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Apple Sues Burst.com in iTunes Patent Dispute
An anonymous reader writes "Burst.com, a patent holder of many patents covering streaming video and time-shifting of video, has been sued by Apple after license negotiations broke down. Apple is asking the court to invalidate Burst.com's patents. Burst.com is the same company that successfully sued Microsoft over patent infringements. Many comparisons will likely be made of NTP and Burst.com, but Burst.com actually has useful technology, has owned the patents for over a decade, and most importantly, actually had highly regarded products that made use of the patents."
Dude, you're criticizing a Slashdot news summary. A summary on Slashdot is supposed to contain a blaring headline that may or may not be accurate followed by a body of text that tells a "story." The story should leave on a goofy "cliffhanger" as a lead-in to comments. In this case, ooh, Burst has had the patents for a decade, ooh, they've made apps! What will happen! Ooh! Cliffhanger! It's all for page hits and ad rates.
"Sufferin' succotash."
No. But they could ask the original court to reverse its ruling. That would only be possible if the patent(s) is/are actually invalidated, not just Apple and Burst reaching some new licensing agreement pursuant to the litigation. Unfortunately, the court system hates to go back on any prior ruling, even when it makes no sense to maintain the ruling (rock-hard contradictory evidence coming to light, blatant lying by public officials proven indisputably, etc.). So, MS may be SOL. But MS has been on the winning side of buying courts to rule in their favor over the years. So, don't cry for that Argentina.
Apple refuses to license their technology to allow others to sell DRMed music that plays on iPod. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they're whining about it.
Vote for Pedro
Many comparisons will likely be made of NTP and Burst.com, but Burst.com actually has useful technology, has owned the patents for over a decade, and most importantly, actually had highly regarded products that made use of the patents.
That's as may be, but they're still submarining the patents and trying to leech off of a successful consumer product.
When will the USPTO wake up and put a stop to all of this madness?
In our country we say: "You will die by the think you often use." (hard to translate in english :-( ) Simply said: Apple suffers from the weapon it actively uses against others.
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
That sounds like something I'd read in a fortune cookie.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I disagree. The lawsuit is an attempt to get a patent thrown out, because it never should have been awarded in the first place. Sending video at a faster rate than is necessary for real-time streaming, and buffering it on the receiving end, is "obvious to one skilled in the art".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Patent troubles are resolved through the courts. That is just the rules of the game.
I think there's some confusion over the definition of "streaming" and what the technology in dispute actually is.
The QuickTime Plugin had "progressive download" type streaming from day 1, which meant movies embedded in web pages could begin to play almost straight away, even though most of the content was still to be transferred. If the buffer stayed ahead of the playhead, a good experience resulted.
This in my view was more useful than normal style streaming, where given my haphazard connections over the years, made long pauses, freezes and drop-outs a regular part of the experience, whether on Real, WMP, or QuickTime.
However, although I've RTFA, I'm unclear what type the "used in iTunes and iPod" phrase means. I thought iTunes just embedded QuickTime and used progressive caching, which means Apple was there first, patent or not. I'm just thinking out loud. I equate true streaming with DRM - it restricts my use of the content.
And how is this in any way non-obvious?
Even if they are first to market with something, there is almost nothing that isn't pretty trivial to most good developers. Take the top 40% of the high-tech programmers and tell them to find a way to stream video over the internet smoothly and most will solve the problem, and that's because it relatively straight-forward.
is apparently based on trade secrets, since Apple didn't threaten suit when Real reverse engineered the technology. Had it been a patented technology, not only would that patent be publically known (no one has cited a patent number), but Apple would no doubt be using that status to protect its interests.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
When QuickTime introduced "streaming" support is irrelevant and has to do with streaming a live feed. We're talking about viewing canned videos, and QuickTime movies would start playing before they were fully loaded as of at least QuickTime 3.0 (and without requiring any special server technology beyond http) -- much as GIFs and JPEGs could, in some cases, display a low resolution image when partially loaded (again, without a "streaming" server).
In any event, a patent doesn't cover an idea, but an implementation of an idea. Unless Apple actually stole code OR used the same implementation as Burst (and didn't do it first, and it wasn't bleeding obvious), their patent is irrelevant.
Obvious or not, it is not an specification for an actual physical device. There used to be an understanding when it came to pure mathematics and sciences, mathematicians and scientists develop science and mathematics through grants given to them from the government, and in return, science and mathematics was not patentable, because to make that kind of knowledge patentable inhibited the free market (because it stopped inventors of actual devices from making progress using these results). Today, we can patent mathematics in the form of software, and surprise surprise this is inhibiting the free market.
If it isn't a design for something I can hold my hand out and touch, it shouldn't be patentable. Now as for who should win here, well as much as I hate them, Apple should. But legally, I don't think they stand much of a chance. The laws that the software industry cartel bought from politicians in the US seems to me to support Burst and I don't think Apple have a case.
QuicktimeTV did online streaming. I was playing around with it back in the Fall of 1996 at my first college job in a medical student computer lab. Yes, lots of free time... I consumed every beta technology in view. Too bad I didn't have any money then to invest in the stock market.
Two things. First by your logic General Relativity should have been patentable, simply by writing "An computer based implementation of an algorithm to find the behaviour of objects under gravity". You then go on to say that I'm on the losing side. I know I am, but the above example makes it pretty clear I'm not on the wrong side. The law does not define morallity.
Your condition for obviousness does not work, because if an idea is obvious, there wont be a publication on it for that very reason. No self respecting scientist is going to publish in a journal a paper whose sole result is to extole the virtues of one click shopping.
Now for my second thing. Since the only physical object you describe is a general purpose computer, we are agreed that a general purpose computer should be patentable. Bit late for that but I accept that. So should (to a certain extent) a unique hardware implementation of an algorithm be patentable. But by definition a general purpose computer is just a means of writing down mathematical algorithms. As such, by the agreement that mathematics is not patentable, mathematics written on a computer is not patentable. Your example is a misleading one because what is actually patentable in the device you describe is the computer, not the program on it. What you are saying amounts to saying "paper is patentable, hence so is stuff written on paper".
As for our laws being bought and paid for, the Supreme Court is appointed by the president. The president is elected by a democratic process. To win that process requires campaign donations. Campaign donations are for buying laws. The software industry has made campaign donations, ergo they have bought laws. I'm not going into greater detail here because I would prefer the first two points by stressed, that is that mathematics should not be patentable.