Burst management sure is touchy over this thread, no?
I'm just a stock holder. Perhaps if you knew that stolen work directly lead to every employee losing their job, you might be a be more understanding.
Quote:
Quicktime streaming has been around for a REALLY long time. The QTSS has been around for 6 years, at least.
Thats great. Burst has been doing it for nearly 20. I don't believe Apple was infringing upon Burst patents until iTunes.
Quote:
IMHO Burst is full of **** for many reasons. Have you ever heard of Burst Streaming media? Nah.
And why are they waiting until now to bring this up?
The reason you haven't heard of them is because just recently the rest of the world has caught up to where burst was 15 years ago. There was little demand for their product back then and when the demand arrived, the technology was ripped off. I will give Apple innovation credit for arriving to this point ahead of nearly everybody. This shows their leading creativity we all love. Unfortunately, they weren't here first...and only first counts.
The only thing Apple did first......is sue. Big oops.
Quicktime streaming has been around for a REALLY long time. The QTSS has been around for 6 years, at least
Much longer. I remember attending a presentation on QuickTime Streaming Server in 1996, and it had been around for a while even back then.
These patent(s) simply sound like what Apple was calling "progressive downloading" from the beginning, and started appearing when QuickTime gained the ability to be embedded in a web page, circa QuickTime 2.5 / 3.0 in 1995 or so.
Surely Apple could fight this thing on prior art, if the patent was filed after that?
It's also a pretty obvious computer engineering solution: you buffer a stream then interpret the data you've collected so far. If you can buffer faster than you need for immediate use, then you cache the data, letting the network determine how fast you get it all. 1960s concepts applied to 1990s video.
I thought patents were for protecting the implementation of an idea, but not the idea itself. As a result, no one can patent the idea of video streaming, but any number of people can patent their unique solution for video streaming.
Therefore, if Apple has independently developed a solution that doesn't use Burst's code/algorithms, there's no case for them to answer (and vice versa).
Quicktime streaming has been around for a REALLY long time. The QTSS has been around for 6 years, at least. If Apple is guilty of stealing, just like anyone or any company, they should have to take responsibility.
The issue I have are companies that wait until someone else uses a technology that happens to have been patented by someone else (and we all know how idiotic and lame the current patent process is), specifically NOT stolen, and then only after there has been massive market penetration do they attack with lawyers.
And in a global economy, how does that benefit American business? I'm no fan of the corporatocracy, but people gotta work somewhere and these patent parasites are only making a tough innovation environment worse.
I'd be MUCH more inclined to side with Burst or any of these companies if they filed for an injunction at the launch or during the public beta of a product, not 6-10 years later, after the products are ubiquitous.
Seriously, what is Burst doing with this tech? Dang, some days, I wish all the tech companies would literally say NO to all these patent crooks, roll back their products a decade and let all the patent thieves wipe their butts with their worthless, ill-conceived and wrongly awarded patents. And when the market decides that ain't what it wants, we might FINALLY get the patent reform we so desperately need.
The patent in question was granted in 1990, well before anyone else. The judge made it clear that there was no prior art in her Markman ruling. Apple tried to dismiss the case based on prior art, but that attempt failed.
This was not a case of Burst sitting around waiting to sue Apple. Burst demonstrated their new technology to Apple in January of 1991. Apple released their first version of QuickTime in December of 1991. The World Wide Web wasn't popularized until 1993, when the Mosaic browser was released. So this truly is the case of the inventor of the patent being a visionary. He saw the potential of delivering compressed audio/video over networks at a time when only a few academics had ever heard of the Internet.
Instead of paying for a license, Apple, Microsoft, and Real all decided to use the technology without paying for it, and release their competing products for free. Burst couldn't compete. A company with tremendous promise had to lay off most of its staff and essentially close up shop. Large companies steal from smaller companies all the time, since very few small companies can afford the legal expense of fighting a titan.
Burst sued Microsoft first. That took a long time, but they won. They next attempted to reach a settlement with Apple. Burst is the defendant in this case. Apple sued Burst in an attempt to invalidate the patents. This aggressiveness of Apple backfired. The judge used the phrase "nonsensical" when describing Apple's argument in her Markman ruling. Markman rulings cannot be appealed.
I thought patents were for protecting the implementation of an idea, but not the idea itself. As a result, no one can patent the idea of video streaming, but any number of people can patent their unique solution for video streaming.
I am not sure the exact answer to your question, but Apple did copy both the idea and the implementation. The primary focus of the Markman ruling was an argument over the implementation. It is the first point of contention addressed in the court document. The judge sided with Burst, which is bad for Apple since the implementation described by Burst is exactly the same as Apple's implementation.
Isn't it true that if you get a patent to make something and never actually do it, for a very long time, and magically someone comes along and has the same idea, that your patent is as good as **** because you never exercised your patent?
