be both patented and a trade secret."

19 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. What happens to the world... by czcxmag · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ..when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially.

    Even foreign governments.

    Intellectual property in all of its various forms is being abused by the corporate world. The madness is the laws supporting this behavior continue to pass, bypassing the individual and wholeheartedly supporting the corporation.

    Isn't the government supposed to be working for us? Aren't our rights supposed to be first and foremost in their minds? There is a balance to be maintained, and our rights are not unlimited, but more and more across the entire globe the individual is lost.

    Not to be funny but has anyone considered the implications of all these recent intellectual property rights and how it seems more and more that we're being pushed into the draconian future of Johnny Mnemonic and Shadowrun? The only way you get information is to steal it. The only way for another corporation to get information is to hire you to steal it.

    I grow more and more distressed at the world my son will grow up in, the conditions he will consider normal, the laws he will break just by trying to think.

    --
    If you disagree post, don't moderate.
    1. Re:What happens to the world... by Rich0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      However, what you are completely overlooking is that "your" research and "your" results are based on centuries of tradition and thought by others. Your work has only been possible because others shared their ideas freely.

      I've always been annoyed by the academic "first to publish" game. How many grad students end up having to slave night and day in the lab to try to be the first to discover something novel, and being a week behind another group is the difference between getting your Ph.D. with lots of recognition and having to pick some other project and work a few more years. It also brought us such wonderful concepts as holding up the full publication of discoveries so that a scientist can publish just enough information initially to establish priority and get recognition, but hold up enough information so that only they can get additional publications on follow-up reasearch (for an example of this, look at the tradition where crystallographers would publish glossy photos of their proteins on the front page of Science and then only release their coordinates a year later - I believe that this is fortunately and finally falling out of favor (though I haven't been current in the crystallography field for a few years now)).

      Knowledge is furthered the most when people work together, and it should be recognized that all modern discoveres are merely the result of standing on the shoulders of those who went before us. Actaully, this is one thing that I like about the GPL - it basically says "I made my contribution to the world public, and if you're gonna stand on my shoulders you had better do the same".

      In a day and age where automation has made neither food nor labor scarce society shouldn't be running in a mode where everybody is compelled to try to be king-of-the-hill just to life a modest life. It seems like we've turned into a society where either you are one of the few people who reap the benefits of modern technology (ie you own the capital), or you are one of the people displaced by it (ie it you work at Walmart).

    2. Re:What happens to the world... by ratsnapple+tea · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But if I should come up with the same idea through my own research whilst being completely unaware of yours, I shouldn't have the right to call my idea my own and have it recognised as such?



      That's correct; you don't own an idea unless you're the first person to think of it. This creates an incentive to be creative, not lazy, and to keep up to date on the latest developments in your field.



      This can be disputed, of course, but I think that's the reasoning.



      yours

    3. Re:What happens to the world... by sangreal66 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hardly. Need I mention Eolas? You people seriously need to get over this whole 'The corporations rule the world' crap.

    4. Re:What happens to the world... by Oligonicella · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And how, pray tell, would you differentiate between someone who just happened to think up the same idea, but second, from the person who is lying and just claiming to have independantly thought of it? Hmmm.
      "all modern discoveres are merely the result of standing on the shoulders of those who went before us"
      Old, tired saw. That goes for all information at all times? And? How would you propose someone recoup the time and investment of the R&D? Are you digging in your pocket and sending cash in thanks?
      "GPL"
      Bully. People have always donated when they wanted. If you attach strings, fine. If I charge a buck, fine.
      "(ie you own the capital)"
      Really? I reap the benefits, and I don't own the capital.

    5. Re:What happens to the world... by nathanh · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The patent system awards the first to invent (or, outside of the US, the first to file), and it's just tough luck if someone beats you to it. That's life in a competitive system. If you don't like it, change society or live in a commune where another resource allocation method is used.

      The problem is that ideas aren't a finite resource to be allocated like wheat or coal or milk. Ideas can be duplicated without effort. I'm reminded of this quote:

      "He who receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." -- Thomas Jefferson 1813

      I'd also like to express my distate for the "if you don't love the USA then go to Russia" style of argument. It's intellectually bankrupt.

