Slashdot Mirror
Bose Sues New Apple Acquisition Beats Over Patent Violations
Bose has taken issue with some of the technology embodied in products in Apple's newly acquired Beats line of headphones. As Ars Technica reports, Bose is suing Apple, claiming that the Beats products violate five Bose patents, covering noise cancellation and signal processing
Although Bose never mentions Apple in the 22-page complaint, the acquisition price of the private company may have played a part in spurring Bose to sue. The suit doesn't include a specific damage demand.
Bose has also filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission against Beats over the same infringement claims. That means the patent lawsuit filed in federal court will be stayed while the ITC case gets resolved first.
Only an ignorant troll would imply that Bose doesn't do original research. You're a troll.
It amazes me how often news companies fail to understand technological issues: The New York Times authors are would-be novelists.
Was it smart for Apple to buy Beats by Dre?
So - according to you - Beats create and Bose doesn't? What are you doing on slashdot?
"Those who can't create, litigate" --- who does this remind you of over last 2-3 years? Funny to see Apple whine about plays outta their OWN playbook
Maybe, but as a guy who writes DSP software for a living, I took a look at that first patent and there's nothing original or creative about it that could possibly justify a patent -- and Bose must have known that when they filed it. I bet the USPTO clerk didn't have a fucking clue about DSP and was just impressed by fancy words. "Minimizing latency" my ass.
Wow you are a dumbass. Bose created it. Beats hasn't.
"Those who can't create, litigate" --- who does this remind you of over last 2-3 years? Funny to see Apple whine about plays outta their OWN playbook
A stupid post replying to an equally stupid post.
I thought Google was the patent troll, trying to get four billion dollars from Microsoft for h.264 related software patents and ending up having to pay Microsoft's bills. And there is Samsung threatened with a 13 billion Euro fine if they don't stop patent trolling in Europe.
In this case, Apple just has bought Beats, and has surely not done anything to infringe on Bose's patents. And from the description of these patents, they seem to be rather concrete and it should be not too difficult to find out if someone is infringing or not.
Bose and Beats are both highly brand-focused. Bose targets the more mature quality-seeking crowd, while Beats targets the bass-hungry and fashion-conscious youth. There's some overlap, but generally I'd say their targets kept competition to a minimum, and they've pretty much cornered those targets
Apple has the best of both worlds being viewed both as high quality and a status symbol. If they start using their monster marketing teams to align peoples' view of Beats with that of Apple, Bose stands a chance of being pushed out of the market by a frightening direct competition. They've got good reason to try to stall the acquisition as much as possible
Quick, Slashdotters - tell me who to hate!
#DeleteChrome
This is bit dated, but still quite relevant, The Bose FAQ from archive.org as latest version seem to have disappeared few years back from net.
U.S. Patent No. 5,653,765 "the placebo effect"
Bose: They have infringed on our patents for crappy sound reproduction!
Beats/Apple: Crap! We got nothin'! We weren't expecting them to play the "blunt honesty" card!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Then again, Apple being confronted with bogus patent claims doesn't sound unjustfied to me.
Apple probably even had a design patent in the pipeline. "...cylindrical or semi-spherical object that emits sounds..."
Wow... So what have they created? Really, list anything they have done that either haven't been done before or not being well known.
Sony have created more in the audio business and they aren't the no. 1 inventor by far...
[Adding a lot of DSP effects and playing stuff at loud volumes isn't innovation BTW. Last I was shopping for headphones I thought that a Bose model looked interesting (albeit expensive) so I tried them in a in store test thingy... Which was interesting as even though there were good music playing and there were a volume control the lowest setting was far above my normal listening volume - I want to preserve my hearing to old age after all. It is well known that louder sounds like better quality so already there I knew that there were something strange going on.
Retested the same headphones later in a better audio store and frankly they were no better than a pair of modded Koss Porta Pro. They cost >10x as much though.]
hmm.. bose.
hmm.. beats.
but what the fuck are the patents? it's not like beats has any innovation so what the fuck? is the patent on using a too big bass driver in combination with high frequency driver or what that fck? or patent on only using a low end driver?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Bose specifically alleges that Beats infringed on five US patents: patent 6,717,537, titled “Method and Apparatus for Minimizing Latency in Digital Signal Processing Systems;” patent 8,073,150, a “Dynamically Configurable ANR Signal Processing Topology;” patent 8,073,151, a “Dynamically Configurable ANR Filter Block Technology;” patent 8,054,992, which specifies a method for high frequency compensating; and patent 8,345,888, which covers “Digital High Frequency Phase Compensation.”
