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Apple Settles Patent Lawsuit Over Web-Based Music Sales

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TechCrunch reports that Apple has settled a lawsuit brought by Sharing Sound, LLC over infringement of a patent essentially describing web-based distribution of digital music. The lawsuit, filed in May, targeted Apple, Microsoft, Napster, Rhapsody, and other companies, with Amazon, Netflix, and additional companies included in a similar suit filed around the same time.
The patent being contested - U.S. Patent Number 6,247,130, titled "Distribution of musical products by a website vendor over the Internet" - would essentially prevent all these companies from using any type of online store environment which allows them to provide song previews, a shopping cart or even a music player.
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According to the report, most of the companies targeted in the lawsuits have already moved to settle their disputes, with Apple now joining the list as it seeks to avoid a court battle.

The application for the patent cited in the lawsuit was filed January 2000 and was based on a provisional patent application filed in January 1999. The inventor associated with the patent, Bernhard Fritsch, founded a short-lived digital music service known as MCY.com that launched in early 1999.

Article Link: Apple Settles Patent Lawsuit Over Web-Based Music Sales
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/01/apple-settles-patent-lawsuit-over-web-based-music-sales/
I HAD THE IDEA FIRST! But didn't have the capital or the skills to make it work, and since you also had the idea (but after me) you need to pay for my failures. It's only fair.

Another settlement. Lame.
 
i remember the dot com bubble and it's pretty cool how many cool and innovative things happened then. a lot of them were too far ahead of their time and that's why they failed. most of the things we think of as innovative are just rehashed ideas from that time and the 1980's.
 
It kind of baffles me how something like this could be patented. Wasn't eMusic doing this several years before the patent was filed?
 
Stuff like this makes me think I should just start patenting every idea that comes into my head and wait around for some big company to do something similar and then make a fortune settling with them. It's disgusting what they will grant a patent for these days. I mean who hadn't thought of the idea to have a music store on the Web?
 
Explain to me how that seemingly obscure piece of tech got into the radar of those tech giants?
Somebody was patent trolling.
That is what is going to happen to all them suckers pushing those android tablets. They are gong to get hit real bad for sure in the future.
 
How can patents like these even be awarded?

I mean:

Selling music - prior art since the dawn of time.
Having a website - prior art since the first website.
Using the Internet - the ARPA guys pretty much own this.

So suddenly SELLING MUSIC OVER the INTERNET, from a WEB PAGE is innovative?

Why is it always something new and innovative when you tack "ON THE INTERNET" to the end of it.

"You want to search for something? Go ahead. You want to search for something ON THE INTERNET? Cough up!"

Sheesh this is a terrible state of affair for innovation. These trolls only help Apple monopolize the industry by making it hard for real innovators.
 
wheezy said:
I HAD THE IDEA FIRST! But didn't have the capital or the skills to make it work, and since you also had the idea (but after me) you need to pay for my failures. It's only fair.

Another settlement. Lame.
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Must not have been that lame if Apple settled, they have the legal resources to bury just about anybody assuming their legal argument is sound.
 
As usual, the patent sounds ridiculous at first. However, the guy did file for it in 2000. Let's remember in 2000 we were using the original bondi blue iMacs, there was no such thing as an iPod, the web was much more primitive, and the idea of purchasing digital content downloads was pretty new and not nearly as obvious as it it today, 10 years later. Plus, this guy appears to have actually tried a business using his patent. Maybe it failed, but that at least sets him apart from all these modern day patent trolls/squatters. It's debatable whether this deserves a settlement, but it sounds somewhat reasonable.
 
HiRez said:
As usual, the patent sounds ridiculous at first. However, the guy did file for it in 2000. Let's remember in 2000 we were using the original bondi blue iMacs, there was no such thing as an iPod, the web was much more primitive, and the idea of purchasing digital content downloads was pretty new and not nearly as obvious as it it today
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Are you KIDDING?
Seems you weren't really paying attention to the industry during the dotcom bubble. EVERYTHING was gonna be sold online, and MP3 had been around for quite a while at that time. You realize that Napster was already in full swing? The whole idea that you could sell digital content ONLINE. omg, why did no one ever have that idea before those guys patented it? /sarcasm
 
Speedy2 said:
Are you KIDDING?
Seems you weren't really paying attention to the industry during the dotcom bubble. EVERYTHING was gonna be sold online, and MP3 had been around for quite a while at that time. You realize that Napster was already in full swing? The whole idea that you could sell digital content ONLINE. omg, why did no one ever have that idea before those guys patented it? /sarcasm
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Napster launched in mid-1999, after MCY launched and after the priority date for this patent application.

