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."

Comments

Burst.com

[nother_nix_hacker]

So do we like Burst.com or not....I a little lost on this one.

Re:Burst.com

[springbox]

Usually when presented with an neutral report, it is best to form your own opinion.

Re:Burst.com

[Anonymous Coward]

My own opinion? Um... which news site is that on? Link plz!

Re:Burst.com

[TubeSteak]

That sounds like something I'd read in a fortune cookie.

Re:Burst.com

[coolgeek]

Well, all I know is we like Apple, and Apple hates Burst.com, so you do the math.

Re:Burst.com

[antoinjapan]

Zapp: "I hate these filthy neutrals Kif! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me."

Re:Burst.com

[Kadin2048]

Well, speaking only for myself, no.

Burst.com's patent -- at least according to Groklaw -- seems like it's definitely invalidated by prior art. According to this article, both Apple and Real (and possibly Microsoft) had their own versions of the same functionality, predating the patent by Burst.

Honestly the fact that Burst.com (or whatever company it was before it became Burst.com) produced a number of useful products doesn't matter a whit to the fact that they have a crummy patent that they're obviously trying to make a buck off of. That said, I can't blame them either -- the USPTO issued this piece of trash that they're trying to litigate, and there's no way that it's going to go away unless it gets invalidated by a judge.

The MS suit ended in what to me is a draw -- an out of court settlement where MS effectively bought Burst's cooperation. Apple doesn't have a history of doing that, so I think this time we'll see a resolution. Arguably MS's solution happened because Microsoft was under criticism for deleting evidence and not otherwise behaving fairly -- so saying that Burst's patent has been held in prior trials really doesn't wash.

I respect Burst as a company, but based on what I've read from the Microsoft and now the Apple case, they're a company on their last legs, looking to capitalize on a few shoddy patents that they managed to get issued while someone at the USPTO wasn't doing what ought to be their job: looking for prior art. If Apple wins and Burst goes out of business, I'll be slightly sad, but not terribly upset -- when a company sinks to the level of litigating obviously general patents, they have no place staying in business. The fact that they might have made real contributions to the art of computing in the past only makes the company's death more painful, but no less necessary, to everyone involved.

Re:Burst.com

[Kadin2048]

Of course, if I had been issued a patent on something stupid and general, of course I'd try milk the hell out of it. If I were the CEO of a corporation, doing anything less would probably be construed by the shareholders as a failure to do my job.

That wouldn't mean that the patent isn't a bad one, or that it was stupid of the USPTO to issue it in the first place. The mistake here isn't Burst's -- they're just working with the hand of cards they've been dealt -- but the patent clerk's who let this slip through, even though there was reams of prior art: a feature in Apple's Quicktime and possibly something in Windows Media Player also.

Because this patent got issued, and the leadership of Burst.com has an obligation to try to make money (as does Apple), we have go witness this song and dance as the issue is worked out in the courts. Hopefully Apple won't shoot themselves in the foot the same way that Microsoft did, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The patent system is ridiculous

[PCM2]

I'm so tired of hearing about all these companies whose sole purpose is to hang onto patents and so-called intellectual property. In many ways you can compare these companies to the start-ups of the dot-com bubble. And just like that bubble, sooner or later this bubble ... ...oh, skip it. To hell with it, I can't go through with it. Someone else will pick it up I'm sure.

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[Cheapy]

"And just like that bubble, sooner or later this bubble ..." will burst.com?

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[pete6677]

I agree. This lawsuit is simply an attempt by Apple to gain the upper hand in licensing negotiations; to show that they want to play hard ball. I expect it will be settled or withdrawn soon.

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[QuietLagoon]

I'm so tired of hearing about all these companies whose sole purpose is to hang onto patents and so-called intellectual property.

Burst is not one of those companies that collects patents for the purpose of suing alleged infringers.

Burst themselves had the foresight to develop their technology a number of years ago and patent their ideas. Check out their website and you will see that the "faster than realtime" technology that Burst developed is the only patents that they own.

