PTO Rejects Instant Live Patent

Jivecat writes "Instant Live, a service of the concert promotion company Live Nation, makes recordings of live concerts that are rapidly burned onto CDs to be sold to the audience before they leave the venue. It's a nice service for fans, but Live Nation holds the patent for a technology that places markers between songs so they can be written as separate tracks rather than one big track — in effect giving them a monopoly on in-concert recordings. Now, thanks to the efforts of the EFF and a patent attorney, who found prior work of similar technology, the U.S. Patent Office has revoked Live Nation's patent. This is good news for those who consider Live Nation to be the Evil Empire when it comes to concert promotion."

Comments

Re:EFF to the rescue

[vivaoporto]

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day"

Doing nothing. That may be the case of a lot of people, but certainly not the case of EFF, they fight hard for what they believe.

Re:EFF to the rescue

[d34thm0nk3y]

Some people like to diss EFF here on Slashdot...

dude, it's not the EFF we have fun bashing, it's the pro bono lawyers they get to screw cases for them. In this case, they found someone who isn't pro bonehead, so what? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Some people indeed...

In the legal arena, being right once a day is pretty good.

For reference, here is some person talking shit about the lawyer that is pressing the NFL case from yesterday.
Re:Wendy was our pro-bono lawyer for a time...
Re:Woo?

Re:Obvious

[justzisguy]

The Federal Courts and Congress are responsible for defining what is exactly obvious. The current standard was decided by the Supreme Court in Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966):

(A) Determining the scope and contents of the prior art;
(B) Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims in issue;
(C) Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art; and
(D) Evaluating evidence of secondary considerations.

And finally,

To establish a prima facie case of obviousness, three basic criteria must be met. First, there must be some suggestion or motivation, either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art, to modify the reference or to combine reference teachings. Second, there must be a reasonable expectation of success. Finally, the prior art reference (or references when combined) must teach or suggest all the claim limitations.

This may change depending on a current case up for review by the Supreme Court. More detail about the motivation requirement is available here.

Re:Two-sided coin

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

What are you talking about? If that were the case, I would think that fact would show up rather fast on a google search or perhaps wikipedia. Wikipedia says:

Live Nation NYSE: LYV is a live events company based in Beverly Hills, CA. Live Nation, formed in 2005 by a spin-off from Clear Channel Communications Perhaps you're thinking Live Aid?

Re: How hard is it to run a line off the board

[rlh100]

Having mixed live sound I know that a board mix is fine for the band, but a real disappointment for a concert goer: not enough reverb, strange EQ, improper balance between the musicians. When you are mixing live sound, you are taking into account the musical wash (mush) coming off stage, the room sound, and the sound of the speakers. A good concert recording requires a separate mix and with the better recordings a separate mixer with EQ and effects. Sometimes the FOH (front of house) engineer can do both mixes, but it is a stretch. The FOH engineer's primary responsibility is the FOH sound. The flip side of the board mix is that if you buy it and take it home and it sucks then you will feel
ripped off and might wonder if the concert was really as good as you remembered it.

Been there, done that.
RLH