Apple Gives In to Absurd Patent Claims 162
gottabeme writes Apple has settled with a small Oregon company that claimed patents on simple aspects of iTunes, such as sorting and searching tracks, copying tracks to media players, and just plain choosing a track to play." From the article: "In the 10-page suit, lawyers for Contois said that David Contois, the owner, conceived of and developed a computer interface for playing music on an internal or external computer-responsive music device, which he then exhibited at the 1995 COMDEX trade show and the 1996 NAMM music industry trade show. According to the suit, persons who were at the time employed by or later became employed by Apple were present at both trade shows and viewed Contois' software. The suit charged that Apple later 'copied' the invention and used the design ideas in the interface for iTunes."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
The parties met the next day to begin discussing a resolution, according to court records. A first session was unsuccessful. A second session, which began at noon Aug. 16 and ended at 3:30 a.m. Aug. 17, led to the settlement. Lawyers filed court papers about the agreement last week, and Sessions dismissed the case. "
Apple proceeds like any other case like this, expecting an easy win because they honestly believe (I hope) that they've done nothing wrong. But, once rulings start coming back in favor of the other guy, Apple has to look at this and say, "Hey, we're making money hand over fist with iTunes, and this could easily get ugly like Blackberry... only our user base is slightly less addicted and will be angry with us if suddenly, like with Echostar, we have to turn off parts their devices on the next update. So, let's just ask them exactly what they want, and maybe just pay them off."
First meeting: We want $1 billion dollars!
Second meeting: Ok, we'll settle for OUR attorney fees, $x00,000, and stock options from Apple to cover future profits.
SOLD!
BTW, I think that last meeting went to 3:30am because some lawyer, not thinking, brought in an iBook and everyone wasted hours talking about favorite bands, and checking them out on iTunes.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Time for Patent Reform (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple didn't orriginally create iTunes (Score:5, Informative)
Interface (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casady_%26_Greene [wikipedia.org]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/ [panic.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I had SoundJam from v1.0 and everyone I knew with a Mac did too. It was the first Mac mp3 player that encoded well and didn't have a CLI. I seem to remember the guy that wrote SJ went to work for Apple and basically wrote iTunes (or lead the development). But, there's a differnence between iTunes and iPod interface so this is a bit OT.
"Imagine iTunes, only skinnable", ... GODDAMIT! (Score:2)
I fully support your proposed audio-cock technology. -- jwz
It's bad enough that iTunes isn't using Apple's standard toolkits, let alone Cocoa, so it'll run on Windows... make it skinnable and I'd be forced to fetch the diesel oil and shredded fiberglass.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not true. Apple hired the developer of SoundJam, but had him write iTunes from scratch. iTunes looks like SoundJam for the same reason (and to a similar degree) that Windows NT looks like VMS; the same person was responsible for the design of both. They do not share a codebase, however.
What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
<rimshot
Was the deal (Score:1, Interesting)
AKA: finding a delegate for your dirtywork, or Micro-SCO
Scorched earth (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
No legal precident (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There is a precedent; they're purposely setting a very high price for the technology they're stealing so none of the bottom feeders get it.
It may not be a "legal precedent", but it's still a precedent by definition ("an example that's used to justify similar occurances at a later time").
If you aren't a lawyer, it's a "legal" precedent too; because it's setting the price to legally use patented technology, which has been set by Apple by means
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
what about winamp and xmms? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what about winamp and xmms? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My first and last amiga was the 1000. We had the 2 MB memory expansion, the 5.25 drive/IBM emulator and the 3.5 external drive. I don't remember much else about it other than freddy fish disks and shadow of the beast.
Amigas and CD players (Score:2)
Defininately untrue. Commodore died in 1994, the Amiga died many years later (and there are probably a handful of holdouts that say it hasn't died yet, though I can't quite see it their way).
My Amiga's CPU was pretty stressed by MP3 decoding (and my hard disk capacity was still limited to a couple gigabytes), so in the 1990s (probably starting sometime around
Go computers. (Score:1, Insightful)
prior art on this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're talking about the company that licensed "1-click" from Amazon. Why are you surprised?