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[professionalfurryele]

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.

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[znu]

I suspect, actually, that Apple doesn't like it much at all. They're basically forced to try to patent any technology they might ever use, no matter how obvious, because otherwise someone else will patent it and sue them. That's just the way the system currently works. You can't blame companies for trying to protect themselves.

Now, companies that use these sorts of patents offensively are a different matter. But Apple, and most other large tech companies, don't do that. It tends to be small companies, often with no real products, that decide to try to strike it rich suing the big guys.

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[professionalfurryele]

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.

Re:The patent system is ridiculous

[Kadin2048]

But was it obvious a decade ago when Burst developed this technology?

Yes. Not only had other people come up with (and probably wrote/published articles about) similar ideas, they had actually implemented them in other products.

From this page, written by someone who was involved in the development of Apple's Quicktime:

Burst.com claimed to have a revolutionary way of delivering streaming content. Lossless. Faster than realtime.

Well, golly. You can deliver content losslessly and faster than real time via HTTP and FTP, too. Only Burst.com did this with a magical, proprietary protocol that required a magical, proprietary server that they would be happy to sell to you. The secret of the "secret sauce" that Burst.com CEO Richard Lang mentions in the feature is that there is no secret sauce. ...

If you have a really fast conneciton and there are no bottlenecks along the way, it lets you see/hear media almost instantly. It works by putting a huge buffer at the client, and then filling that buffer as fast as possible so that buffering time is minimized.

QuickTime's "Fast Start" provided much of this functionality with QuickTime 3's progressive streaming (1998), and QuickTime 6 added the final missing piece (random access) with its Instant-On feature earlier this year. RealNetworks uses a similar method to optimize the viewing experience in RealSystem 9.

Burst has 10 U.S. patents, according to their own page here. It's hard to tell which ones are really at issue (I haven't seen a list of the ones Apple is trying to have invalidated) but it almost certainly includes 5,262,875 which in my reading is the most general one.

This is their main claim:

We claim:

1. An audio/video file server for decompressing and distributing selected audio/video program information stored in a compressed digital format within the file server to one or more external playback stations for real-time viewing by users at those playback stations, the audio/video file server comprising:

storage means for storing compressed digital audio/video program information;

transceiver means, connected to the storage means, for receiving compressed digital audio/video program information from an external source over a time period that is less than a real time period required to view the audio/video program information to thereby update the compressed digital audio/video program information stored in the storage means;

a plurality of playback units, each associated with an external playback line and an external playback station and each including decompression means, for receiving selected compressed digital audio/video program information stored in the storage means, for decompressing the selected compressed digital audio/video program information received from the storage means, and for playing the decompressed selected audio/video program information in real time over the associated playback line to the associated playback station;

network interface means, connected to the storage means, transceiver means, playback units, and plurality of playback stations, for receiving playback requests from the plurality of playback stations; and

processing means, connected to the storage means, transceiver means, playback units, and network interface means, the processing means being responsive to the network interface means, following receipt of a playback request, for controlling the associated playback unit to play the decompressed selected audio/video program information in real time.

To me, that's pre

NTP does too

[feijai]

NTP's patent holders made actual products based on the products, and held them for over a decade as well. Burst is different in what regard again?

Re:NTP does too

[Overly Critical Guy]

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.

Serious question

[jimicus]

Let's say Apple successfully gets one of Burst's patents revoked, and it was one which Microsoft was successfully sued for breach of.

Does this mean Microsoft can now go and sue Burst to get their money back?

RTF Summary!

[ImaLamer]

And visit the website:

http://burst.com/new/products/main.htm

Burst.com doesn't just hold the patents, they are selling products which use them.

Apple deserves it

[geekee]

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.

Re:Apple deserves it

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is this post deemed "Insightful"? This is completely different.

1. Apple developed the iPod, iTunes and FairPlay to all work seemlessly together. Other companies want in, but Apple wants to provide the complete solution alone. Nothing wrong there. (Think of Ford crying foul if they wanted to use Ferrari engines. Ferrari's not obligated to let Ford use their engines.)