      Read the US constitution and find that the patent system is there for the people too - that includes you and I as creative individuals. The bargain is a _limited_ monopoly for 20 years. 20 years if not a bad payoff for the time and effort and risks involved in pursuing inventions.

      That would be OK if the invention was actually innovative such that the 20 years was justified. Unfortunately a number of patents are granted that are completely without merit - they are either unoriginal, obvious, or trivial - and as such they are undeserving of a 20 year monopoly.

      I think the best reform for patents would be variable periods for the government granted monopoly. Say, between 18 months and 20 years, decided by merit on a case-by-case basis.

    6. Re:What happens to the world... by nathanh · · Score: 4, Interesting
      In a day and age where automation has made neither food nor labor scarce society shouldn't be running in a mode where everybody is compelled to try to be king-of-the-hill just to life a modest life. It seems like we've turned into a society where either you are one of the few people who reap the benefits of modern technology (ie you own the capital), or you are one of the people displaced by it (ie it you work at Walmart).

      You sound exactly like Karl Marx ;-)

      He argued that the master-slave society could only give way to communism once there were sufficient resources to sustain everybody's basic needs.

      He also said that the "haves" would fight to prevent the "have-nots" from sharing in the wealth. Looking at the world around us today, it is like Karl Marx had a window into the future.

      I disagree with a lot of what Karl Marx wrote - I think he ignores the fundamental problem of human greed, as well as the ever-increasing lower limit of our basic "needs" - but it's always a treat to read The Communist Manifesto and realise how right he was about so many things. Marx has a a better hit-rate for his predictions than Nostradamus!

    7. Re:What happens to the world... by Zycom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The IP system was originally designed as a way to promote innovation (and I quote the Constitution of the United States "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries") but has been outrageously abused. I think that we should still have an intellectual property system, it should just be cut down considerably.

      In this world, there are people who give to give, and there are people who give to receive. The OSS community is a perfect example of people who give to give, doing something just because they enjoy it. However, for every person who gives to give, there are at least 5 (probably more like 10...or 50) who give to receive. These people are important to society as well, but they require a reason to work. By allowing limited IP rights, they are given a motive to develop and innovate.

      My suggestion is to shorten patent rights from their current ungodly limit to something more manageable, maybe 5 years. This way, people who make new products are given a period of time to create a strong, viable business entity and, most importantly, are given a long enough period of time to develop new technologies off the profits of previous inventions. However, the 5 year period ensures the technology is still a viable base for innovation after entering the public domain. (Ok, so a lot of stuff goes from cutting-edge to WalMart bargain bin in 5 years, but patents are worthless if they only last 6 months.) Patents should be limited to truly useful ideas, not total crap like "how to make red colored water without food coloring". Credit is given where credit is due, and instead of allowing corporations to stifle world changing ideas, they are forced to do something with them.

  2. Doesn't have to be CSS. by kyz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You did realise that MPEG-2 is patented, right? Both encoding and decoding, yeah? DVD X Copy decodes the MPEG-2 and re-encodes with DivX (MPEG-4). Both are patented and must be licensed.

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    Does my bum look big in this?
  3. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    1. The story doesn't say anything about MPEG, so what you are saying is pure conjecture.
    2. The MPEG licenseholders and the DVD forum are different entities.
    3. MPEG must be *licensed* but due to the nature of the patent sharing agreement that allows MPEG to exist, it is impossible for an MPEG format to be discriminatorily licensed. That is to say, everyone has to *PAY* to use MPEG in commercial products, but everyone has to pay equally-- they can't jack up the prices for people who the MPEG committee doesn't like, or vice versa, and they certainly can't deny use of the MPEG codecs to 321 studios if 321 studios is willing to play.
  4. Devil's Advocate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an interesting claim, because since patents are published, something can not be both patented and a trade secret.

    It is not generally possible for idea A to be both a patent and a trade secret. But it is possible for one part of program B to infringe on patent C, and for another part to violate trade secret D.

    Or it could be that DVDCCA is admitting that their earlier suit was wrong.

    (Or it could be that they're full of s**t...)

  5. Unrecognized Patents by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a question I hope someone here can answer. Suppose a company is assigned a patent by the USPTO, but not by the patent office in my country. In order for the patent to be assigned to the company, they have to publish their invention. This means that I can find out what their invention is (since it's public), but since the patent doesn't apply in my country, I would not be infringing on the patent by using that information. Is this correct? Why or why not?

