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Apple Sued Over iTunes UI
An anonymous reader writes "It apppears that Contois Music Technology is suing Apple Computer over the UI to its iTunes music software. The suit claims patent infringement over a patent owned by Contois."
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If I were Apple, I'd fight this one in court. I'm not a patent lawyer, but this seems to be a rediculous patent. The primary claims seem to be:
1. That a computer program can have buttons to start and stop music.
2. That a computer program can display two or more data fields about that music during play.
There is another claim about controlling a player piano (!), but that seems irrelevant to this case.
The problems I see with this patent are:
1. The claims argued are blatently obvious. It's one step above a patent for displaying and manipulating data on a screen. The only difference is that this adds music! (rolls eyes)
2. Plenty of prior art exists. For example, MIDI and CD players throughout the 90's were capable of "controlling the playback of music" and "displaying two or more data fields about the song". Not to mention MP3 player that existed prior to January 1999.
3. The primary focus of the body of the patent is on player piano control. AFAIK, iTunes does not run player pianos.
4. The patent points to MIDI or a MIDI-like device as the stream being controlled. Digital audio is not a method of controlling a digital instrument, but rather a synthesis of a complete sound environment.
Perhaps the best reform would be to allow for reprocussions against the patent holder should his patent be found to be issued in error or inapplicablE? For example, if the patent holder was forced to pay court costs, he may think twice before initiating a baseless suit.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I wonder if this might be a case of prior art from 1995?
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~newrep/vol13/no4news.html
Scroll down to the article "Jukebox is a sound success"
Does anyone have any more details about this? Does it cover the same claims as the Contois patent?
I suspect that his sketch won't do so well in the courts. That both designs display using a Miller column browser (with different content!) and can show an image won't be sufficient.
n _patents_.html
Design patents prohibit a third-party from making, selling or using a product of the protected design. To infringe a design patent, the infringing container and the container shape shown in the design patent must look alike to the eye of the ordinary observer.
In Gorham v. White (1871), the Supreme Court set the standard for design patent infringement:
"If, in the eye of an ordinary observer, giving such attention as a purchaser usually gives, two designs are substantially the same, if the resemblance is such as to deceive such an observer, inducing him to purchase one supposing it to be the other, the first one patented is infringed by the other."
Just having similar functions and a vaguely similar appearance is not sufficient, as shown by the amusing "Colida v. Sharp Electronics and Audiovox" (Fed. Cir. March 9, 2005):
http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/03/desig
The functional features described in a design patent are not particularly relevant. (They would be in a functional patent, of course.) To infringe on a design patent, the infringing product has to look so much like his sketch that the infringing product would deceive the customer into thinking it was the patented product.
An example of a product which might be found to infringe on a well-known design patent might be:
http://www2.luxpro.com.tw/e_575d.htm