Re:prior art on this one. (Score:4, Informative)
But the idea of giving in is because, in the end, your lawyers may actually cost more than what the plaintiffs asks and the negative publicity this usually generates eventually gets to the ears of the high shareholders and they dont like it.
Just like the "exploding Dell laptop" thing. And more recently, the same "Bad Apples" news that keep cropping up.
It's really Sony's fault. You and I both know that. But Joe Schmoe reading Wall Street Journal might not.
Death of a thousand cuts (Score:5, Insightful)
In the short term, it might seem like it makes sense to "just settle" with a litigant with an absurd or overly broad patent, rather than fighting it. However, I'm not sure this is really a good idea in the long run -- it just invites more people to try the same trick over and over, damning you to a death by a thousand small wounds.
Compare the difference to IBM's staunch opposition of the SCO lawsuit. I realize that the cases are different, but philosophically they represent very different approaches. IBM seemed to realize, at the very beginning, that even if it cost more to fight SCO's claims than to settle with them, it would be a worthy expenditure, because to settle would be to roll out the Welcome mat to every other numbskull with an axe to grind. Apple seems to be only looking for the immediate cost: will it cost more to fight a particular case, or to settle it?
I think this might be because, while IBM realizes that it is a giant corporation with impossibly deep pockets, and thus a massive target, Apple has for so long been a relatively small player that it seems they haven't gotten their minds around the fact that a short term loss might be worthwhile, if it headed off similar future attacks.
I'm not a shareholder in Apple, just someone who's reasonably fond of their products. However, if I was, I'd be very concerned that in making the quick out-of-court settlement their M.O., they're painting a bulls-eye on themselves, which can only get more inviting the bigger and more profitable they get.
Re:Death of a thousand cuts (Score:4, Insightful)
SCO lawsuit is frivolous and laughable. It does not have any basis and is pretty much a sure win for IBM. IBM's business is in no danger of distruption because of SCO's injuctions.
OTOH, these lawsuits by Creative and Contois, however, do have a good basis: valid USPTO patents. The fact that they are stupid, obvious patents that should have not been granted in the first place is beside the point. To make a good defense, Apple must get these patents invalidated, a process that takes a very long time and does not guarantee a positive outcome for Apple. In the meantime, Creative and Contois could have asked injuctions that cut into Apple's business core: iTunes Music Store and iPod. Not only would they lose their profit, the absence in the market would have opened a door for others to take over. Apple's accountants must have thought it was cheaper to settle and if Apple did a similar settlement as the one with Creative, Apple can turn these patents to their advantage without getting their hands dirty. Brilliant tactics, though it does leave a bad taste in the mouth.
Re: (Score:2)
What IBM will get from this lawsuit is juicy discovery about Sun and MS. That's worth the price of the lawsuit alone. Who know how many lawsuits IBM will be able to file against Sun and MS after this case is over.
iTunes came out when? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:iTunes came out when? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:iTunes came out when? (Score:4, Funny)
That must be it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple sleazy math. If iTunes flopped they would have gotten zip. They waited until it looked like iTunes had reached a kind of peak so they could claim maximum damages. If they had sued them back in 2001 they might have gotten pocket change or worse yet forced Apple
Laches (Score:2)
And before anybody else claims that this rule applies only to trademarks, please go read about laches [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:1)
Why didn't they Sue Casady & Greene - makers of Soundjam MP?
http://ask.softonic.com/ie/9170/SoundJam_MP_Free [softonic.com]
http://guides.macrumors.com/Image:ITunes1_vs_Sound JamMP.jpg [macrumors.com]
I purchased the full version right about when Apple bought it, bastardized the interface and gave it away free. Oh the horrors. It very quickly became a slick tool and I was happy with the results.
Nonethless...didn't WinAmp, and pretty much every MP3 and media player end up
Hi. I've invented third normal form. Pay me. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hi. I've invented third normal form. Pay me.
Always remember, I'm the only one allowed to index and sort database records by individual field contents, without a royalty.
-- Terry
jeebus (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously - Prior art - its documented.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I really shouldn't feed the trolls... (Score:2)
Or do you mean this small company is showing prior art for these retarded patents? Problem there is, it was in common use in WinAMP and XMMS before then -- but no one was evil enough to patent the idea. Thus, Apple even bothering to acknowledge these guys is somewhat evil -- but the guys who have these "patents" are even more evil.
