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Apple Sued Over Fundamental iTunes Model
tuxgeek writes "A suit was filed Wednesday against Apple over the possibility that the iTunes music store and iPod are 'illegally using a patented method for distributing digital media over the Internet.' ZapMedia Services filed the suit, accusing the well-known OS and computer manufacturer of violating patents obtained just recently. 'The patents in question cover a way of sending music and other digital content from servers to multiple media players, a broad description that could also apply to a wide swath of other companies selling digital media and the devices to play it. ZapMedia said it met with Apple to discuss licensing, but Apple rebuffed the offer.'"
... that there's a special place in hell for patent trolls.
I wonder how many more ridiculous lawsuits like this need to be brought before the government finally wakes up and realizes software patents are a bad idea.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
iTunes has been out for yonks now and people have been raving for years about it and not one person at this patent troll office thought "hmmm, we have a patent on that". FTA: ZapMedia applied for the patents in 1999. One was granted in March 2006, the other on Tuesday. Not that it makes them any less of a patent troll, but it would appear that waited until at least a couple of their patents were actually granted before filing a lawsuit...
Shouldn't you be doing something useful?
From the article: "When someone takes our vision and our intellectual property without a license after several attempts, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us," Robert Frohwein, ZapMedia's general counsel, said in a statement.
Apple took their vision? iTunes has been out since January 2001 -- and based on 1999 software released by a third-party that Apple acquired -- and NOW somebody says it was theirs? Please. The only reason ZapMedia lacks vision is because they've got their heads up their sunless parts.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Have a look at:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/12/apple_sued_over_foundation_to_ipod_itunes_franchise.html
ZapMedia claims in its suit that after filing for the patent, they went around to various tech companies - Apple included - and pitched the idea in great detail. This was before the launch of the iPod or iTunes.
I still think this shouldn't be a patentable thing, but the suit is less wildly without merit than the article linked in this story would suggest.
"ZapMedia applied for the patents in 1999. One was granted in March 2006, the other on Tuesday."
... Tuesday?!!
They filed for these patents 9 years ago, and one of them was just granted
I know we are all against software patents... but these guys have been waiting for 9 years to be able to use this patent by the rules that everyone is supposed to play by. calling them Patent Trolls for standing by and watching while Apple used thier technology to make billions, is not quite accurate.
What would have happened if this patent was issued 9 years ago? or even just the year before the iPod came out? Would it be the ZapMediaPod that everyone was playing thier music on?
Patent laws were originally designed so that the little guys can get thier inventions out without being clobbered by the big guys. Granted they don't work that way in practice.
However - if you read the article's related to this issue, (and I don't mean the trashy yahoo article) try this one:
http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_ge.jsp?cat=PRRELEASE&src=102&feed=cmt§ion=news&news_id=cmt-072b4826&date=20080312&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
You will see that these guys worked closely with Apple, and then Apple cut them out of the loop, EXACTLY what patent law was originally designed to prevent.
Patents shouldn't apply to software... maybe. How do you protect the small time coder from the big business that takes thier ideas, makes billions, and then doesn't return a dime, without patents?
I'll accept any answer that doesn't end with
3: ????
4: PROFIT!
It's called venue or forum shopping, looking for a place to file suit where you're more likely to get a favorable result:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum-shopping
East Texas is apparently well known as a venue for patent suits, as the judges there tend to find in favor of the plaintiff more than the national average.
Yay America!
Hmmm. Without reading the patent
What about 'media players' and 'music' differentiates this from, oh, 'files' and 'NFS' for instance? "A method of allowing multiple clients to remotely access a networked resource".
Man, patents can seem so stupid.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
FWIW: You can not enforce a patent until it is actually approved. So other people can go ahead and develop similar things, sell, and market them - and there is nothing you can do besides issuing them a stern letter from a lawyer. Now, once you get the patent it is a different story. You can sue and either get money ("forced" licensing) or get the other guys to stop. Of course the defendants will claim that the patent covers something obvious and try to get the patent overturned. Of course what is obvious now, may not have been so in 1999 or whenever Apple started selling iPods/using iTunes - so it will be fun to see what happens.