2. Burst.com thinks that Apple is infringing on their patents, so they hit up Apple for a license. Apple thinks their patents are bogus. From the article:

According to a copy of Apple's complaint, Burst approached Apple in late 2004 regarding securing a license for the Burst technology. Burst's attorneys then informed Apple that Burst believed Apple was infringing on its patents, according to the complaint.

Despite discussions of Apple licensing Burst.com's technology for the iPod and iTunes, the issue came to a head late last year.

"In late 2005, in at least one written communication, Burst.com's attorneys threatened litigation against Apple," the complaint states. "Apple denies that any of the patents in (the) suit are or have been infringed by Apple and disputes their validity."

Doesn't strike me to be anywhere close to being the same.

Re:Apple deserves it

[jcr]

It's not the same shoe. Apple's DRM is based on patented technology that isn't obvious. That's what's called an invention.

-jcr

Re:Apple deserves it

[geekee]

"1. Apple developed the iPod, iTunes and FairPlay to all work seemlessly together. Other companies want in, but Apple wants to provide the complete solution alone. Nothing wrong there. (Think of Ford crying foul if they wanted to use Ferrari engines. Ferrari's not obligated to let Ford use their engines.)"

Huh? Since when does anyone on /. advocate a closed proprietary system that doesn't interoperate with anyone elses technology.

"2. Burst.com thinks that Apple is infringing on their patents, so they hit up Apple for a license. Apple thinks their patents are bogus."

Not exactly. Apple wanted to license their technology, but couldn't reach an agreement. So now their suing to invalidate the patents so they can create the same technology. Almost exactly what happended with Apple and RealNetworks.

"Doesn't strike me to be anywhere close to being the same."

The two cases are very similar

Re:Apple deserves it

[QuietLagoon]

A careful reading of the burst.com press release:

The suit follows a breakdown in protracted negotiations for issuance of a license of Burst's patents to cover Apple's iPod and iTunes products. Burst anticipates responding to the complaint and filing a counterclaim for patent infringement shortly. Burst remains committed to the enforcement of its intellectual property and looks forward to successfully resolving this litigation through a license covering Apple's Quicktime, iPod and iTunes products, including Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Notice how the first sentence talks of a breakdown in discussions for Apple's iPod and iTunes products. And the last sentence mentions that Burst was looking for licenses for Apple's Quicktime, iPod and iTunes products, including Apple's iTunes Music Store.

That implies that Apple agreed that QuickTime was infringing, and that the disagreement is over iPod, iTunes and the music store. I've seen reports that Apple is balking at a per-unit license fee for "each song/video/movie that Apple streams."

A Brief History of QuickTime...

[podperson]

QuickTime was released in 1991. I think developers saw betas in late 1990 but I could be wrong. They'd demoed QuickTime as an early alpha at least one year earlier (e.g. they'd shown digital videos playing back in MacWrite documents).

QuickTime 1.0 was followed in 1993 by 1.5 and 1.6 (which ran under Windows). By the time QuickTime 2.0 came out in 1994, you could embed quicktime videos inside a web page. QuickTime 3.0 allowed videos to start playing as soon as enough data had been downloaded, and you could stream ahead of the playback head (the way it works today). I believe QuickTime 3.0 also unified the file format (i.e. by eliminating "forked" QuickTime files where metadata was stored in the resource fork.)

Given that Burst was founded in 1990, that its flagship product is at 2.0 (I think Apple's opensourced Darwin Streaming Server is probably a more mature product), I doubt they have a leg to stand on.

It's ColorSync all over again.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicktime

Re:A Brief History of QuickTime...

[hw2084]

Given that Burst was founded in 1990, that its flagship product is at 2.0 (I think Apple's opensourced Darwin Streaming Server is probably a more mature product), I doubt they have a leg to stand on.

Do a little bit of research first.