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    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  6. Patent approach not surprising by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IANAL.

    The trade secret approach would be dead in the water. Trade secrets provide protection against leaks, where employees disclose information that they shouldn't, but not protection against people reverse engineering, rediscovering, or reimplementing something.

    The only thing left is patents.

    It would be interesting to see if this approach works. If the case is won by the DVD CCA, it provides a strong argument against the DMCA -- patents alone would provide sufficient protection for at least some copy control technologies. If it's lost, then they've lost one more layer of protection.

    I'd have to see the patents, but I'm a little doubtful that they really have CSS patented. The mechanisms involved are not revolutionary. Patents don't protect an end product -- just a particular process that yields that end product -- so I'd be suspicious that a patent would either not cover the work being done or would not be valid.

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    May we never see th
    1. Re:Patent approach not surprising by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wonder if CSS even meets the criteria for patentabilty. Donesn't a technology have to be both novel and useful to be eligible for patents?

      I'd argue that an encryption system which was already broken half a decade ago by a teenager is NOT useful. CSS's only application is legal - to invoke the DMCA. However, the protection to copyrighted works already applies to movies under regular copyright law - they didn't need CSS to get legal protection for their works.

      If CSS really were useful it would have been unbreakable - and then they wouldn't need all these lawsuits to prevent DVD copying - since their technical control would be enough. Of course, making an unbreakable encryption system where the decryption keys are embedded in millions of devices that cost under $100 to buy is impossible. The best they could hope for is digital sigs - so they could at least control the authoring of content (as is done with game consoles) - then only the public key is in the open and susceptible to hacking. It doesn't prevent modding, but in the DVD market modding is not going to be significant.

  7. don't sue each othe - sue USPTO by axxackall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They all should stop filing suits againsta each other. Instead they should file the suit against USPTO, blaming it for the unfixable stupidity, for using the broken law system. USPTO bad business practices is a danger to strategic interests of USA in general.

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    Less is more !
  8. Re:Just wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is one corporate, capitalistic perspective but not the only one. Not all business sees things in only this light, just the greedy ones.

    Capitalism has the singular advantage of turning a negative human characteristic (greed) into fuel to drive the economy. While this is a good thing, people quickly lose site of the fact that it's still greed and that's a bad thing. The trouble is not the way it works but that it is unchecked.

    If you want to address this make sure your own house is order first. Too many people talk a good story but don't live up to the standard. Not enough golden rule is taught or applied these days.

  9. Patenting software by smallfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Here is an interesting article I found about copyright and patents and the patenting of software:

    DISTINGUISHING PATENT AND COPYRIGHT SUBJECT MATTER

    Not sure I agree on the hardware equivalent of software test for patents, things are not that cut and dry most times.

  10. Not the same thing..... by tiger99 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Is it not time for a court judgment to recognise the difference between exercising your right to play the DVD on any computer, running any OS, anywhere, and attempting to make illegal copies? The two are not the same, yet in every one of these vile cases, they are made to seem as if they are.

    Next they will try to enforce reading books only in approved places such as libraries. It will be illegal to use an unapproved magnifying glass to see the text more clearly. You may read only under an approved light source.....

    None of that will stop you using the photocopier, an entirely separate issue.

  11. Re:Buncha Hooie... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I guess it may be hard to see, but I AM abstaining. I have not brought any personal vendettas into my original post, and plan on not. Everything I said about the softwares is VERIFIABLE on the open internet, and I have not violated any non-disclosure.

    When their Tech Support / Customer Service call center hires 14 - 20 new people every 2 weeks or so, it makes for a scary work environment knowing that you and your friends are easily disposable, as no new positions are being created.

    There are things that I cannot directly mention, do to the NDA, but I will say this: Macrovision and the DVDCCA actually may get this one. Especially if they get search and siezure capabilities at some point.

    I can't believe something so irresponsible is not only allowed to exist but is modded up as informative. Ex-employees should be ethical enough to abstain from such comments. If I were an an admin I'd remove this post entirely.

    I am sorry you are so easily offended. You might want to try Yahoo for your conversations from now on. I have said nothing personal. I would appreciate you NOT make this personal against me (irresponsible, unethical), when you have NO clue what the situation is.