BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement
from the trolling-torrents dept
Well, well. It appears that BitTorrent Inc. is now being sued for patent infringement over a patent (7,301,944) for "Media file distribution with adaptive transmission protocols." Except, it's hard to see how BitTorrent's offering has "adaptive transmission protocols." In fact, looking at the patent, it's difficult to see what it has to do with BitTorrent at all. The patent requires a database for storing files, but BitTorrent is the transmission system, not a database. Either way, this seems like (yet another) patent trolling attempt by a company, Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network, that doesn't appear to actually do anything. To paraphrase the movie The Social Network, if it had invented BitTorrent, it would have invented BitTorrent. Pretty sad that it's now trying to sue instead.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: bittorrent, patents
Companies: bittorent, tranz-send broadcasting network
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BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement
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Re: BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement
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Over-broad generalization.
So, I see the arguments going this way:
1. I only browsed the patent and don't remember seeing any specific note about the type of database, SQL or not. But either way:
a) If they do state SQL, they just say Bittorrent used an inefficient solution but it is still a database.
b) If they don't, they then just argue that database is a generic method of storing, looking up and retrieving data.
2. The "first" protocol in use is HTTP to get the tracker data.
3. The second is a custom peer to peer binary socket stream.
4. New variations of BitTorrent have both tcp and udp transfers, distributed hash systems etc. So there is a lot of different protocol involved which is "adaptive" based on other available peers.
So, all said and done, if you have a generalized patent like this, it pretty much covers the entire damned web but it is definitely applicable to BitTorrent in a really broad and obnoxious way.
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Re: Over-broad generalization.
it is a structured query language.
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Re: Re: Over-broad generalization.
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Re: Re: Re: Over-broad generalization.
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Re: Over-broad generalization.
I think the best definition is near the bottom, under the Computing Dictionary:
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Re: Re: Over-broad generalization.
There is nothing in computer programming which can not be equated to a specialized database, EVERYTHING, is a database and any patent which relies on databases being the crucial addition (even if SQL) is absolutely 100% invalid without any possible doubt.
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Re: Re: Re: Over-broad generalization.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Over-broad generalization.
A database does NOT have to be persistent it just needs to have records that are able to be queried by an identifier. The identifier doesn't even have to be unique.
Any list of things, or objects that can be queried from a stored format (be that dynamic memory or persistent storage) and grouped is a database.
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Re: Re: Re: Over-broad generalization.
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Re: Over-broad generalization.
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This can't possibly be about the BitTorrent protocol
The BitTorrent protocol doesn't do that. BitTorrent is filetype-agnostic. BitTorrent doesn't choose peers based on throughput (IIRC).
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Re: This can't possibly be about the BitTorrent protocol
So: point one: database, store data files. I.e a file system which can be accessed.
point two: An HTTP server, a peer in peer to peer, etc. It is so broad in definition as to be basically meaningless.
identify network throughput: Basically TCP windowing when a client connects to multiple peers. BitTorrent doesn't implement this, the underlying protocol does it by nature. (Routing is part of this.)
The distribution server is the tracker data.. maybe not as interactive as the patent says but valid none the less.
The patent is incredibly invalid on many levels. It describes the internet in general and should never have been allowed, just an example of stupidity in the patent office.
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Re: This can't possibly be about the BitTorrent protocol
Prior art of this patent is HUGE, an older version of Novell 2.5 (even Lantastic in a limited way) did ALL of this way back in the 90's.
The only thing interesting here is the use of a "media File Database", which to anyone who understands database instantly makes them think of OO (Object Oriented) Metasets
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Re: Re: This can't possibly be about the BitTorrent protocol
If only that was actually implausible.
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OT for BitTorrent but not Trademark
Link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/feds-wants-to-bar-mongols-biker-gang-from-trademarking -its-logo-.html
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This patent, like so many software and business patents, seems to be more about the idea instead of an implementation. It isn't even very original. It certainly isn't very specific about the implementation. There are lots of mostly amateur flowcharts, but in most cases when you get to the point of actual implementation they just have a general description about what needs to happen then.
This patent was from 2007. It's hard for me to see anything in the patent that wasn't prior art in 1990. The original patent was filed in 1999; I wonder how many extensions and corrections this had to go through to wear down the examiner.
If I ever try to get a software patent on a really shakey idea I want to hire the attorney that got this one past the examiner. It is hard to see how an examiner could be incompetent enough to approve this without a lot of lawyer breath on the back of his neck.
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Re:
It appears to me that the core of the patent is the protocol that rests upon either multicast delivery or UDP and provides "reliability". For those who aren't network engineers, reliability in a communication protocol is a way for sender and receiver to know that a packet is missing from a message and allows the sender to re-send the packet until it successfully arrives. This is a client/server protocol and is most definitely not P2P. When the server receives a request it will first attempt to send packets via multicast. If that is not working for whatever reason, packets are sent via unicast UDP. If needed, the clients use a separate "channel" to send NAK (negative acknowledgment) packets back to the server for missing packets. A client can jump in at any time and start receiving packets wherever the stream happens to be, at the moment, within the file. While the server still has active clients at the last packet for the file, it will loop back to the beginning and start over. The data rate is established during the creation of each "channel". However, it is hardly adaptive in comparison to what TCP offers in response to network congestion. Another hole in this protocol which is not addressed at all is how the client knows the size of the entire file. It needs to know this otherwise packets missing at the end of the file will never be detected. He says the packets are serialized but there is no description of any separate protocol header. So, I assume he uses the identification field from the IP header.
I am also struggling to see where this scheme applies to BitTorrent. BitTorrent is most definitely a P2P protocol and does not use multicast. I can only imagine that they are looking at the implementation of a higher level (higher than the transport protocol) protocol which provides reliability. Since TCP provides reliability, you have to look where BitTorrent uses UDP. As far as I know, (I don't use BitTorrent and so haven't looked at the generated traffic) BitTorrent only uses UDP for it's DNA (Delivery Network Accelerator) variant. Although BitTorrent DNA is still P2P, it is in, a sense, a client/server protocol. Everyone who downloads BitTorrent gets a BitTorrent DNA client, but you have to pay to get the server software. I haven't checked the source code (is it available publicly?) but I can't imagine that there is a violation of the 944 patent.
In looking through this patent, I have to agree the flow charts are atrocious. They were done by someone (yes Scott Redmond, I am talking about you) who doesn't know how to do flow charts.
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All roads lead to...
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Re: All roads lead to...
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It looks like the patent still requires a server/client traffic relationship.
No part of this patents file is received from any client, only the server system.
I do not see any infringement by bittorent.
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#1 Rule Of Patents
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Hmm....interesting...
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Re: Hmm....interesting...
"Companies like yours are the foundation upon which this
nation's economic growth and competitiveness rests."
- Vice President Al Gore
http://www.scottredmond.com/
http://www.scottredmond.org/
The following article is fairly entertaining.
http://gizmodo.com/5737088/the-greatest-scam-in-tech-scott-redmond-would-like-us-to -clarify
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Re: Re: Hmm....interesting...
Any idiot can keep stating that "THIS STATMENT IS VERIFIABLY INCORRECT" and it seems one did.. LOTS!
Bawhahahahaha
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Re: Re: Hmm....interesting...
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