The thing that commenters over at Ars haven't picked up on - this patent is only infringed if the customer wears the headphones without playing music. Noise cancellation with added music - OK, there's prior art for that. Turn the music off - it becomes patentable technology.
The claim states that Bose is on the hook because their documentation states that you can use the headphones without music for noise cancellation only, which induces their customers to infringe Bose's patents.
How is that legit? How can not adding music create a patentable technology?
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
You're either trolling or obtuse.
Well. Apple did sue Microsoft for imitating their OS way back then.
Apple filed a patent lawsuit against HTC in 2010, and Samsung in 2011. According to Wikipedia, are the only two patent lawsuits Apple has ever filed in the entire history of the company.
Let's hear it for Wikipedia. The complete and unabridged source of all human knowledge.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Right. So name their innovations except for these things that I for some reason claim aren't innovations.
Beats (and by extension, apple) is overpriced, overhyped shit. Bose is overpriced, overhyped shit. I sincerely hope they cost each other millions with this.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
No, bose basically patented something that has been around for decades. They didn't create shit.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
A refutation would involve simply pointing to another case of and Apple patent lawsuit. You're just trolling.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And in USA Apple can wipe their ass on Samsung patents
Apple is being hit by a dubious patent claim, from a company that does have a product but probably didn't invent anything, after extensive lobbying to allow exactly this sort of situation. They so deserve this. I would say "live by the sword, die by the sword" but I don't think Apple is actually in any risk of dying.
I can see why you think Dr. Dre is such a brilliant technilogical innovator and all, what with the "Dr." in his fake name and all, but ... you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Dr. Bose (an actual Doctor, with an MIT Doctorate and everything!) is an innovator par excellence. If you go to their administration building at 100 The Mountain Rd. in Framingham Mass you will experience one of the coolest examples of his acoustic innovation. There is a very small word: BOSE set in stone on the floor. If you step on the B or E you will hear an audio reflection, and if you move ever so slightly over the the O and S it is 100% anechoic. All of this is done with zero electronics. Let's see you pull that off :-)
Just accross the parking lot is the Bose Research Building, where every design must pass a rigorous Design Assurance Engineering process. They have anechoic chambers, speaker torture (long-term testing) rooms where they do up and down, left and right, circular, and random vibration testing, CAD rooms and all kinds of research tools and methods you can't even imagine (e.g. Salt Fog testing for their Marine products)
In other words, you are about as far off base as a person can be on this one.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Hey McFly. Are you telling me you were doing DSP in the 1970's? Perhaps you think the gattling gun wasn't an innovation because you own a machine gun, too?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Everyone complains about boses cost, the are based in Massachusetts and they have a plant in South Carolina for 1/2 their stuff. Where do the other companies build there stuff.
There is a saying: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." You should heed it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
true, but im not sure admitting that beats ripped off bose is a good thing to do for the company. Beats are horrible when it comes to sound. admitting that they are using bose tech to me anyway would be like admitting bose isnt any good (thats a different discussion)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
you forgot about their patent that says only they can sue others for patent issues
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
"Those who can't create, litigate" --- who does this remind you of over last 2-3 years? Funny to see Apple whine about plays outta their OWN playbook
Apple filed a patent lawsuit against HTC in 2010, and Samsung in 2011. According to Wikipedia, are the only two patent lawsuits Apple has ever filed in the entire history of the company.
You neglect truthiness. Arbiter doesn't like Alpple, and patent trolls, therefore it is only logical, right, and just that Apple is the biggest patent troll that ever existed. Pah! You and your facts!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
No ... but since any patent acquired in the 70s has long since elapsed, it's literally impossible to sue over work done then.
Dr. Bose (an actual Doctor, with an MIT Doctorate and everything!) is an innovator par excellence.
Just accross the parking lot is the Bose Research Building, where every design must pass a rigorous Design Assurance Engineering process. They have anechoic chambers, speaker torture (long-term testing) rooms where they do up and down, left and right, circular, and random vibration testing, CAD rooms and all kinds of research tools and methods you can't even imagine (e.g. Salt Fog testing for their Marine products)
And with all this concentrated wonderfulness, and Doctor Bose's (an actual Doctor) Godlike status, Bose speakers are still marginal - at best.