Mod Parent DOWN (Score:2, Informative)
At the very least, I shouldn't respond to ACs... (Score:2)
Ok, let's talk about selecting an item from a playlist. This particular feature has been around for much longer than CDs, even. This page [wikipedia.org] mentions vinyl LPs in the 1930's, and LPs do come with a track listing and the ability to skip to a chosen song by picking
Re: (Score:2)
Spreading misinformation is not my intent, and I've earned my karma modifier. Here, where I'm wrong, I should be modded down, and I should lose karma, whereas if you're wrong, you just fade back into anonymity. There's a reason it's called "Anonymous Coward".
And this is my only Slashdot account.
Prior art (Score:2, Interesting)
More prior art: In 1960 Quicksort was developed. Working for the British computer company Elliott Brothers, C. A. R. Hoare developed Quicksort, an algorithm that would go on to become the most used sorting method in the world.
http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=196 [computerhistory.org]
It's called "justice" (Score:4, Funny)
kill software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
A menu selection process to allow the user to select music to be played - its a music player! File>Open is a damned menu! Please for a second picture a music player that doesn't allow the user to select the music to be played via a menu. mpg123 is all that comes to mind.
The ability of the software to transfer music tracks to a portable music player - wait any OS can do this - its copying files for crissakes. Again trivially File>Save As
This sorting by genre>artist>title is something I've done for ages with tapes and then CDs. The Creative patent was stupid and this one is too - Indeed I'm stunned they don't sue each other.
All of these patents are obvious and entirely frivolous, and really ought not to exist. So much as I dislike Apple and support underdogs I've got to side with Cupertino because this is ridiculous.
Re:kill software patents (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, that pretty much describes the iPod Shuffle!
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. Until you read the claims, you know nothing about a patent. But the material you cite is not claims. It looks like something written by a journalist.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
absurd??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Xerox, Apple and Progress (Re:absurd???) (Score:1)
maybe even more useful A visual history of the [folklore.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The Alto, Star, Lisa and Mac all had their differences, but the difference between the Apple II interface and the Star interface was much, much greater than the difference between the Star and the Mac.
That doesn't mean that Apple didn't make their own contribu
What Steve got to see (Score:2)
Well, you think wrong: From the transcript [pbs.org] of "Triumph Of The Nerds Part III":
"Steve Jobs had co-founded Apple Computer in 1976. The first popular personal computer, the Apple 2, was a hit - and made Steve Jobs one of the biggest names of a brand-new industry. At the height of Apple's early success in December 1979, Jobs, then all of 24, had a privileged invitation to visit Xerox Parc.
Steve Jobs
And they showed me really three
Re: (Score:2)
Says who? Have you been there?
Even Adele Goldberg talks of "a demo of the Smalltalk System".
This doesn't even make sense.
Re: (Score:2)
"Probably"? But that's my point. People just can't pull stuff out their ass and if asked how they know just say: I don't but it was probably so ... There are people who were there and we can ask them.
A resounding WTF. (Score:2, Insightful)
Call me stupid, but this sounds like a rerun. The same thing happened with automobiles...George Selden tried to sue Henry Ford because Selden held the patent to the first automobile, even though it was built after Ford's. Messed up American patent system. The supreme court ruled that Ford and anyone else with the crazy hair across their ass to do so could build a car without paying Selden royalties. Because, and I quote from wikipedia.org, "au
How can this be? (Score:5, Interesting)
"On a handheld device" (Score:2)
Because the new element is "on a handheld device".
Why should that matter? (Score:2)
Author did a nice job.... (Score:1, Informative)
Funny the article says Apple Computer has settled a lawsuit filed by a Vermont-based business owner.
Wonder how many submitters actually read the article first, instead of just trying to copy/paste.
The company is from Vermont, not Oregon. (Score:2, Informative)
It's only the title of the article, after all.
Re: (Score:2)
-Ted
this may actually be a brilliant move. (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a time Two shirt makers named Smith and Wesson built themselves a gun empire.
They did it by finding a guy who had a patent on revolvers that had cylinders bored all the way through. The gun the patents were listed for was horrible, and the patent was questionable at best. There was ample examples of prior art for one thing. They realized however that if they honored the patent and bought a license it made the quality of the patent vastly stronger.