IMHO Burst is full of **** for many reasons. Have you ever heard of Burst Streaming media? Nah.
And why are they waiting until now to bring this up?
I thought patents were for protecting the implementation of an idea, but not the idea itself. As a result, no one can patent the idea of video streaming, but any number of people can patent their unique solution for video streaming.
Therefore, if Apple has independently developed a solution that doesn't use Burst's code/algorithms, there's no case for them to answer (and vice versa).
Patents don't protect ideas. They protect inventions and processes. Sometimes, they also protect discoveries as in the biomedical field, but that is controversial.
"Can'tInventAnythingButOwnsSomeObscurePatent Corp. announced they are suing Apple Inc. for their use of the letters "A," "P," "L," "E," "I," "N," and "C," in its corporate name. Today in Texas, the judge ruled that the case can proceed because Apple Inc. has shown reckless diesregard by using these letters in all mailings, print and web advertisments, and on all products. It is not clear whether the letter "P" constitutes a higher violation of patent abuse since it appears twice in the name of the company. No information has been made public as to the use of the period at the end of "inc."
Analysts are watching this case closely because it could affect the company's signature iPod line of products. If Apple loses this case, they will have to settle to continue using the letters or become "__________," makers of the "od" mp3 player.
zzzzzzzzzzzz
Another of AI's great legal minds adds his 2 cents, and bores everyone with an attempt to be clever.
I agree. Your response is boring and hardly clever. Now that Apple is on top, they are being sued every few weeks for this and that obscure technology. Let's see how many lawsuits it will take before you make a comment on the subject, clever or not.
It is also not impossible that Apple purposely made a motion for a pre-trial ruling to get a glimmer from Burst as an aged topic litigant on some piece of the puzzle they feel they need.
Pre-trial motions are often launched with little expectation for being fully granted.
For patents filed after June 7, 1995, expiration is 20 years from the filing date. For patents filed before June 7, 1995 and issued by June 7, 1978, expiration is the later of 20 years from filing or 17 years from issuance.
So, for patent 4,963,995, expiration is December 27, 1988 + 20 years or October 16, 1990 + 17 years.
Pretty inane patent if you ask me since all it does is digitize video into memory and write it out later. That was pretty obvious even in 1988. FWIW, my Mac did essentially that in 1984 when copying floppies (albeit without digitizing video)... Of course, it's a joke to pretend that many computers had enough RAM to make this feasible for video back then. But the approach was obvious.
Determining the dates for patents 5995705, 5057932, and 5164839 is left as an exercise for the reader. ;-)
If you're bored, you can even find where they reference Steve Jobs in the patent. ;-)
Of course, I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV. Hopefully the people who slurped up BRST shares at $0.03 and $0.04 back in 2002 got out last week at $2.30 (after getting a $0.90 dividend in 2005). Can't complain too much about getting 100x your investment in 5 years.
I always kind of figured that MSFT paid BRST $60M so that BRST would have enough money to harass AAPL...seeing as how Quicktime had worked better than MSFT's offering, it was cheaper to fund AAPL's "enemies" than keep fighting them head-to-head.
For patents filed after June 7, 1995, expiration is 20 years from the filing date. For patents filed before June 7, 1995 and issued by June 7, 1978, expiration is the later of 20 years from filing or 17 years from issuance.
So, for patent 4,963,995, expiration is December 27, 1988 + 20 years or October 16, 1990 + 17 years.
Pretty inane patent if you ask me since all it does is digitize video into memory and write it out later. That was pretty obvious even in 1988. FWIW, my Mac did essentially that in 1984 when copying floppies (albeit without digitizing video)... Of course, it's a joke to pretend that many computers had enough RAM to make this feasible for video back then. But the approach was obvious.
Determining the dates for patents 5995705, 5057932, and 5164839 is left as an exercise for the reader. ;-)
If you're bored, you can even find where they reference Steve Jobs in the patent. ;-)
Of course, I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV. Hopefully the people who slurped up BRST shares at $0.03 and $0.04 back in 2002 got out last week at $2.30 (after getting a $0.90 dividend in 2005). Can't complain too much about getting 100x your investment in 5 years.
I always kind of figured that MSFT paid BRST $60M so that BRST would have enough money to harass AAPL...seeing as how Quicktime had worked better than MSFT's offering, it was cheaper to fund AAPL's "enemies" than keep fighting them head-to-head.
reinharden
As a practical matter, it almost always works out to 20 years.
As we are moving the patent system to more closely resemble the one in Europe, 20 years will become the only number.
It's not the idea of doing what BURST does, or Apple does that matters, but HOW it is done. It isn't so simple.
Apple paid Creative off. It's thought that one reason was so that they would hassle MS, as I believe they are now doing.
Comments
Burst management sure is touchy over this thread, no?
