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Lawsuit alleges iTunes, iPod violate patents

updated 10:15 am EST, Fri November 18, 2005

Apple patent lawsuit

A ) it received and is seeking a jury trial as well as undisclosed damages from Apple: "These patents, claimed Premier, have been incorporated into iPod, iTunes and PC product lines. The first of the patents is a list building system granted in June 2001 for building an inventory of audio, musical, and audio visual works. The second is also for a list building system, granted on July 13th 2004. The PC product lines include the iBook, the Power Book, the Mac Mini, the iMac and the Power Mac, when packaged or pre-installed with iTunes software."

by MacNN Staff

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kaisdaddy
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2005

0

11/18, 10:33am | report spam | close Reply |
Nice try...

...but this is going nowhere. There's this little thing called prior art. Shouldn't they have brought this lawsuit up say, oh FOUR YEARS ago!

Can't blame them and their lawyers for trying to make a buck, I guess...

eswinson
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Joined: Jul 2002

0

11/18, 10:38am | report spam | close Reply |
sounds pretty vague to me

Would this inventory be a database? Next somebody will sue becuse they have a patent on naming files.

Not looking at the patents makes it hard to comment but I just think it is odd that these claims don't come out until well after the marketshare has been established.

burger
Forum Regular

Joined: Sep 2000

0

11/18, 11:10am | report spam | close Reply |
Hmm...

Patents for a sytem of creating and managing playlists of digital music or video. Filed in 1997.

These guys must have invented the recording industry!

Genius!

ebow
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2001

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11/18, 11:16am | report spam | close Reply |
grrr

I HATE SOFTWARE PATENTS. They make kind of $#!t the norm.

Rolnif
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Joined: Apr 2002

0

11/18, 11:21am | report spam | close Reply |
Puhleez

When will this insanity end?

theid
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2004

0

11/18, 11:23am | report spam | close Reply |
Woah there

They've basically got patents that cover audio and/or video playlists. So, everybody STOP what you're doing. Trash your MP3 devices, PSP, music software, video editing software, DVD/CD burners, Netflix account, Amazon DVD/CD wishlist... everything. You could get sued. Well, they'll wait until you've got lots of money and can be blackmailed first, but just beware.

GORDYmac
Mac Elite

Joined: Dec 1999

0

11/18, 12:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
SoundJam anyone?

Again, has noone heard of this app?

APPLE BOUGHT IT WELL BEFORE 2001!!! It was around years before then.

LordJohnWhorfin
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Joined: Aug 2002

0

11/18, 12:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Prior Art

The first poster misunderstands what "prior art" is. It is used to invalidate a patent by proving the protected method had been in use before the patent was applied for (1997 in this case). Show a computer-based system managing playlists in use before 1997 and this patent (most of it, anyway) gets invalidated. That shouldn't be too hard to do. This one is going to go away even faster than the Colorsync lawsuit.

fritzw1957
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Joined: Nov 2004

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11/18, 12:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: SoundJam anyone?

Yep... bought that back in 1999 at MacWorld NYC (well before Apple bought it!)

Loved it also because with a Live365 account, you could (theoretically) stream audio OUT to listeners back in the day of modems. Too bad that was nixed by Apple when they came out with iTunes.

testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001

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11/18, 02:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Prior art

That shouldn't be too hard to do. This one is going to go away even faster than the Colorsync lawsuit.

That doesn't sound too good, since that Colorsync lawsuit lasted years.

diskgolfking
Junior Member

Joined: Mar 2004

0

11/18, 02:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
prior art? nope....

The "a Texas District Court" referred to is probably the EASTERN district of texas, a court in a very small town where no jury has ever found a patent invalid. There WILL be a first time, but who is going to test their luck?

ender
Junior Member

Joined: Mar 1999

0

11/18, 03:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
Folders

If Apple can't sue MS for copying the desktop and folder metaphor for interacting with a computer, then this lawsuit should be just as invalid. Sure Xerox did it first, but surely there are some niche examples of organizing and list building out there someplace!

Also, in order for a patent to be valid, doesn't the patent holder have take action to implement their patent? Otherwise, you could just dream up ideas, regardless if they could actually be implemented, and patent them. I am going to patent "A plurality of systems and methods integrated to enable traveling from one point in space to a second point in space whereby the effect speed to transit exceeds the speed of light." Then, if in the next 20 years (or however long patents expire), if anyone invents a way to travel faster than the speed of light I will sue them for infringing on my patent!

johnsuitcase
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Joined: Nov 2005

0

11/18, 03:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Patenting ideas

Actually, you can't patent an idea, only a method or technique. So, while you don't have to build a prototype (anymore), you would have to specify your technique for traveling faster than the speed of light. You would want your patent to be very sweeping in its terminology (saying things like "using a swiveling mechanism composed of flexible material" rather than saying "using a latex hinge", but you would have to be specific in its function.

I think the whole idea of patenting business models (like amazon's many patents on "one-click shopping" and so forth) are very misguided.

Also, patents don't protect innovations which are obvious and plain. That is to say, you can't patent adding sets of large numbers on a computer, no matter what the specific numbers, since that is an obvious usage. I can't patent a program that adds 1345756464663 +74674576576575, even if no one has ever added those numbers before.

So, any technique to catalogue information would be very hard to patent successfully, as it is an obvious usage of database technology.

Also, simply having a patent doesn't mean that that patent is valid and defensible. It only means that the forms were filled out correctly.

technohedz
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2000

0

11/18, 08:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
old cd players

hmmn..patent... for a playlist..sequentially...blah blah words words... and this is different than programming my portable cd player from back in the day how? I'm sure there are closer 'lists'. Probably something in quicktime itself would do the trick. But then..when did winamp come out? Audion? Guess that regardless of the prior art (yes, it's there because it doesn't say something about it being anything other that numbers and a 5 disc cd changer was available and programable a LONG time ago and this would fall under the patent) the shuffle wouldn't count unless you used it sequentially ;).

This ones a loser.

Bengt77
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2003

0

11/19, 07:11am | report spam | close Reply |
May 1997

That's the date WinAMP 1.0 came out. That's a month before this first patent had even been filed. Now who's being ignorant here?!...

Bengt77
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2003

0

11/19, 07:11am | report spam | close Reply |
May 1997

Here's the proof: .

Bengt77
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2003

0

11/19, 07:12am | report spam | close Reply |
May 1997

Okay, that didn't work. Here it is again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winamp .

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Lawsuit alleges iTunes, iPod violate patents

updated 10:15 am EST, Fri November 18, 2005

Apple patent lawsuit

Nice try...

sounds pretty vague to me

Hmm...

grrr

Puhleez

Woah there

SoundJam anyone?

Prior Art

Re: SoundJam anyone?

Re: Prior art

prior art? nope....

Folders

Patenting ideas

old cd players

May 1997

May 1997

May 1997

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Lawsuit alleges iTunes, iPod violate patents

updated 10:15 am EST, Fri November 18, 2005

Apple patent lawsuit

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Nice try...

sounds pretty vague to me

Hmm...

grrr

Puhleez

Woah there

SoundJam anyone?

Prior Art

Re: SoundJam anyone?

Re: Prior art

prior art? nope....

Folders

Patenting ideas

old cd players

May 1997

May 1997

May 1997

Login Here

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Connect tools:

Subscribe

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