Apple sued over iTunes Allowance features
updated 05:25 pm EST, Thu February 7, 2008
iTunes patent suit
Restricted Spending Solutions has filed a patent suit against Apple over the iTunes Allowance function on its web-based iTunes store. The feature allows members and friends to create accounts for automatically transferring chosen dollar amounts via a credit card to a recipient's iTunes Store account for use by the recipient. RSS cites its own patent, which describes a computer-based method for allocating funds in pre-established accounts for use by customers by creating a customer account file containing a record of funds deposited and limiting how the funds may be spend on audio and video entertainment.
The patent claims domain over computer-based systems implementing the methods as well.
A passage in the patent application reads: "In the coming months many digitized forms of entertainment will be available for downloading from the internet for a free. It is expected, for example, that Napster will charge a fee payable, in part, to the copyright holder of any music file that is copied. [...] Once digitalized forms of entertainment become available for copying from the internet at a reasonable fee, parents and other fund providers will want to control how much money their children/fund recipients spend per week or per month on obtaining copies of the entertainment [...]"
Apple has filed its own iTunes patents in recent months. Most recent is a patent for determining the popularity of a source of serial (sequentially released) online content based upon a number of subscriptions to the source. In other words, the patent calls for a method that would allow Apple to track how popular a stream of content, from the iTunes Store for instance, is based on how many users currently subscribe to it. T
Statistics in the suit suggest that Apple controls 75 percent of online video, 83 percent of online music, and over 90 percent of the hard-drive based media player market.
bah
02/07, 06:25pm reply
These is one of the few that seems valid, but do these patent holders have a working model or is it just a lets patent a idea and see how rich we get in sueing model.
Athens
Addicted to MacNN
Joined: Jan 2003
So dumb
02/07, 06:58pm reply
I mean, the same setup is available on ALL THREE GAME CONSOLES! There is a very large amount of online stores that allows allowances. This is gunna flop so bad...heh...
moo083
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2006
Blah
02/07, 07:03pm reply
"describes a computer-based method for allocating funds in pre-established accounts for use by customers by creating a customer account file containing a record of funds deposited and limiting how the funds may be spend on audio and video entertainment."
Vague, general, completely banal. Why, why are people allowed to patent such unoriginal c***? This lawsuit is baseless. If they are going to sue Apple, they will have to sue several others.
freudling
Mac Elite
Joined: Mar 2005
Patent laws need overhaul
02/07, 07:17pm reply
Patent laws are badly in need of an overhaul. This is simply turning into legalized extortion.
driven
Addicted to MacNN
Joined: May 2001
Nowadays
02/07, 10:56pm reply
you can't scratch your a** without paying someone somewhere a royalty fee.
bloggerblog
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2007
Patents are B.S.
02/08, 12:04am reply
It seems patents are pretty much B.S. You can get a patent for anything and then use it to sue the world with. Even if you never build a product, or market it. STUPID!
horvatic
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2002
scratching
02/08, 12:38am reply
I've patented scratching, you will have to refer to methods such as to shimmy, scoot, or pat.
"A method where by the tips of one's fingers are curled slightly inward & gentle force applied to an area of the body combined with forward, backward, sideways, or rotational motions of the hand. Also furled & unfurled methods of applying the fingers firmly to the body in a continuous motion."
hezekiahb
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2006
Whaaaa and again Whaaaa
02/08, 02:31am reply
Good grief.
dslund
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2007
Vague yet detailed.
02/08, 09:27am reply
Simple concept, yet they throw in the detail "and limiting how the funds may be spend on audio and video entertainment."
So, using this sort of allowance system for say eBay purchases would not fit into the patent.
Really, this concept is SO obvious it shouldn't have a patent there. Jeesh.
bjojade
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2007
Air-headed patents
02/09, 04:22pm reply
No reasonable person would or should grant a patent for a capability that would be expected to be available from a well-thought-out ON-LINE sales service. It's hard to believe that this kind of patent stupidity goes on at the U.S. Patent Office. WTF! Someone needs to get in there and clean out the rampant incompetence ... or maybe force them to come up with a more intelligent list of rules to weed out air-headed patent applications from greedy trolls.
JeffLass
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Joined: Jun 2007