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Apple Gives In to Absurd Patent Claims
gottabeme writes Apple has settled with a small Oregon company that claimed patents on simple aspects of iTunes, such as sorting and searching tracks, copying tracks to media players, and just plain choosing a track to play." From the article: "In the 10-page suit, lawyers for Contois said that David Contois, the owner, conceived of and developed a computer interface for playing music on an internal or external computer-responsive music device, which he then exhibited at the 1995 COMDEX trade show and the 1996 NAMM music industry trade show. According to the suit, persons who were at the time employed by or later became employed by Apple were present at both trade shows and viewed Contois' software. The suit charged that Apple later 'copied' the invention and used the design ideas in the interface for iTunes."
The submitter is jumping to conclusions. There's nothing here that indicates that they knuckled under at all. They may have just let him off without paying Apple's defense costs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
AKA: finding a delegate for your dirtywork, or Micro-SCO
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Simple sleazy math. If iTunes flopped they would have gotten zip. They waited until it looked like iTunes had reached a kind of peak so they could claim maximum damages. If they had sued them back in 2001 they might have gotten pocket change or worse yet forced Apple to make enough changes to have voided the suit entirely. Doing it the way they did should have voided the lawsuit since they were obviously waiting for damages to accrue. A judge should have thrown it out because they should have persued it sooner. Even if they were technically legal waiting if the intent was to defraud and not let Apple make changes to comply the judge can throw it out. It was sleazy at best and highly questionable. These type of cases are burying our legal system.
From linked article from TFA: "The lawsuit was filed in June 2005, and the litigants met in court for a daylong hearing a year later to define terminology and set parameters for future court proceedings. Such hearings in patent cases are considered critical, and Judge William Sessions III issued a ruling July 24 that favored some of Contois' positions over Apple's.
The parties met the next day to begin discussing a resolution, according to court records. A first session was unsuccessful. A second session, which began at noon Aug. 16 and ended at 3:30 a.m. Aug. 17, led to the settlement. Lawyers filed court papers about the agreement last week, and Sessions dismissed the case. "
Apple proceeds like any other case like this, expecting an easy win because they honestly believe (I hope) that they've done nothing wrong. But, once rulings start coming back in favor of the other guy, Apple has to look at this and say, "Hey, we're making money hand over fist with iTunes, and this could easily get ugly like Blackberry... only our user base is slightly less addicted and will be angry with us if suddenly, like with Echostar, we have to turn off parts their devices on the next update. So, let's just ask them exactly what they want, and maybe just pay them off."
First meeting: We want $1 billion dollars!
Second meeting: Ok, we'll settle for OUR attorney fees, $x00,000, and stock options from Apple to cover future profits.
SOLD!
BTW, I think that last meeting went to 3:30am because some lawyer, not thinking, brought in an iBook and everyone wasted hours talking about favorite bands, and checking them out on iTunes.
I8-D
AM and FM radio stations have been using these kind of "computer devices" for DECADES! They are known as program automation systems and they date back to the PDP-8 days in the 1970's! How can this patent even be considered? This kind of stuff was prior art DECADES ago! I think either Gates Radio (Harris) or International Good Music (IGM) had patents on the original automation systems, but they've long since expired. Can someone else re-patent something based upon an expired patent? It sure sounds like this happened here!
Apple may be crazy like a fox here.
Once upon a time Two shirt makers named Smith and Wesson built themselves a gun empire.
They did it by finding a guy who had a patent on revolvers that had cylinders bored all the way through. The gun the patents were listed for was horrible, and the patent was questionable at best. There was ample examples of prior art for one thing. They realized however that if they honored the patent and bought a license it made the quality of the patent vastly stronger.
The deal they made was that they would pay a fairly generous license fee for exclusive rights, but the patent holder would pay for all the patent challenges. The patent holder spent all the royalties on lawsuits and retired a pauper, but Smith and Wesson had a monopoly on revolvers for 20 years.
By honoring this patent and arranging for exclusive rights they may be able to keep others from even building other music players. Assuming patent law hs not changed, this could actually shoot the Zoon right through the head.
Well, well.
It appears that most anyone who created multimedia with Director and audio from Sound edit in the early 1990's has prior art for many of those "inventions"
I know I have priors from late 1995 (even demoed by Phill Shiller at that time) but that may not be early enough.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Prior art: According to Knuth (Vol3, "Sorting and Searching"): "One of the first large-scale software systems to demonstrate the versatility of sorting was the Larc Scientific Compiler developed by Computer Sciences Corporation in 1960."
0
More prior art: In 1960 Quicksort was developed. Working for the British computer company Elliott Brothers, C. A. R. Hoare developed Quicksort, an algorithm that would go on to become the most used sorting method in the world.
http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=196
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
I guess I don't follow the geek consensus about Soundjam. I found the interface, with all those windows, a huge pain the ass. Also, "skinnability" struck me as pretty much a total bore. When Apple brought out iTunes -- BEFORE the iPod -- I used it to load up the Rio 32 MB player I had, and it was pretty keen. But it was the interface that just killed me: everything clean, clear and obvious.
When I got the first iPod, ordered the day of the unveiling, and used it with iTunes, I knew they had a hit.
But then, I know, most geeks love Eudora, too. I get lost in all those windows popping up.
Apple has plenty of questionable patents of its own. Here's a handful out of about 1000 that have been granted:
7,100,113: Systems and methods for using media upon insertion into a data processing system
7,099,869: Method and apparatus for managing file extensions in a digital processing system
7,086,008: Multiple personas for mobile devices
7,034,814: Methods and apparatuses using control indicators for data processing systems
If Apple fight and win, then everyone infringing the same patent wins, because the patent is invalidated, but Apple pick up the bill. If they give in, they pay less and everyone else has to pay the same or more. From a purely tactical point of view, it sounds like they made the right choice.
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