Apple sued over foundations to iPod + iTunes franchise
ZapMedia Services, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., claiming to have conceived the underlying principles of the iPod + iTunes franchise a full two years before the first iPod went on sale.
The patent infringement suit, filed Wednesday in the Marshall Division of Texas friendly to patent litigation, comes 18 months after the little-known company, acting on behalf of the now defunct ZapMedia Inc., unsuccessfully began shopping for a buyer of its tiny portfolio with the help of Atlanta-based intellectual property firm Lava Group Inc.
That portfolio had long consisted of just a single patent (No. 7,020,704) titled "System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices." However, on Tuesday the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded ZapMedia with the rights to a second, similarly titled patent (No. 7,343,414) having an increased focus on digital rights management (DRM).
Both patents describe a content distribution and media asset management system, which when taken at face value appears similar to online distributions systems like Apple's iTunes Store and rival offerings such as Vongo and MovieLink. In addition, the filings include what may be perceived as the foundations to a DRM platform.
In its suit Wednesday, ZapMedia claims that after filing for its first patent in October of 2000, it met with several major technology and media companies around the world, including Apple, describing its vision in great detail.
"Without asking ZapMedia for permission, Apple subsequently unveiled its own system," the company said. "Apple announced its iPod MP3 player with an integrated iTunes software application in October of 2001 and its iTunes store in April 2003."
After having been granted its first patent in March of 2006, ZapMedia between June 2006 the fall of 2007 again entertained dialog with Apple, offering to license that patent to the company to no avail.
Illustrations included in ZapMedia's filings.
"When someone takes our vision and our intellectual property without a license after several attempts, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us," Robert J. Frohwein, general counsel of ZapMedia Services, said in a statement.
ZapMedia is now seeking unspecified damages.
The patent infringement suit, filed Wednesday in the Marshall Division of Texas friendly to patent litigation, comes 18 months after the little-known company, acting on behalf of the now defunct ZapMedia Inc., unsuccessfully began shopping for a buyer of its tiny portfolio with the help of Atlanta-based intellectual property firm Lava Group Inc.
That portfolio had long consisted of just a single patent (No. 7,020,704) titled "System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices." However, on Tuesday the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded ZapMedia with the rights to a second, similarly titled patent (No. 7,343,414) having an increased focus on digital rights management (DRM).
Both patents describe a content distribution and media asset management system, which when taken at face value appears similar to online distributions systems like Apple's iTunes Store and rival offerings such as Vongo and MovieLink. In addition, the filings include what may be perceived as the foundations to a DRM platform.
In its suit Wednesday, ZapMedia claims that after filing for its first patent in October of 2000, it met with several major technology and media companies around the world, including Apple, describing its vision in great detail.
"Without asking ZapMedia for permission, Apple subsequently unveiled its own system," the company said. "Apple announced its iPod MP3 player with an integrated iTunes software application in October of 2001 and its iTunes store in April 2003."
After having been granted its first patent in March of 2006, ZapMedia between June 2006 the fall of 2007 again entertained dialog with Apple, offering to license that patent to the company to no avail.
Illustrations included in ZapMedia's filings.
"When someone takes our vision and our intellectual property without a license after several attempts, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us," Robert J. Frohwein, general counsel of ZapMedia Services, said in a statement.
ZapMedia is now seeking unspecified damages.
Comments
I mean, I understand patenting things that you put into use, but if you just shot gun patent things and never go out and make they I say it is fair game.
I thought of going to the moon before NASA too!
I was about to write what would have probably turned into a long post about how silly it is to claim you had an idea first -- even though you never managed to do anything about it -- but I think you really captured my entire sentiment in that one sentence.
PS: In my search I did find the SoundJam patent, filed in 1996, that Apple bought and turned into iTunes. Though there is no talk of distributing the media to peripheral devices.
All apple has to do is produce some internal documentation showing that they had the idea before these guys filed their patent or met with them. I assume that should be easy for them to do.
They had no problem producing evidence about the dates stock options were granted, so this should be a no-brainer </sarcasm>
I hate patent trolls, and this case doesn't help.
ZapMedia Services, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., claiming to have conceived the underlying principles of the iPod + iTunes franchise a full two years before the first iPod went on sale.
I'm no lawyer. Why isn't there a statute of limitations on this kind of case? The iPod and iTunes have been around for 7 years, and in development for maybe 2 years before that? Almost a decade. Why did it take these jerks so long to come out with their case? It reminds me of that dumb stunt British Telephone came up with when they announced they owned the patents to hyperlinks and were going to start charging ISPs for every web page they served. This kind of stupidity is really holding us back as a society.
Servers sending data to devices over a network? Isn't that just the internet?
They're going to have to fight that one out with Al Gore.
At first glance they look to have a solid case. The patent is quite clear and I'm unable to find a patent that Apple owns that trumps this one. .
Apple doesn't need a patent to trump this one. All they need is some internal memos saying that they were discussing it before the patent was filed. Considering that the patent was filed only a year before iTunes became public, it's likely that Apple can show that they were working on it (I doubt if they went from concept to released product in a year).
Of course, the other defense is obviousness - which is a reasonable defense to use here.
They're going to have to fight that one out with Al Gore.
It's a serious of tubes!
(http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/02...-hilariou.html)
Apple doesn't need a patent to trump this one. All they need is some internal memos saying that they were discussing it before the patent was filed. Considering that the patent was filed only a year before iTunes became public, it's likely that Apple can show that they were working on it (I doubt if they went from concept to released product in a year).
Of course, the other defense is obviousness - which is a reasonable defense to use here.
And yet another defense is arguing that it wasn't even patentable. Did they patent a certain technology or technique? Did they say how they were going to do it? Is this really a patentable thing, or just a business idea?
If I have the notion that sometime in the next 10 years we will have figured out a way to make holographic media common, I could file a patent for the "Electronic sales and dissemination of 3 dimensional images and motion pictures to a local display device." Then I send a few e-mails to a bunch of tech companies promoting my idea. Now I wait until someone has established a thriving business and file a lawsuit...
I'm no lawyer. Why isn't there a statute of limitations on this kind of case? The iPod and iTunes have been around for 7 years, and in development for maybe 2 years before that? Almost a decade. Why did it take these jerks so long to come out with their case? It reminds me of that dumb stunt British Telephone came up with when they announced they owned the patents to hyperlinks and were going to start charging ISPs for every web page they served. This kind of stupidity is really holding us back as a society.
because, as the article reports, they were just granted the 2nd patent which cements the case.
That portfolio had long consisted of just a single patent (No. 7,020,704) titled "System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices." However, on Tuesday the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded ZapMedia with the rights to a second, similarly titled patent (No. 7,343,414) having an increased focus on digital rights management (DRM).
All apple has to do is produce some internal documentation showing that they had the idea before these guys filed their patent or met with them. I assume that should be easy for them to do.
Or these Zap guys would be able to quickly produce the NDA's that I'm certain they would have had everyone sign before disclosing such 'vital' information.
It's amazing this got approved.