Streaming Patent Buoys RealNetworks 133
rishimathew writes writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that RealNetworks recently received a patent for a specific way to stream multimedia content over the internet. From the article: "The patent, which is described as being for a 'multimedia communications system and method for providing audio on demand to subscribers' (No. 6,985,932), describes the idea of permitting a PC user to play back audio, video and other information on a PC. RealNetworks executives said the technology was distinguished from other similar systems by the fact that it permitted "intelligent" streaming of data in potentially congested networks."
OOH OOH! (Score:2, Interesting)
I think I'll patent instant messaging by saying that my technology "intelligently" transfers text back and forth...
Real or Relevant? (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I bitter? Yeah. Real was fairly innovative in the day and though Media Player had its part in shrinking the marketshare, it wasn't like Real didn't get pushy and lamer after a while. How's that OSS deal they had (was it helixcode?) going nowadays anyway?
In other news, I wouldn't be surprised if the patent actually pertains to a streaming download occasionally interrupted by the word "Buffering" followed by 3 ellipses.
Re:I think (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a way. If the patent holder decides to license their technology for free to OSS then there you go. But it sounds like you're saying "I didn't invent this (I think it'll be argued that neither did Real Networks), but I like Open-Source software so there should be some form of exemption for OSS to ignore patents." Replace OSS with "huge corporate monopolies" and you could be a flack for Microsoft. Is that really the kind of life you want to lead?
I think technology patents in this country are pretty far gone right now, but that just means the system needs overhaul, not that we need to cover every piece of evidence that the system is broken with a gigantic band-aid (and a heavily biased one at that), masking the problem.
Re:Real gets streaming patent, includes with FOSS (Score:4, Interesting)
In a client/server architecture, network transfer delays can cometimes make the arrival of data less predictable than if it were coming from a physical device. This can result in underruns (data not arriving in time) or overruns (more data arriving than there is room for) if the delays are sufficiently large. If an underrun or overrun occurs, the affected element is "Paused" until more data or space becomes available. To avoid pauses, applications can control the amount of data that is kept for each input and output element and can request notices whenever an input begins to run out of data or an output has to buffer up too much data.
How does that fail to qualify as prior art?
what is so horrible about xvid? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think so...
but why do they force people to use these properitary software players? (I just say "you want fullscreen? that costs 30$" thank you, apple) first of all this does NOT prevent the trailers from being downloaded, but I guess thats what they think...
but what's the point in that? uh, people might have your trailers on their hard disks, they can watch them multiple times without stressing your servers and their bandwidth - they might show them to their friends and make them interested in your movies...
I can't even come up with a funny or ridiculous example of a reason for forbidding the trailer-download...