I'm just a stock holder. Perhaps if you knew that stolen work directly lead to every employee losing their job, you might be a be more understanding.
Quicktime streaming has been around for a REALLY long time. The QTSS has been around for 6 years, at least.
Thats great. Burst has been doing it for nearly 20. I don't believe Apple was infringing upon Burst patents until iTunes.
IMHO Burst is full of **** for many reasons. Have you ever heard of Burst Streaming media? Nah.
And why are they waiting until now to bring this up?
The reason you haven't heard of them is because just recently the rest of the world has caught up to where burst was 15 years ago. There was little demand for their product back then and when the demand arrived, the technology was ripped off. I will give Apple innovation credit for arriving to this point ahead of nearly everybody. This shows their leading creativity we all love. Unfortunately, they weren't here first...and only first counts.
The only thing Apple did first......is sue. Big oops.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...nst_apple.html
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderrep...e-over-patents
Quicktime streaming has been around for a REALLY long time. The QTSS has been around for 6 years, at least
Much longer. I remember attending a presentation on QuickTime Streaming Server in 1996, and it had been around for a while even back then.
These patent(s) simply sound like what Apple was calling "progressive downloading" from the beginning, and started appearing when QuickTime gained the ability to be embedded in a web page, circa QuickTime 2.5 / 3.0 in 1995 or so.
Surely Apple could fight this thing on prior art, if the patent was filed after that?
It's also a pretty obvious computer engineering solution: you buffer a stream then interpret the data you've collected so far. If you can buffer faster than you need for immediate use, then you cache the data, letting the network determine how fast you get it all. 1960s concepts applied to 1990s video.
I thought patents were for protecting the implementation of an idea, but not the idea itself. As a result, no one can patent the idea of video streaming, but any number of people can patent their unique solution for video streaming.
Therefore, if Apple has independently developed a solution that doesn't use Burst's code/algorithms, there's no case for them to answer (and vice versa).
Quicktime streaming has been around for a REALLY long time. The QTSS has been around for 6 years, at least. If Apple is guilty of stealing, just like anyone or any company, they should have to take responsibility.
The issue I have are companies that wait until someone else uses a technology that happens to have been patented by someone else (and we all know how idiotic and lame the current patent process is), specifically NOT stolen, and then only after there has been massive market penetration do they attack with lawyers.
And in a global economy, how does that benefit American business? I'm no fan of the corporatocracy, but people gotta work somewhere and these patent parasites are only making a tough innovation environment worse.
I'd be MUCH more inclined to side with Burst or any of these companies if they filed for an injunction at the launch or during the public beta of a product, not 6-10 years later, after the products are ubiquitous.
Seriously, what is Burst doing with this tech? Dang, some days, I wish all the tech companies would literally say NO to all these patent crooks, roll back their products a decade and let all the patent thieves wipe their butts with their worthless, ill-conceived and wrongly awarded patents. And when the market decides that ain't what it wants, we might FINALLY get the patent reform we so desperately need.
The patent in question was granted in 1990, well before anyone else. The judge made it clear that there was no prior art in her Markman ruling. Apple tried to dismiss the case based on prior art, but that attempt failed.
This was not a case of Burst sitting around waiting to sue Apple. Burst demonstrated their new technology to Apple in January of 1991. Apple released their first version of QuickTime in December of 1991. The World Wide Web wasn't popularized until 1993, when the Mosaic browser was released. So this truly is the case of the inventor of the patent being a visionary. He saw the potential of delivering compressed audio/video over networks at a time when only a few academics had ever heard of the Internet.
Instead of paying for a license, Apple, Microsoft, and Real all decided to use the technology without paying for it, and release their competing products for free. Burst couldn't compete. A company with tremendous promise had to lay off most of its staff and essentially close up shop. Large companies steal from smaller companies all the time, since very few small companies can afford the legal expense of fighting a titan.
Burst sued Microsoft first. That took a long time, but they won. They next attempted to reach a settlement with Apple. Burst is the defendant in this case. Apple sued Burst in an attempt to invalidate the patents. This aggressiveness of Apple backfired. The judge used the phrase "nonsensical" when describing Apple's argument in her Markman ruling. Markman rulings cannot be appealed.
Heres a good overview from 30000 feet:
http://www.businessweek.com/@@a3l1kI...7/b3981070.htm
I thought patents were for protecting the implementation of an idea, but not the idea itself. As a result, no one can patent the idea of video streaming, but any number of people can patent their unique solution for video streaming.
I am not sure the exact answer to your question, but Apple did copy both the idea and the implementation. The primary focus of the Markman ruling was an argument over the implementation. It is the first point of contention addressed in the court document. The judge sided with Burst, which is bad for Apple since the implementation described by Burst is exactly the same as Apple's implementation.
Isn't it true that if you get a patent to make something and never actually do it, for a very long time, and magically someone comes along and has the same idea, that your patent is as good as **** because you never exercised your patent?