And to clarify, this patent application doesn't cover the entire idea of distributing music via the web. It focuses on the embedding of user-specific keys within the digital file for authorization.
 
Problem with today's patent laws

I read the patent in question and it infuriates me to no end that this guy received a patent for a business model, nothing more. That's not protecting innovation, it's squatting. I'll patent a business idea wait until others try the same thing, see if they can make it work, then call foul and demand restitution. It's disgusting and a total manipulation of the patent system.
 
Imagine if someone had patented patent trolling ^^.

When you this one we're not far away from that.
 
Gotta Hankerin said:
I read the patent in question and it infuriates me to no end that this guy received a patent for a business model, nothing more. That's not protecting innovation, it's squatting. I'll patent a business idea wait until others try the same thing, see if they can make it work, then call foul and demand restitution. It's disgusting and a total manipulation of the patent system.
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Right, it isn't the patent system but both the abuse and mismanagement of it that is the problem.

You're right, the guy patented a business model and probably not a very complete one at that. The dot com bubble was in large part caused by venture capital money flowing to people who has ingenious new business models that was simply adding "on the internet" behind a bunch of legacy models....

e.g.

sell books "on the internet"
loan people money "on the internet"
help people meet the love of their life "on the internet"

The fact that these businesses were "on the internet" in no way guaranteed wild profits, success, fame, or even a free lunch once the venture capital money ran out.
 
The patent system is so horribly broken. Patent an idea that is essentially an existing idea with a tiny and very obvious tweak? Yep, they'll hand that one right over. Prior art is also a very difficult thing to pull off in court. The definition of prior art DESPERATELY needs to be broadened. If I'm not mistaken, you have to show that the exact idea had been done. One small difference and prior art doesn't apply.
 
This guy in no way patented a business model, and he didn't patent downloading music over the Internet.

This is what he invented:

8. A method for digitally distributing music comprised of tracks and albums over the Internet to a plurality of the Internet users, comprising:
assigning a key to a track for downloading to a user;
inserting the assigned key into said track prior to the downloading;
transferring the same assigned key to said user prior to downloading said track;
combining the transferred key with additional data to generate an identifier that uniquely identifies a customer's computer; and
verifying that said key extracted from the downloaded track matches information that is based on the generated identifier to enable the playback of said track.

There is a device claim similar to this method claim. It's a way to secure music downloaded over the Internet.
 
Torrijos said:
Imagine if someone had patented patent trolling ^^.

When you this one we're not far away from that.
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There have actually been several attempts to patent the business process of "patent trolling". All have failed to be issued by the USPTO.

However, such a patent would be a great "anti-patent". You could prevent somebody from patent trolling by counter-suing them for infringement of your process with damages equal to what they would have received from you for violating their patent.

The anti-patent is an interesting concept. An "anti-patent' is a patent designed to prevent somebody from ever doing something rather than to protect your ability to do it yourself. Example: Google patents its page-ranking system based on meta-data and page content relative to search terms. Google then patents the notion of loading a page with hidden text to provide terms that would increase the page ranking for a website. Anybody tries to poke holes in Google's page ranking by loading their page up with bogus terms hidden from view then gets sued by Google for violating their "anti-patent".

Some reform is definitely needed in the patent system to prevent trolling and to allow the revocation of obvious patents. The only problem is that "obvious" is a difficult term. What is obvious today may not have been obvious when the patent was issued. The proliferation of an invention's use can make something obvious. One test for obviousness when doing something that's been done before in a new way is this:

Is the application of this old technique in a new way present unique challenges that require innovation? If so, if the invention claims such innovations, they are novel. If not, then it is obvious.

Selling music online differs GREATLY from selling music in a store.
HOWEVER, selling music online is VERY SIMILAR to selling most other things online.

Hence, what is different? Perhaps the ability to download a sample clip and listen to it before you buy? Perhaps the ability to protect the digital content from being distributed by the consumer to others? These two concepts are very similar to software purchasing online (e.g.: trial downloads and copy-protection and licenses). So then you have to differentiate from online software sales. Etc... etc.... etc.... Eventually you should end up with a narrow set of claims that help enable the sale of music online. I'm not sure what claims are on this patent, but if they are overly broad it shows a failure on the part of the USPTO.
 
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