You canna beat the laws of physics, laddie.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yeah. OK Buddy. The funny thing is that you think Bose is a speaker company, thereby showing that you have no idea what Bose is or does.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Not always. They sometimes post ridiculous statements that broadcast their ignorance to the world on Slashdot instead!
Your Wikipedia search was superficial if you missed the Apple - Samsung article. I expect the this lawsuit will ultimately turn out be the longest and most expensive in history. The patents at issue in Apple vs Samsung are mere software patents which may well be shakier than traditional patents.
Only two? What are you, simple, or just trolling?
Here's another one just earlier this year:
Noise cancellation tech has been around since the 1950s. Shoving it into headphones and claiming patent rights is the equivalent of the all-too-common "doing it on teh internets".
A) Why didn't Bose sue Beats BEFORE Apple bought them? That makes this case sound much more about targeting a cash hoard than anything else.
2) Why didn't Apple buy Bose? Aside from the obvious answer that Apple bought branding instead of technology, Bose surely must have something Apple would want. If not, then the Beats acquisition is only about image which doesn't make much sense given that Apple has been pretty good at creating their own image over the last 10+ years.
Wow, exciting, sounds like the dome in the Complexe Desjardins in Montreal. Should we sue them too?
Great point. Microprocessors have been around for decades. Shrinking them down and getting them into a phone is an obvious invention. I can't believe everyone wasn't doing it in the 70s!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
To be fair, they are a speaker company, and they were started to be a speaker company. The fact that they do a bunch of other stuff doesn't really change that. I've had some of their speakers (601 Series II) and they just didn't sound good enough to justify the space they take up, although they actually could sound pretty good in a crappy room; up close they even sounded really crisp, whether they actually were or not. (The whole point was that they weren't, though.) You have got to be impressed by the way Bose can make a bunch of shitty drivers sound pretty decent for most kinds of music. Not impressed enough to buy them, but I got them for free. On that basis they were pretty fantastic.
My A8 also has Bose sound, and it doesn't exactly bowl me over either. Besides the crackling volume knob and the failed tape deck, it just doesn't really sound that amazing. When you get it nice and loud, it kind of goes to pieces. Since it's an extra-fancy Bose head unit (for 1997, mind you) and the changer uses a unique protocol, the only thing I can really replace it with is the same exact thing. There are kits to do otherwise, but then you really need to get into complete speaker wiring replacement.
Bose might do a lot more than this, and there might be a whole lot of solid engineering behind what they do, but pretty much everyone who doesn't know them for making undersized all-in-one systems with funky design (Bose "Wave", indeed, harrumph) knows them for making really expensive home speakers, or automotive audio systems which are often considerably expensive options which are (in terms of quality) inferior to getting the same sort of thing installed in the aftermarket.
tl;dr: Bose is a speaker company which refuses to publish typical test data even after they collect it, as well as a company which does other things — most of which are closely related to speakers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Really. There is a roughly 2 foot by 6 inch spot in the Complexe Desjardins that is anechoic, while the rest is not? I didn't think so.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No. To be fair, there is no sense in reading the rest of your post. The very issue this thread is discussing has almost nothing to do with speakers - at least in the traditional sense, so to be fair, you are making a ridiculous claim in a context where any moron should recognize it as such. I read the rest of your post anyway, and you go on to openly admit they make radios, for exampe, so to be fair you don't even believe your own bullshit.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
So Bose doesn't sell shitty speakers? Cause I see their adds for shitty Bose speakers. They should sue the company selling shitty speakers labelled with their name. Dr. Bose did some great things, but the company that bears his name makes overpriced garbage. I'm surprised Bose isn't suing Beats over use of their marketing gimmick. But, please, do tell us all more about how awesome Bose is, shill.
Between you, me, and the fence-post, I'm of the considered opinion that most "Patent Examiners" are crackheads based on what I went through on my own legitimate patent filing. Some of the most ridiculous "refusals" and they basically rubber-stamp some of the most ludicrous crap.