The deal they made was that they would pay a fairly generous license fee for exclusive rights, but the patent holder would pay for all the patent challenges. The patent holder spent all the royalties on lawsuits and retired a pauper, but Smith and Wesson had a monopoly on revolvers for 20 years.
By honoring this patent and arranging for exclusive rights they may be able to keep others from even building other music players. Assuming patent law hs not changed, this could actually shoot the Zoon right through the head.
Prior art (Score:3, Interesting)
It appears that most anyone who created multimedia with Director and audio from Sound edit in the early 1990's has prior art for many of those "inventions"
I know I have priors from late 1995 (even demoed by Phill Shiller at that time) but that may not be early enough.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I was thinking the same thing. I don't have the old Director files anymore, at least that I can find, but I did stash some screenshots away. I was 16 or 17 at the time, so the design is amateur, but functional:
InterlocK(tm) VF-2S(tm) Shockwave Streaming Audio [thelostworlds.net] (the copyright for the song being played [angelfire.com] says 1996, but I would have had the player up and runnin
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Insightful)
However, many 3rd party CDROM drives (like one I bought in 1993) came with their own audio CD player software that:
1. allow the user to select music to be played
2. search capabilities such as sorting music tracks by their genre, artist and album attributes.
3. the ability of the software to transfer music tracks to the local hard drive
Well, 2 out of 3 - Close enough!
silly and supportive of silly. (Score:3, Funny)
Quick someone patent "silly".
It can be done, even though its an action not a thing.
Coming soon! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Soundjam (Score:2, Interesting)
When I got the first iPod, ordered the day of the unveiling, and used it with iTunes, I knew they had a hit.
But then, I
Northwest or Northeast? (Score:2)
Absurd like the Trash Can Icon patent? (Score:4, Interesting)
7,100,113: Systems and methods for using media upon insertion into a data processing system
7,099,869: Method and apparatus for managing file extensions in a digital processing system
7,086,008: Multiple personas for mobile devices
7,034,814: Methods and apparatuses using control indicators for data processing systems
Isn't it obvious (Score:2)
Oops and Editing (Score:2)
Speaking of blurbs, Slashdot unfortunately cut part of what I said, which made a point along the lines of, "T
iTunes was derived from SoundJam (Score:2)
Even if Apple did see this "product", it's clear that Apple engineers didn't "rip off" this guy... it was someone else. Can you really blame a company for its acquisitions?
Why isn't this chump going after Nullsoft / AOL
Re: (Score:2)
You should probably see someone about that...
Yeah, Apple Does Have That Rep (Score:2)
Yeah, Apple does have that reputation. At least, that what my mole at PARC tells me.
Re: (Score:2)
Suspicious (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? Whatever gave you that idea? Unless the question is decided in a court of law (not just settled), these kinds of claims can be brought against Apple again and again.
But, then again, who cares? It's not like Apple is so well behaved themselves.
Re:Defensive move (Score:5, Funny)
That's patently false.
Re: (Score:2)
That's patently maybe.
Re:Defensive move (Score:4, Insightful)
If your claim were true, then the most obvious thing for any company to do with any new product would be to provide seed funding for a small company to sue it with a bogus patent claim, but settle it in order to remain bullet-proof against any future claims. Life is never that easy.
Re:Well I never (Score:4, Funny)
You lying bastard. You got me all excited for a minute, but it turns out you just made the place up.
die.die.die
KFG
Re: (Score:2)
Do you think their server has been Slashdotted?
Re: (Score:2)
you have some sort of a problem with Apple so not only do you NOT block the stories, you actually read them and then post about them.
it's the same on digg.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, so what's your comment on the patent itself? (Score:2)
To me, that patent seems to be based on applying IBM's old "Query By Example" to a relational database containing track information. That's prior art
Re: (Score:2)
A patent may be amended. For example, there's a gentleman by the name of Warman who had a patent on attaching a protective screen to a curved CRT monitor, using adhesive tabs. Some time later... allegedly after seeing people using screen protectors, he was awarded an amendment to the patent that covered screen protectors on PDAs that basically replaced the original patent. Google for "warman screen protector patent" and read your fill.
That's why I'm asking