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| Author |
Message |
gull
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More Stupid Patent Tricks
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Nov 5 16:05 UTC 2003 |
SightSound is being allowed to go through with their lawsuit against
CDNow and N2K. SightSound claims to hold a patent that covers the
delivery of for-pay audio and video content over the Internet.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33782.html
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| 12 responses total. |
sj2
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response 1 of 12:
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Nov 6 19:00 UTC 2003 |
Eolas' patent is being challenged (thankfully) by the W3C.
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goose
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response 2 of 12:
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Nov 10 15:19 UTC 2003 |
And how does this replate to similar claims by Acacia? (who have been sending
letters demading royalties to many small to mid sized colleges)
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willcome
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response 3 of 12:
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Nov 27 08:30 UTC 2003 |
whore.
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gull
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response 4 of 12:
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Dec 5 14:48 UTC 2003 |
Microsoft has "clarified" their licensing policy for two techologies:
Cleartype and the FAT filesystem. They're now asking for $0.25 per unit
up to $250,000 from people selling "solid state media" preformatted with
FAT, and $0.25 per unit up to $250,000 from people selling devices that
use such media.
Here's The Register's article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34348.html
And Microsoft's announcement:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/dec03/12-03ExpandIPPR.asp
It's funny to me to see FAT being touted as some exciting and awesome thing:
"Through FAT file system technology, operating systems can identify
unused storage clusters and keep track of all file parts across the
storage medium. The result, for implementers of the technology, is rapid
identification and access to any part of a file while maximizing full
use of the storage medium."
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aruba
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response 5 of 12:
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Dec 5 15:23 UTC 2003 |
Vintage 1981 technology making a comeback. I love it!
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jp2
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response 6 of 12:
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Dec 5 15:37 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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twenex
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response 7 of 12:
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Dec 5 16:23 UTC 2003 |
"640K should be enough for anybody". Whatever
else you say about him, you can't fault Bill's
sense of humour, as #4 proves.
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jp2
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response 8 of 12:
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Dec 5 16:41 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 9 of 12:
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Dec 17 14:58 UTC 2003 |
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/63/34550.html
Optima has sued Roxio for violating a 1995 patent on a particular method
of CD burning:
'Optima's claim centres on a patent the company filed by the company in
1995 and granted two years later. The patent, number 5,666,531, details
a "recordable CD-ROM accessing system".
'Essentially, it describes the technique used by many CD burning apps
and utilities of creating an image of the disc in memory or on the hard
drive which appears to the user as a CD. The virtual CD's contents can
be updated at will, until the user is ready to burn the contents onto
the disc, at which point the information can no longer be changed.
'Software released by Optima in 1995 utilised this technique, which it
says ended the need to pre-plan how and where to burn data directly to
the CD.'
Optima's attorney is quoted as saying, "Optima believes most every
company in the CD burner industry may be infringing."
This is the classic "submarine patent" scheme -- you quietly patent
something, wait for others to make it popular and profitable, then sue
them all for royalties.
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tod
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response 10 of 12:
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Dec 17 20:07 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 11 of 12:
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Dec 18 14:48 UTC 2003 |
But is it ethical?
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jmsaul
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response 12 of 12:
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Dec 18 23:42 UTC 2003 |
No, and it isn't what patents were designed for.
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