"To be fair, they are a speaker company"
No. To be fair, there is no sense in reading the rest of your post. [...] I read the rest of your post anyway,
I should probably rest my case here, since you just stuck a fork in yourself. But...
and you go on to openly admit
Out now!
they make radios, for exampe
Well, they also make them for car companies. And sadly, they are not very good, but more to the point here, those radios are designed specifically and explicitly to go with matched sets of their speakers. I should say that they're not very bad, either. I'd rather have a factory Bose than a factory Blaupunkt, for example. Faint praise, however, only serves to illustrate the point.
so to be fair you don't even believe your own bullshit.
If you can point to something I wrote and explain why it is bullshit, then do that. But you haven't managed that. Bose is first and foremost a speaker company. Their fancy suspension system so far cannot be made practically light and their radios go with and are always sold with their speakers. You might say that they are a speaker-and-truck seat company, though. Fancy!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hey, this is /. Where you will find all sorts of stuff made up out of the whole cloth pulled from their asses- just to validate what they feel to be truth.
Read the first line you quoted moron: "To be fair, they are a speaker company"
If you are too stupid too figure out that you contradicted that statement about 20 times now then that's on you. Also, Nike is a shoe lace company, since most of their shoes have shoe laces.
Thus sayeth the audiophile. A member of a crowd that says sloppy tubes are better (They "sound" better to many, but ARE they to everyone- and are they factually so?) and the like.
Sorry, your observations are preference observations, not objective ones, and preference can differ from person to person- and you're stating them as facts and in a way that if someone doesn't agree, they're not worthy. Keep it to, "in my opinion," or, "in my not so humble opinion," and you'll be fine. If not, keep it to yourself. Seriously.
It doesn't matter if Apple hasn't done anything to infringe since the acquisition. when you buy a company, all their dirty laundry comes along for the ride. My employer bought a manufacturer of LASIK lasers several years ago, and literally two-thirds of our open product liability suits involve that company's products and issues that occurred prior to the acquisition.
Bose is an over-priced lifestyle product for the middle aged. Beats is an over-priced status symbol for teens. Both groups of people are unaware that products equal specs can be purchased for much less and that superior products can be purchased for the same price.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Yeah. OK Buddy. The funny thing is that you think Bose is a speaker company, thereby showing that you have no idea what Bose is or does.
Oh, awesome, smashing riposte. It's not like we were discussing Bose as related to their speakers as related to Beats, eh? Yeah - OK buddy.
I really don't give a stinky rat's ass about the other things Bose does, I'm just here to talk about the shitty audio of Bose and the equally shitty audio of Beats.
Which makes me think that Bose's best argument in this whole lawsuit is to demonstrate how both sound bad. If you want to have an argument about the other stuff Bose does, submit a story.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Apple bought Beats for the online-music streaming service Beats was launching, including all the licensing deals that they already completed with record companies. Apple's own crappy headphones were already better then Beats'.
No. To be fair, there is no sense in reading the rest of your post. The very issue this thread is discussing has almost nothing to do with speakers - at least in the traditional sense, so to be fair,
In some faraway universe, you might make sense.
Otherwise this thread is exactly about speakers and sound systems.
If somehow some way, Bose makes an awesome mousetrap, or some kind of gastraphagus that makes enemies shit their pants, that's all very nice. But tell me how the other stuff they do is relevent to them suing Apple?
You must have been a blast in debate class. Declaring the topic of the debate off topic.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I can't tell either.
That is correct. It is not like we were discussing Bose as related to their speakers as related to Beats. The suit is about their active noise cancellation. Evidently you don't know what that means. This is, of course, in direct congruence to your cluelessness in everything you have written.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You are an idiot. Go find out how active noise cancellation works, and then get back to us. When you can implement it using only speakers let us know, and by all means patent it. Until then you are just an idiot.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Maybe, but as a guy who writes DSP software for a living, I took a look at that first patent and there's nothing original or creative about it that could possibly justify a patent -- and Bose must have known that when they filed it. I bet the USPTO clerk didn't have a fucking clue about DSP and was just impressed by fancy words. "Minimizing latency" my ass.
Modern patents are completely different than what people think patents are.
They are not necessarily clever inventions or designs anymore. They are just a way of laying stake to a field or method of doing things.
As an example, people think a better mouse trap would be what you'd file a patent for. No, actually, a company would file a patent for method of eliminating rodents. This would cover all forms of mouse traps that could ever be designed.
A few years ago, I thought I could learn how things are done by reading patents in a hardware/software field. All the patents were overly general, without any useful information and filled with language that only lawyers would use. On the other hand, I couldn't really design anything without "violating" patents because all the patents were so general that it could covered most general ideas that could be used. In fact, before I had read the patents I had some designs and those designs violated patents.
