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Judge Rules iDevice Speaker Docks Don't Infringe On Bose Patent
CIStud writes "A U.S. District Court in Massachusetts has ruled that iPod, iPad and iPhone speakers docks do not infringe on a patent owned by Bose Corp. for digital audio conversion. The ruling in the case of Bose vs. small dock speaker makers SDI, DPI, Imation and others reportedly was a test case that would have set precedent for potential patent infringement by other manufacturers... and even Apple... according to the defendant's legal team. At issue: Is an iPhone, iPad or iPod a 'computer.' The judge says they aren't."
Apple has patented round corners. Apple has patented the double click. Apple has patented the scrollbar. Apple has patented speakers, but only for non-computers.
I'm so tired of this "I can piss while lumping at the same time. Even if you can do it I have patented it so you have to pay me." Fuck these idiots till they die. (Is fuck-till-death patented, by the way?)
For an iPod, the question is unclear. But for iPad and iPhone, I'd have thought the consensus was that they count as computers. Even Apple thinks so...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
They are computers. Judges really should be qualified in the areas they presiding over.
From the summary: "At issue: Is an iPhone, iPad or iPod a 'computer.' The judge says they aren't."
From page 13 of the memorandum and order: "This Court declined to construct the term 'computer'." Instead, the ruling is based on where the DAC is located. The DAC in this case is inside the iDevice, rendering the claimed infringing "interface" a fancy headphone jack.
For an iPod, the question is unclear.
An iPod touch is an iPhone without a cellular radio. As far as I can tell, Apple has been deemphasizing its iPod shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod classic product lines in favor of iPod touch and other iOS devices.
But for iPad and iPhone, I'd have thought the consensus was that they count as computers.
The microcontroller in a microwave oven is a "computer". The engine control unit in a car is a "computer". A video game console is a "computer". But that doesn't make them general-purpose computers in the sense that the average person thinks of when hearing "computer". An iOS device is not general-purpose because Apple bans some purposes.
But this is all a moot point, as the ruling doesn't define computer.
iStuff dock are not cool enough ?
Yes, that is really new.
That was fast.
You can't really claim to have invented anything by re-arranging someone else's hardware.
You can if the combination of the two is novel and non-obvious.
What is the definition of a computer then?
To me all 3 qualify. At the very least if you are going to narrowly define it, at the least the iPad is.. iPhone should be. iPod, depends on which one. A classic is an embedded computer, a touch, well, its a computer too...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Cat software_patents.txt |sed -i s\"On a computer"\"On a smartphone"\g > Patent_Office
Profit!
Show me a phone with no computer and install an application on it.
Lots of prior art
An iDevice can be programmed
The bundle consisting of a combination of an iOS device, a Mac, and a certificate renewed for the life of the device can be programmed. The iOS device alone cannot.
So at issue is the external device, not the source, which is the 'MP3' player/function thingy. What would be at risk is any USB connected Audio device because USB is almost always associated with a computer. My guess is that this goes back to the Apple/Bose iSub days.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
If the patent covers receiving digital audio and converting it to analog, aren't there like a million audio receivers and amplifiers that did this before iPods existed? How old is this patent? My receiver from the 90's had a digital input. My brother's Pentium 3 computer had an external speaker system with a digital input and its own amp.
It is exactly like stealing, and illegal too.
I know reading the friendly article (and especially PDFs linked from it) is not a certainty around these parts, but this one's pretty interesting. The article itself kind of entirely misses the point (whether the iDevice is a "computer" was pretty much completely irrelevant*), but the opinion itself taught me a lot. In particular, there are such things as "contributory infringement" and "inducement" in patent law. I did not know of such a thing until now.
All of the independent claims of the patent explicitly require a music source whose files have at least two types of metadata and a sorting feature (probably because "DAC-in-a-box" on its own is as old as the hills and not patentable). Assume for the purposes of discussion that the patent is valid (it's not**) and that an average mp3 file + iDevice (or most any mp3 player software) meets the metadata + sort criteria (doubly so if "file name" counts as one of the metadata).
Clearly, these companies are selling only the DAC-in-a-box, *not* including any kind of "computer", user interfaces, mp3 files, metadata or sort capabilities (although the end user can trivially add one and thus infringe the patent). Thus, most of the opinion - including a treasure trove of references to deciding cases - centers on whether the companies were liable for end-user infringements by encouraging and/or inducing them. The gist I got from the opinion is that merely knowing that a user *could* infringe is not enough - the manufacturer must either know of the patent (or believe beyond reasonable doubt that such a patent must exist), be shown to believe that it is valid, AND knowingly encourage an end user to commit actual infringement, or else be shown to have purposely avoided awareness of the existence of the patent ("willfull blindness"). Showing that you believed the patent invalid - in particular, obtaining and relying on an expert legal opinion of invalidity - is a strong defense against such "indirect infringement" claims. In other words, the burden is on the plaintiff to show indirect infringement, and the bar is pretty high.
* There is nothing about a "computer" in the independent claims (although one is briefly mentioned in a dependent claim) - only a list of features which could be performed by a computer (or iDevice). In fact, a footnote in the case notes mentions: "This Court declined to construct the term 'computer' and in this case the analysis need not turn on that definition." . For reasons I don't entirely understand, the check for direct infringement centered on the "interface" part of the claims, which the court constructed to mean a DAC (more or less).
** All of the claims were invalidated upon re-examination, several times (e.g. through several Bose objections to the reexamination results, including to the "Final Decision").
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
If every combination of existing hardware were presumed obvious, then there would be no such thing as hardware patents, as everything could be created from a combination of 7400 series discrete logic ICs.