EFF Looks To Bust Bogus Podcasting Patent; Needs Prior Art
from the help-'em-out dept
Back in July, we wrote about how a company named Volomedia had gleefully announced that it had patented podcasting. The patent itself (7,568,213) seemed ridiculously broad, obvious and covered by prior art. On top of that, it was difficult to see how it passed the current (though, perhaps not for long) "Bilski" test for what can be patented.It looks like the EFF has decided to be proactive about this and is looking for prior art with which to bust this particular patent. In the comments on our original post about this, reader Marcel de Jong, noted that Dave Winer described audio enclosures for RSS in a blog post in January of 2001 -- nearly three years before this patent was filed. Hopefully that is rather compelling prior art, but if anyone has any more info, please send it over to the EFF.
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Filed Under: obviousness, patents, podcasting, prior art
Companies: eff, volomedia
Reader Comments
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Is this too easy?
Seems like there is various forms of prior art back to 1993 or so.
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Re: Is this too easy?
"In 1993, the early days of Internet radio, Carl Malamud launched Internet Talk Radio which was the "first computer-radio talk show, each week interviewing a computer expert."[2][3] It was distributed "as audio files that computer users fetch one by one."[4]"
See, NO patents required. Zero. No one needs a patent to think of podcasts, not all innovations require patents.
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Re: Is this too easy?
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Re: Re: Is this too easy?
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Contact Doug Kaye
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/doug-kaye/0/24/a53
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Re: Contact Doug Kaye
"Doug Kaye, who had been publishing MP3 recordings of his interviews at IT Conversations since June, created an RSS feed with enclosures.[17] IT Conversations, now part of the nonprofit Conversations Network, remains the oldest still-running podcast."
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Turkeys all around us
“Don’t Tread On Me” should be resurrected.
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2. Not sure why this is "bogus". The article mentioned above discusses and idea, but nowhere is that idea developed to the point that it can clearly be said it is necessarily relevant to the allowed claims.
3. This company is likely located just a few blocks from your office (Sunnyvale, after all, is not exactly a metropolis). Why not stroll over and ask them what is unique about what it has done?
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A: What are the chances that this person/entity will actually sue someone for allegedly infringing on the given patent. Does the patent holder have a history of suing people for patent infringement in general?
B: What are the chances of the patent holder selling the patent someone who is likely to sue someone for infringement.
This way they can strategically choose to overturn patents that are more likely to be used against someone.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the EFF overturning bogus patents but it just seems like a very tedious waste of resources to go after a bunch of patents, one by one, that aren't even likely to be used against anyone. Perhaps the EFF can try to aggregate patents and try to overturn a bunch of patents all at once to save money and resources? Another thing the EFF could try and do is lobby for shorter patent lengths.
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Why? That rewards Volomedia for getting a bogus patent, and only serves to create incentives for others to get bogus patents in the hopes that the EFF or others "buys" it from them.
Volomedia should not receive money for abusing the patent system.
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Sure, ultimately bogus patents shouldn't be granted, but being that the patent office granted those patents to someone who would sell it to the EFF, I would much rather the patent be granted to someone who would sell it to the EFF than for the patent to be granted to someone who would abuse it. If I apply for a bogus patent and sell it to the EFF that prevents someone else from applying and getting that bogus patent and then abusing it.
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I also think that SOMEONE should start a prior art search engine with a database that people can submit free ideas to the public domain so that people can use that as a basis for prior art (ie: see, someone else already thought of that on such and such date and submitted it on this database). Then if someone gets sued for infringement they can search the database and see if anyone submitted a similar idea to it before the patent was granted.
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Thank you for the comic relief. We all know the USPTO does not give a rodent's behind about whether or not something has already been patented, but your comment nonetheless has a degree of sarcasm that is well said to those who post anti-patent snipes based upon not even a scintilla of accurate information.
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To the extent that this is true this is just more reason why I think we need to start a prior art search engine and have organizations like the EFF try to enforce the non patenting of prior art.
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Very high. They put out a press release clearly stating that pretty much all podcasting was covered by the patent. You don't do that if you're just planning to sit on the patent.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the EFF overturning bogus patents but it just seems like a very tedious waste of resources to go after a bunch of patents, one by one, that aren't even likely to be used against anyone.
Again, Volo has given every indication that they are likely to use this patent against others.
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Like I suggested, if this is something about which you feel strongly, visit them and talk about their technology. They are likely only a few block from your office and/or home.
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So is suggesting that people sit around and wait until it's too late. It's perfectly reasonable to proactively go after bogus patents. Why wouldn't you think so?
Like I suggested, if this is something about which you feel strongly, visit them and talk about their technology. They are likely only a few block from your office and/or home.
Huh? Why should I visit them? You aren't making any sense.
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Tongue in cheek remark I made only because both of you are in Sunnyvale. I know it is very unlikely you would ever pay it a visit, but from my experience talking directly with the horse's mouth yields mounds of very useful information.
Merely FYI (and, no, this is not a setup), I lived in Sunnyvale for many years while flying out of Moffett with what was then VP-50. Not to date myself, but at the time what is now Silicon Valley still had some cherry orchards.
As for going after them, the EFF activities are little more than a means to gain publicity. If this document poses a real problem, effected companies certainly have the motivation and means readily at hand to mount a challenge, a challenge that does not to cost big $$$ if you have a lawyer who knows what he/she is doing and thinks like a businessman (versus seeing everything in legal terms).
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What the EFF is doing by challenging the patent is not only protecting those who refuse from eventually getting sued, but also protecting those who would go along with a licensing agreement (in order to avoid getting sued) from being fleeced on the basis of a bogus patent. And good for them.
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You're saying that you would kill someone if you're paid more than [(your annual income)*(maximum term for murder)*(probability of getting caught)]
Or it's okay to hand over assault rifles to everyone who hasn't got a criminal record.
Buying off such a patent could never be a solution, you're simply postponing a catastrophe.
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No, it's more like buying up the assault riffles from those criminals who have them instead of taking each of them to court and spending tons more money fighting for the court to take them away. Yes, those criminals can get more assault riffles but they're going to get more assault riffles regardless because the patent office keeps on handing them out.. So I would much rather the EFF own as many assault riffles as possible and they can use them in court to counter sue criminals that abuse the patent system.
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The company put out a press release and emailed pretty much all of the tech press the day after they got the patent. That's a clear sign that they're planning to try to get companies to pay up for it. Take it on before they do that is a much better proposition.
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This patent is very narrow and covers only a very specific feature
The patent has nothing to do with audio enclosures for RSS
Claim 1, the BROADEST CLAIM recites, and therefore requires for infringement, the following very particular functionality:
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.
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You gotta be kidding
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You gotta be kidding
Oh, that's right, this is an audio file, so that makes it entirely different, and deserving of a monopoly.
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Re: You gotta be kidding
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