IMHO Burst is full of **** for many reasons. Have you ever heard of Burst Streaming media? Nah.
And why are they waiting until now to bring this up?
Wrong on all counts.
Am I missing something here?
I thought patents were for protecting the implementation of an idea, but not the idea itself. As a result, no one can patent the idea of video streaming, but any number of people can patent their unique solution for video streaming.
Therefore, if Apple has independently developed a solution that doesn't use Burst's code/algorithms, there's no case for them to answer (and vice versa).
Patents don't protect ideas. They protect inventions and processes. Sometimes, they also protect discoveries as in the biomedical field, but that is controversial.
"Can'tInventAnythingButOwnsSomeObscurePatent Corp. announced they are suing Apple Inc. for their use of the letters "A," "P," "L," "E," "I," "N," and "C," in its corporate name. Today in Texas, the judge ruled that the case can proceed because Apple Inc. has shown reckless diesregard by using these letters in all mailings, print and web advertisments, and on all products. It is not clear whether the letter "P" constitutes a higher violation of patent abuse since it appears twice in the name of the company. No information has been made public as to the use of the period at the end of "inc."
Analysts are watching this case closely because it could affect the company's signature iPod line of products. If Apple loses this case, they will have to settle to continue using the letters or become "__________," makers of the "od" mp3 player.
zzzzzzzzzzzz
Another of AI's great legal minds adds his 2 cents, and bores everyone with an attempt to be clever.
Apple is the plaintiff in this action.
It is also not impossible that Apple purposely made a motion for a pre-trial ruling to get a glimmer from Burst as an aged topic litigant on some piece of the puzzle they feel they need.
Pre-trial motions are often launched with little expectation for being fully granted.
If a patent was granted in 1990, when would it expire and move into the public domain.
Sometime in 2010.
Sometime in 2010.
It depends.
For patents filed after June 7, 1995, expiration is 20 years from the filing date. For patents filed before June 7, 1995 and issued by June 7, 1978, expiration is the later of 20 years from filing or 17 years from issuance.
So, for patent 4,963,995, expiration is December 27, 1988 + 20 years or October 16, 1990 + 17 years.
Pretty inane patent if you ask me since all it does is digitize video into memory and write it out later. That was pretty obvious even in 1988. FWIW, my Mac did essentially that in 1984 when copying floppies (albeit without digitizing video)... Of course, it's a joke to pretend that many computers had enough RAM to make this feasible for video back then. But the approach was obvious.
Determining the dates for patents 5995705, 5057932, and 5164839 is left as an exercise for the reader. ;-)
If you're bored, you can even find where they reference Steve Jobs in the patent. ;-)
Of course, I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV. Hopefully the people who slurped up BRST shares at $0.03 and $0.04 back in 2002 got out last week at $2.30 (after getting a $0.90 dividend in 2005). Can't complain too much about getting 100x your investment in 5 years.
I always kind of figured that MSFT paid BRST $60M so that BRST would have enough money to harass AAPL...seeing as how Quicktime had worked better than MSFT's offering, it was cheaper to fund AAPL's "enemies" than keep fighting them head-to-head.
reinharden
It depends.
For patents filed after June 7, 1995, expiration is 20 years from the filing date. For patents filed before June 7, 1995 and issued by June 7, 1978, expiration is the later of 20 years from filing or 17 years from issuance.
So, for patent 4,963,995, expiration is December 27, 1988 + 20 years or October 16, 1990 + 17 years.
Pretty inane patent if you ask me since all it does is digitize video into memory and write it out later. That was pretty obvious even in 1988. FWIW, my Mac did essentially that in 1984 when copying floppies (albeit without digitizing video)... Of course, it's a joke to pretend that many computers had enough RAM to make this feasible for video back then. But the approach was obvious.
Determining the dates for patents 5995705, 5057932, and 5164839 is left as an exercise for the reader. ;-)
If you're bored, you can even find where they reference Steve Jobs in the patent. ;-)
Of course, I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV. Hopefully the people who slurped up BRST shares at $0.03 and $0.04 back in 2002 got out last week at $2.30 (after getting a $0.90 dividend in 2005). Can't complain too much about getting 100x your investment in 5 years.
I always kind of figured that MSFT paid BRST $60M so that BRST would have enough money to harass AAPL...seeing as how Quicktime had worked better than MSFT's offering, it was cheaper to fund AAPL's "enemies" than keep fighting them head-to-head.
reinharden
As a practical matter, it almost always works out to 20 years.
As we are moving the patent system to more closely resemble the one in Europe, 20 years will become the only number.
It's not the idea of doing what BURST does, or Apple does that matters, but HOW it is done. It isn't so simple.
Apple paid Creative off. It's thought that one reason was so that they would hassle MS, as I believe they are now doing.