Just accross the parking lot is the Bose Research Building, where every design must pass a rigorous Design Assurance Engineering process. They have anechoic chambers, speaker torture (long-term testing) rooms where they do up and down, left and right, circular, and random vibration testing, CAD rooms and all kinds of research tools and methods you can't even imagine (e.g. Salt Fog testing for their Marine products)
If you're so impressed by their research building, you should check out their advertising building. They are better funded and have more influence in making their products sound better.
Yeah. They don't have an "advertising building". If you don't like Bose, that's fine, but don't spread misinformation. It makes you look like the moron you clearly are. And for the record, it isn't their building that is impressive. It is their process. I am not some guy who got a ten minute tour of their building. I worked in their DAE department. I can assure you that they have a very and uncharacteristically strong focus on quality.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Thus sayeth the audiophile.
My PC stereo system is a couple of Yamaha monitors whose model I don't know on a 40W Kenwood whose model I don't know (squinting... KA-305) and my "home theater" system is a Sony STR-DE635. I'm still using the original double-driver powered sub from the kit (it's pretty Bose-esque in its own way, actually) but I got out from under the other kit speakers with an assortment of yard sale scores. I forget who made my cheap center, maybe JBL. I have cambridge metal case in the rears, and the fronts are something british whose name I can't remember. My Headphones may be Sennheisers, but they're refoamed and reconnectorized HD420s I got for five bucks. I am a cheap bastard whose stereo systems are cobbled together from cheap crap, not an Audiophile. I bought the Sony new at Costco some ages ago, and on purpose. Hilariously, it's never let me down.
your observations are preference observations
Bose falls on its ass when it comes to non-objective measurements every time someone performs a test at their own expense. Bose refuses to publish the same numbers everyone else publishes for their speakers, claiming that those numbers are irrelevant. Whether they are correct is, I think, a whole other argument, but why not, here we go. Subjectively, I think Bose sounds pretty good, but I've heard other stuff that I found much more impressive. Objectively, Bose is inferior to much of the competition, some of which is cheaper. Personally, I'd rather have someone else's equipment, but I won't avoid buying a car because it has a Bose sound system. I just wouldn't pay thousands for the option.
tl;dr: If you think Bose sounds good then feel free to buy, listen, insert rectally whatever, who gives a fuck? Music enjoyment is subjective anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You'll note that it isn't the concept of microprocessors that is patented currently. It is the processes that allow them to shrink that are currently patented.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The first patent in the summary was filed in the 2000s. What the fuck does the 1970s have to do with it?
So in your mind research and development takes zero time, then. Got it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You'll note that math has been around for thousands of years. It is the process of doing it with a computer that is recent. By your argument, there's nothing patentable about computers because they just do the same thing that has been done for thousands of years, but just a little differently.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
> violate five Bose patents,
The correct verb is "infringes". Infringement is the specific act associated with intellectual property. Violation is for police searches and forcible insertion.
No, that is not according to me. Try again.
Bose is long know for litigating everything, including valid criticisms of its products. You shouldn't feel sympathy for them. If beats really had violated any patents, it would've been sued ages ago. They're both garbage.
much like NASA its just a name riding on success from decades past
I'll bet you one of the idiots who invested in a 3000$ bose system that sounds like a $300 bestbuy hometheater in a box special.
Lots of interesting chatter on here so far, but I don't see anyone making the obvious connection...
Beats have been producing headphones for a while now, and Bose have (AFAIK) bothered to either sue them, or approach them with claims of patent infringement. [ Disclaimer - this is entirely possible, and it's also possible we would not hear about such conversation ].
For Bose to come out swinging now, only *after* Apple put in a move to make the purchase, causes all sorts of issues. Other posters who have surmised this is because Bose are now frightened that with Apple financial muscle they might become a major competitor of Bose would be right. But the thing is, from a legal perspective Bose are going to be on dodgy ground and will struggle to be able to claim that this is anything other than a specious case.
It reads for all the world as though Bose were "ok" to turn a blind eye to what they assumed Beats had been doing while they were a stand-alone company, but suddenly "concerned" with patent violation the moment the Apple behemoth took an interest. Apple's lawyers will have a field day with this. Not only will they go after the patents themselves [and are likely to find either prior art and/or claims that are "obvious to a practitioner skilled in the art"] but they will of course gleefully point out that Bose had their chance to complain and blew it. Apple, they will argue, would have either not made the deal had they known of Bose intent, or would have struck the deal for substantially less.
