Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Multimedia, Podcasting
Patent nonsense: News that could change the way we work and play
Last week provided a lot of legal fun for Apple, complete with news of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sending a letter to the company asking for information about the removal of the Google Voice app from the App Store, and word that upstart Mac cloner Psystar has retained a new law firm. Meanwhile, over at the hallowed halls of the U.S. Patent Office, things were afoot that could cause even more problems for not only Apple, but most of the personal computing world.The first hint of patent madness appeared earlier this week when online auction house eBay filed its Form 10-Q for the quarter ending June, 2009 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). One of the nuggets of information in the 10-Q was a warning from eBay that its popular voice over IP (VoIP) service Skype could be forced to shut down over a patent licensing dispute.
When eBay bought Skype for US$2.6 billion in 2005, one key piece of patented technology from Joltid Limited was not included in the purchase price. eBay and Joltid signed a licensing agreement, and Skype continued to flourish. Since 2005, eBay has apparently revealed details of Joltid's patented technologies in the course of litigating other lawsuits. Joltid, under the terms of the license agreement with eBay, unilaterally terminated the agreement as a result. eBay has now filed suit against Joltid in the UK, asking that eBay and Skype be declared not in violation of the agreement, and that the licensing agreement be reinstated.
eBay's comment in the Form 10-Q included this dire warning: "the continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible" if the disagreement is not resolved or some alternate technology is not developed by Skype.
Will Skype, a service used by millions of people daily and the heart of the TUAW TalkCast every Sunday night, be forced to shut down? Nobody knows at this time, but this dispute should be closely watched.
The second round of patent wackiness occurred on Wednesday, when media analytics firm VoloMedia was granted a patent for the basic elements of podcasting. Patent number 7,568,213, "Method for providing episodic media content" was awarded Wednesday to Volomedia after almost 6 years of study by the Patent Office. Volomedia's founder, Murgesh Navar, claims that the patent filing in 2003 was made "almost a year before the start of podcasting." Wikipedia's entry on podcasting bolsters this claim, noting that podcasting "began to take hold in late 2004."
A quick Google search provided some interesting commentary on the patent. Blogger Eric Susch, for example, made these comments in a post in his new media blog on Wednesday: "What a bunch of vague gobbly-gook. This patent claim could apply to iTunes, my DVR... heck it could even apply to Twitter and Facebook. There's no mention of an RSS feed at all which is essential for a podcast. I don't think this patent is enforceable but they could certainly cause trouble for a lot of people."
That last comment echoes the concern of many in the podcasting world. Enforcing the patent could theoretically result in such ridiculous outcomes as license fees to podcasters. Once again, the patent has just been awarded, but as with the Skype situation, this bears close scrutiny by the personal computing community. Apple, which provides millions of people with audio and video podcast content through iTunes, should be particularly vigilant in making sure that podcasting remains free and open.
[via Macworld and The Mac Observer]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jay said 3:28PM on 8-02-2009
I'm not getting something. How can you "reveal" patented information? The whole idea of a patent is to publish a claim, to make an invention patently obvious.
Is the article saying that trade secrets were revealed?
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cg0def said 5:51AM on 8-03-2009
that's exactly what they ment. Ebay has been discosing information about the implementation of the service which is NOT in the pattent application.
Anyway how stupid at the Ebay execs though? They spend money on creating a new interface for windows when the most vital part of their business is not secured. They had over 2 years to rewrite the whole thing and if they get closed down over it then it will be well deserved.
sockatume said 3:32PM on 8-02-2009
It's worth knowing that Joltid belongs to one of the Skype founders. Basically they sold the Skype company by eBay but retained some of the essential code (which goes back to KaZaa, apparently), and licenced it back to eBay. eBay broke the terms of that licence by meddling with their code.
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Tim said 5:00PM on 8-02-2009
The Volomedia patent is just for the way Volomedia "distributes" Podcasts. This is not going to be an issue for anyone who use any other method than Volomedia's, which is 99.99999% of everyone else.
No worries.
As for Skype, that's just dumb. eBay gets what they deserve.
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Woz said 10:57AM on 8-05-2009
Not sure how the hell VoloMedia managed to get the Podcast patent through, Wikipedia gives a good history of podcasting here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting including their patent application which is clearly 3 years after the real groundwork was initially done.
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Woz said 7:53PM on 8-02-2009
Tim, are you sure about that? Reading VoloMedia's own blog here http://www.volomedia.com/blog/ they seem to think the patent covers everything: -
'Today, podcasting is 100% RSS-based. However, the patent is not RSS-dependent. Rather, it covers all episodic media downloads. It just so happens that, today, the majority of episodic media downloads are RSS-based podcasts'
So from their point of view it does apply to 99.99999% of podcasts.
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Dave said 12:45AM on 8-03-2009
People, read the patent's claim before commenting on what it covers:
1. A method for providing episodic media, the method comprising: providing a user with access to a channel dedicated to episodic media, wherein the episodic media provided over the channel is pre-defined into one or more episodes by a remote publisher of the episodic media; receiving a subscription request to the channel dedicated to the episodic media from the user; automatically downloading updated episodic media associated with the channel dedicated to the episodic media to a computing device associated with the user in accordance with the subscription request upon availability of the updated episodic media, the automatic download occurring without further user interaction; and providing the user with: an indication of a maximum available channel depth, the channel depth indicating a size of episodic media yet to be downloaded from the channel and size of episodic media already downloaded from the channel, the channel depth being specified in playtime or storage resources, and the ability to modify the channel depth by deleting selected episodic media content, thereby overriding the previously configured channel depth.
Who provides "the ability to modify the channel depth by deleting selected episodic media content, thereby overriding the previously configured channel depth. "?
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Noah said 11:34AM on 8-03-2009
So all iTunes has to do to skirt this patent, is to have a big box appear... "You have new downloads! Click OKAY to download them now".
That requires user interaction, and therefore the patent does not apply.
minicapt1 said 6:02AM on 8-03-2009
In the old days, a patent application required inclusion of a scale model which illustrated the function of the patent object.
Cheers
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robogobo said 11:15AM on 8-03-2009
and you also had to demonstrate your method was functional.
robogobo said 11:14AM on 8-03-2009
this patent nonsense is overwhelming. Everybody wants to retroactively take a chunk of the success by claiming they helped implement it. Lately these piddly companies are waiting until someone strikes it big and then stepping in to claim their prize. It's manipulative and sneaky. I get the feeling that we, the consumers, will be the losers here. It's getting out of control.
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sockatume said 5:33PM on 8-03-2009
Joltid DID invent Skype, you goof.
robogobo said 6:40PM on 8-03-2009
I'm going to make this short and sweet instead of the typical back and forth about how you can't see I already know that and my point must have gone over your head. Fuck you, you goof. God I'm sick of asshole commenters.