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Patent Issued For Podcasting
pickens writes "The EFF is reaching out for help after a company called Volomedia got the Patent Office to grant them exclusive rights to 'a method for providing episodic media' that could threaten the community of podcasters and millions of podcast listeners. 'It's a ridiculously broad patent, covering something that many folks have been doing for many years,' writes Rebecca Jeschke. 'Worse, it could create a whole new layer of ongoing costs for podcasters and their listeners.' To bust this patent, EFF is looking for additional 'prior art' — evidence that the podcasting methods described in the patent were already in use (PDF) before November 19, 2003. 'In particular, we're looking for written descriptions of methods that allow a user to download pre-programmed episodic media like audio files or video files from a remote publisher, with the download occurring after the user subscribes to the episodes, and with the user continuing to automatically receive new episodes.'"
The patent should be invalidated because business methods should not be patentable. There's plenty of prior art for the individual pieces (making files available for download to subscribers is as old as the BBS, and email notifications when new files are available are not newer), but the patentee will claim "we are the first to put all these ideas together". Of course what they did would have been obvious to anyone trying to solve the problem, but even that's not the point. The real issue is with what they are trying to patent. Would the PTO (or the CFFC) accept a patent on the same business method, except that users send requests on postcards, the audio will be burned to CDs and mailed by post, and the subscription lists will be maintained in paper folders? If not, then the PTO should explain why sending files by post is not patentable, but sending them by internet is.
methods that allow a user to download pre-programmed episodic media like audio files or video files from a remote publisher, with the download occurring after the user subscribes to the episodes, and with the user continuing to automatically receive new episodes
Well, starting in 1977 users who wanted to watch a pre-programmed episodic audio/video stream called "Inside the NFL" could subscribe to the cable TV HBO/Showtime channel, and after subscribing would continue to automatically receive new episodes. Does that count?
Already Up in 1993.......... Check
Red vs. Blue, the Machinima based on Halo, was up in 1993? Really? Quite a feat since Halo wasn't released for another 10 years or so. Or are you referring to some earlier Red vs. Blue that was overshadowed?
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I'd think you could go back much earlier. Syndicated radio, back in the 1930's, was done by individual radio stations subscribing to a show; e.g. a "podcast". "Downloads" were done by the syndicator making copies of records and mailing them to the subscribers. I see zero difference between that and current podcasts where the "syndicator" puts audio/video files on a computer network so that subscribers can download them.
Yeah, but they did it on the internet. That, as you know, makes it entirely novel and fully patentable!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
specifically:
Timeline
* September 2000 - The first system that enabled the selection, automatic downloading and storage of serial episodic audio content on PCs and portable devices was launched by September 2000 [2] from another early MP3 player manufacturer, i2Go. To supply content for its portable mp3 players, i2Go, makers of the eGo player, introduced a digital audio news and entertainment service called MyAudio2Go.com that enabled users to download episodic news, sports, entertainment, weather, and music in audio format for listening on a PC, the eGo portable audio player, or other MP3 players. The i2GoMediaManager and the eGo file transfer application could be programmed to automatically download the latest episodic content available from user selected content types to a PC or portable device as desired. The service lasted over a year, but succumbed when the i2Go company ran out of capital during the dotcom crash and folded.
* October 2000 - The concept of using enclosures in RSS Feeds was proposed in October 2000 in a draft by Tristan Louis,[5] The idea was implemented (in a somewhat different form) by Dave Winer, a software developer and an author of the RSS format. Winer had received other customer requests for audioblogging features and had discussed the enclosure concept (also in October 2000), with Adam Curry,[6] a user of Userland's Manila and Radio blogging and RSS aggregator software. Winer included the new functionality in RSS 0.92,[7] by defining a new element[8] called "enclosure",[9] which would simply pass the address of a media aggregator.
From the article:
September 2000 - The first system that enabled the selection, automatic downloading and storage of serial episodic audio content on PCs and portable devices was launched by September 2000 [2] from another early MP3 player manufacturer, i2Go. To supply content for its portable mp3 players, i2Go, makers of the eGo player, introduced a digital audio news and entertainment service called MyAudio2Go.com that enabled users to download episodic news, sports, entertainment, weather, and music in audio format for listening on a PC, the eGo portable audio player, or other MP3 players. The i2GoMediaManager and the eGo file transfer application could be programmed to automatically download the latest episodic content available from user selected content types to a PC or portable device as desired. The service lasted over a year, but succumbed when the i2Go company ran out of capital during the dotcom crash and folded.
That seems pretty relevant to this case.
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