The Burst patents don't cover all video streaming in general. Burst came up with and patented the streaming+caching technology that allows smooth playback of video over the internet. Before Burst, everyone would just have you download the whole file before playing, or do straight streaming which led to hiccups during playback.

Before Burst was on the scene, video streaming was horrible because they couldn't figure out how to smooth out the slowdowns in traffic. After Burst demonstrated their technology (most famously for the U2 Popmart concert) *and* talked to Microsoft and Real about licensing their code, the next versions of their video players magically contained the same buffering technology. Apple was soon to follow, probably figuring "hey everyone else is doing it."

Re:If they lose, the headline will read

[dunng808]

Yeah, and when the legal bills arrive they'll be pursed. :P

Deflector

[Elixon]

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.

Re:Deflector

[c_forq]

Go a little further in Matthew:
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Mat 26:52 (KJV)

Re:Deflector

[WinterSolstice]

Ironically, this was taken not as a warning, but as a comfort to most medieval knights. They, like the vikings, preferred this as a means of death to sickness, etc. Hence the use of swords when executing nobility.

-WS

Re:Ethics

[jazzis]

"btw i didn't RTFA" ...great /. etiquette!
Keep up the good work and you'll go far AC.

How do you prefer your crow

[way2trivial]

boiled- baked- fried?

http://www.burst.com/new/products/main.htm

My god, a two click search, and by your own admission for holding patents with NO intent of producing. (If they had a product we would all be hating on Apple) your entire well reasoned and well written argument falls apart.

Burst beat Apple to Streaming/Buffering

[hw2084]

You just made a fool of yourself to anyone with even a tiny amount of knowledge of QuickTime's streaming technology and when it was first created.

Time for you to do a bit of 'research' yourself dimwit.

From wikipedia entry on QT: "Apple released QuickTime 4.0 for Mac OS on June 8, 1999...It added the second version of the Sorenson video codec, and support for streaming."

Burst demonstrated their streaming/buffering technology in 1997 (the U2 concert streamed via internet). Burst was clearly there first with their caching technology. You can see the timeline at the burst.com site: http://www.burst.com/new/about/timeline.htm

Re:Burst beat Apple to Streaming/Buffering

[michaeldot]

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.

Re:Burst beat Apple to Streaming/Buffering

[podperson]

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.

Re:Burst beat Apple to Streaming/Buffering

[podperson]

Oh here's some research -- from a former QuickTime Evangelist's Blog:

While I was Apple's QuickTime Evangelist, I was a magnet for all kinds of folks who claimed to have miraculous codecs and other holy-grail technologies. Burst.com claimed to have a revolutionary way of delivering streaming content. Lossless. Faster than realtime.

Well, golly. You can deliver content losslessly and faster than real time via HTTP and FTP, too. Only Burst.com did this with a magical, proprietary protocol that required a magical, proprietary server that they would be happy to sell to you. The secret of the "secret sauce" that Burst.com CEO Richard Lang mentions in the feature is that there is no secret sauce.

Mr. Lang believes that Microsoft was out to get him. However, the reality is that Burst.com was, at best, a fly to Microsoft's mountain.

Now Burst.com is suing Microsoft, a move apparently prompted by Windows Media 9's "Instant On" feature. If you have a really fast conneciton and there are no bottlenecks along the way, it lets you see/hear media almost instantly. It works by putting a huge buffer at the client, and then filling that buffer as fast as possible so that buffering time is minimized.

QuickTime's "Fast Start" provided much of this functionality with QuickTime 3's progressive streaming (1998), and QuickTime 6 added the final missing piece (random access) with its Instant-On feature earlier this year. RealNetworks uses a similar method to optimize the viewing experience in RealSystem 9.

Re:Burst beat Apple to Streaming/Buffering

[ajs]

I would suspect a couple (especially the last) of the entries in this paper to be decent prior-art sources for much of what is listed in the patent's claims, but perhaps not all.

Re:Sour apples

[Anonymous Coward]

Patent troubles are resolved through the courts. That is just the rules of the game.

No, Apple's FairPlay...

[msauve]

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.