The more you look at this, the more it looks like a shake-down deal by Bose, concerned that they will be steam-rollered by the Apple juggernaut.
In one sense it may be in the interests of the broader consumer public for Bose to win this - we have enough juggernaut multinationals stamping out choice as it is - but Bose look to be light on facts and heavy on neglicence, and that may not serve them well in court.
Pass the popcorn; this could be fun. Shame that PJ gave up on Groklaw...
Why can a speaker company not also be a radio company?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
So in your mind a patent's validity shouldn't be judged on when it was filed, but on how much work the filer did thirty years prior. What makes your fanboy defense of it even more hilarious -- besides the fact that it has no legal basis -- is that apparently Bose bought this patent off of someone else. So even if we accept your wrongful premise, it still has absolutely nothing to do with the patent.
Spoken as someone rocking a factory "Blose" system in a 2015 Suburban (don't ask...).
You added a comment "Those who can't create, litigate." to an article about Bose suing Beats. In the context of the article, i read your comment - "Those who can't create (Bose), litigate".
If this is not what you meant, could you explain what it IS that you meant?
Look at scope of them, they tried to BAN ALL Samsung phones from the market for cheap ass software patents that were invalid but according to the jury in the 1 case "they didn't want to spend the time to invalidate them".
Bose didn't even file that patent--they bought it, presumably because they realized it was so general they could sue people all kinds of people when they felt like it. Bose: better sound through patent extortion!
Dr. Bose did a lot of groundbreaking research back in the day. And, yes, nobody wastes $100M in audio research the way Bose does.
The problem is that none of that is reflected (heh heh) very well by their product line. You can't prove anything from a one-off sample in their office. The real key to home audio isn't cost no object performance; it's bang for the buck in real-world production. And it's there that Bose's products are sketchy, and the way they sue anyone who measures that fact should set off a warning light. All the money going into R&D is part of the problem--that's overhead that doesn't fund itself unless it's turned into product innovation. And it didn't in this particular case; the most fundamental patent in this lawsuit set is one Bose purchased , not developed. Not exactly a high point in Bose R&D history.
I'd like to discuss the lack of innovation in Bose audio products in objective terms, but their very deep flaws prevent that from even being possible. They don't use the standard measurements for speakers everyone else in the industry does. Their theater products ignore the THX specifications everyone else adopted. That pattern is everywhere at Bose. You can either believe in the ancient Bose mythology of not measuring speakers, or you can agree that the concrete numbers every other audio researcher in the world uses are important. Read some papers by Dr. Floyd Toole if you want to find out about reflected sound from someone in the speaker manufacturing R&D business who moved past the 60's.
Dr. Bose was a smart dude, but smarter than every other researcher put together? That's a very special breed of arrogance. I'll take the side of scientific consensus, thank you.
"they even sounded really crisp, whether they actually were or not." Hilarious. The "crispness" of a speaker is defined by how it sounds, unless you were eating it. But even then sound generally plays a role in that determination.
I browsed a few audiophile forums in the past, and it was funny because they NEVER agreed on anything... EXCEPT for one thing... they all agreed that Bose was the worst speaker company ever. A company that sold products based purely on marketing.
Bose does research. They do their work, probably more than "Beats" did. They deserve credit for that. Sure, Bose's products sound like shit up and down the product lines, and the old audiophile refrain was "got no highs, got no lows, must be Bose." Companies change over time, though, maybe in the last five years Bose improved the quality of their speakers, but there were not great in the 80s, 90s, 00s. But hey, at least they're a semi-reputable audio company.
Beats was the headphone partner of Monster Cable for the last few years, which fits. Both are overpriced and overrated self-promoters. Monster tried to get their cables in to all the Best Buys and Radio Shacks it could, getting store managers to promote the products ceaselessly. They're not terrible cables, just 5x more expensive than they should be. Beats went the hip-hop artist crowd, just like Monster getting a clueless crowd to push their products incessantly. Both are examples of success through product promotion rather than... you know, having a better product.
So in your mind research and development takes zero time, then. Got it.
You are absolutely correct with that, when it comes to patent enforcement, all that time spent earlier means, pretty much nothing.
Hey man, you don't need to be an audiophile to know that much of the rest of the speaker industry is better than Bose. We're not talking sloppy tubes or gold-plated ding-dongs or weird vinyl artifacts. These are observations from pretty much every industry or review magazine, observations that are easily objectively measured. If speakers are on the low end of accurate sound reproduction, there's really not that much preference about it.
Not really. The title will be something like "method for eliminating rodents". The abstract will give a description of the invention in such vague terms that it covers any and every kind of mouse trap. The detailed description will describe one particular novel type of mouse trap, along with twenty or thirty variations, half of which aren't new, and the other half won't work. Finally, the first independent claim will describe an apparently conventional mouse trap with one tiny, and apparently useless, modification that nobody's done before, followed by a dozen or so dependent claims that narrow things down to the actual invention, but don't actually have any purpose in terms of what's protected. The dependent claims are there so that, if the examiner thinks the first draft of the independent claim is too broad, one or more dependent claim can be rolled into it to narrow it down.
Meanwhile, Slashdotters will read the title and (maybe) the abstract, and conclude "<insert company here> patents the mouse trap".
Why yes, I have filed a couple of patents, why do you ask?
Dre sold it off just in time for a patent suit to come down the line. Luck or sneakiness?
You missed the point entirely. GP was claiming that the DSP techniques are "trivial" today. True though that they may be, it ignores the point that they were bleading edge when they were developed.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Yeah, because Apple has commented on this somewhere?
You do realize that Apple doesn't even own Beats Audio yet, right? And that this legal action, in no way resembles Bose making an opportunistic money grab now that it looks like Beats will be gaining some very deep pockets in the next few weeks, right?
Why didn't they sue months / years ago when Beats first put noise canceling products on the market?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I'd like to temper the last bit of your post with the following addendum:
It's not surprising that Beats Audio is getting sued for this all of a sudden, now that they are about to have some very deep pockets for a potential settlement.
Oh, and Beats has had noise canceling tech shipping for at least a year, so this seems very much like Bose waiting until they could extract a nice cash settlement rather than actually working to protect a competitive technical advantage.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I'm glad they do all that work to still put out a product that totally sucks in comparison to similarly priced competition.
See: Paradigm Audio, specifically the "Atom" series of speakers. Priced in the same range as Bose, with way better results.
Bose knew all about Beats long before Apple aquired it. So obviouslyu theyre only trying to squieeze apple. MAybe their shares are down? Maybe they went from a promising PA company to a late nite tv hawked "Super sound radio" company..
ALso, noise-cancelling technology isn't unique to, or even invented by BOSE. It's, AFAIK, a military patent.. and used in almost every modern headphone and smartphone made.
That would be true. However, the computer itself and the means of producing it can be patented, but only for new designs and new production means. Wiring components together on stripboards would not count, for example, but building a new type of lithography machine might. A working quantum computer most likely would, as well as usher in a whole slew of new and patentable ideas, since it should work very differently from current computer designs.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
ALso, noise-cancelling technology isn't unique to, or even invented by BOSE. It's, AFAIK, a military patent.. and used in almost every modern headphone and smartphone made.
But what military?
Of interest if a military design was classified and if someone invented
the same thing how could this be litigated. In some cases the disclosure
need only be a public RFP that implies it is possible for another skilled
in the art to go and do it.
Since the secrecy order covers methods and capabilities it could be
that military hardware designs will never be used to show prior art.
FIrst rumor I heard on noise cancellation was for Israel tank communication
systems. Second was old AT&T stuff in the acoustic labs at bell labs for
navy designs.
The patent system is a closed ecosystem and if no one ever filed a patent
on something invented 2000 years ago by a Roman a patent would get issued
and used to extort funds from small players where the cost of litigation
vs. the cost of paying extortion makes the decision.
The other issue is language. Many inventions use alternative language
to isolate their filing from all others. Multiple devices to virtualize large
storage could be used and not trigger a match from a filing involving
redundant array of inexpensive disks etc...
Technical readers could discover some of these but there is no $$ in doing
it. Some large organizations involved in natural language processing might
crack this open as inventions in many nations are stolen and used
in others. This is hard but translation from IEEE publication to PartentOffice to
Chinese, Russian and more might prove to generate matches of interesting
to national security and industry in general (pick your nation... no fixed answer
is correct here).
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.