Other than the settlement is cheaper than fighting, I can't see a reason either.
But seriously, EZ4Media have patented something that was has been implemented for years before by others. It just wasn't that easy to do previously is the only difference.
Which makes EZ4Media no different than countless other companies making countless products protected by countless patents... including Apple.
As was mentioned in an earlier post, if a company suspects infringement and doesn't defend their patent then it's far more likely they will lose it. What EZ4Media did is standard and virtually mandatory practice by sending notices of infringement.
Lastly, let's remember that patenting of prior art or natural extensions of existing practice is something many people have accused Apple of doing, too.
I personally would hate to live in a world where only one company was granted sole permission to produce devices/software to perform a particular task. The result would be a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries.
It seems like businesses are striving for total domination of a particular market niche so they can hit the pause button on innovation, take a permanent holiday and simply watch the dollars roll into their bank account.
Hopefully the Toyota's and the Apple's of the business world will drag the rest of them kicking and screaming into the 22nd century.
I personally would hate to live in a world where only one company was granted sole permission to produce devices/software to perform a particular task. The result would be a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries.
That world doesn't exist luckily, mainly because patents generally cover methods to do things, not products. There are usually many ways of doing something.
I personally would hate to live in a world where an innovative idea can be ripped off by a larger company with no recourse. People bitching about "patent trolls" here need to keep that in mind.
Also the fact that Apple hired 3 people from the company to work on a competing product doesn't look good IMHO.
I personally would hate to live in a world where only one company was granted sole permission to produce devices/software to perform a particular task. The result would be a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries.
Apple are amongst the companies doing their best to make this happen. The fact that they patented "multi-touch" on the iPhone means that everyone else has to invent some other way of doing something similar, but not the same resulting in..."a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries". Nokia stated explicitly that they couldn't include multi-touch on the N97 because of Apple patents.
I'm a big fan of Apple and their products but they're getting away with patenting way too many things. I for one hope that EZ4Media wins this one and gives Apple a taste of their own medicine.
Roku's SoundBridge was released in 2004 and licensed technology from Apple to use iTunes (sans DRM). The Airport Express was released shortly after the SoundBridge. That was the first "modern" independent media streaming device that I remember.
Since Roku has more devices competing directly with EZ4Media's product offerings, and isn't listed as a target, I stick with my assumption that this is really more for publicity than anything else.
Also, you have to defend trademarks-- not patents-- for them to remain enforceable.
Roku's SoundBridge was released in 2004 and licensed technology from Apple to use iTunes (sans DRM). The Airport Express was released shortly after the SoundBridge. That was the first "modern" independent media streaming device that I remember.
Which makes EZ4Media no different than countless other companies making countless products protected by countless patents... including Apple.
As was mentioned in an earlier post, if a company suspects infringement and doesn't defend their patent then it's far more likely they will lose it. What EZ4Media did is standard and virtually mandatory practice by sending notices of infringement.
Lastly, let's remember that patenting of prior art or natural extensions of existing practice is something many people have accused Apple of doing, too.
I could be wrong, but it seems that while, yes, Apple patents the heck out of their products, they don't go around suing every company that comes along with a similar device. Apple will sue a company that makes a knock-off of their hardware. In the past they've sued over copies of the iMac and iPods. I'm sure they've had some software lawsuits in there, but I can't think of any (I believe the Pystar lawsuit is based on copyright, not patents). Also, they will viciously go after anyone who even slightly infringes on their trademarks (but that's a different issue, too).
So it seems to me that while Apple has tons of patents, they are mostly defensive patents to discourage other, overly broad patents from being used as grounds for lawsuits against Apple.
From my point of view, the "massive amount of prior art" is:
Audio codecs
Video codecs
Low-power embedded computing platforms (DSP, FPGA etc. etc.)
Wired networking
Wireless networking
These all existed well before 2001. As I said, it just requires competent engineering to take these ingredients and deliver a network audio/video player. There's no way anyone should be given patents for doing it.
1. is that they didn't put the kibosh on their peeps going to another electronics/computer company a la IBM right away. if there was a legit and enforceable contract to avoid such employment and they didn't do it at the time, do they have a right to sue on that issue now.
2. the patents. I don't know patent procedure but it appears that all the patents were granted after the offending items were released for sale. so this begs the question -- was Apple granted patents for their variation on the theme before releasing them, were these patents in the system such that Apple should not have been granted them (making the true offensive the Patent office for telling Apple they had a good ahead when they should not because of potential conflicts with a prior and not yet refused app by another company). and if these others guys asked first, would Apple have a way to know this before proceeding. because how can they be blamed if they didn't know someone was also doing the same thing, they were told they were in the clear, or they asked first.
Dude touch screens have been around WAY before Apple could even get a hold of their company again. You might wanna put down your Macbook, turn off your Apple TV, and pause your iPod so that you could actually get a clue as to what's been going on! I guess all of those touch screen phones that have been around since at least 2005 were copies....
Nice troll. The important innovation in the iPhone is a multitouch interface, not a touch screen. In fact I doubt if any of the imitators have anything more than a touch screen that is a poor implementation of mouse style interface. It is significant that Apple has a new API architecture for multitouch that goes beyond the mouse, window, menu interface analogous to the way the Mac style interface replaced the command line interface that dominated UI before.
Apple is a big company with a long history but it really has been innovative and trying to obscure that fact by pretending that they are all the same is disingenuous at best.
Comments
Wow, this forum reads like a kindergarden class.
Thanks for the compliment, my good man.
Other than the settlement is cheaper than fighting, I can't see a reason either.
But seriously, EZ4Media have patented something that was has been implemented for years before by others. It just wasn't that easy to do previously is the only difference.
Which makes EZ4Media no different than countless other companies making countless products protected by countless patents... including Apple.
As was mentioned in an earlier post, if a company suspects infringement and doesn't defend their patent then it's far more likely they will lose it. What EZ4Media did is standard and virtually mandatory practice by sending notices of infringement.
Lastly, let's remember that patenting of prior art or natural extensions of existing practice is something many people have accused Apple of doing, too.
Just asking as I don't have time to look.
It seems like businesses are striving for total domination of a particular market niche so they can hit the pause button on innovation, take a permanent holiday and simply watch the dollars roll into their bank account.
Hopefully the Toyota's and the Apple's of the business world will drag the rest of them kicking and screaming into the 22nd century.
I personally would hate to live in a world where only one company was granted sole permission to produce devices/software to perform a particular task. The result would be a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries.
That world doesn't exist luckily, mainly because patents generally cover methods to do things, not products. There are usually many ways of doing something.
I personally would hate to live in a world where an innovative idea can be ripped off by a larger company with no recourse. People bitching about "patent trolls" here need to keep that in mind.
Also the fact that Apple hired 3 people from the company to work on a competing product doesn't look good IMHO.
I personally would hate to live in a world where only one company was granted sole permission to produce devices/software to perform a particular task. The result would be a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries.
Apple are amongst the companies doing their best to make this happen. The fact that they patented "multi-touch" on the iPhone means that everyone else has to invent some other way of doing something similar, but not the same resulting in..."a mishmash of horrible, unintuitive user interfaces and ridiculous boundaries". Nokia stated explicitly that they couldn't include multi-touch on the N97 because of Apple patents.
I'm a big fan of Apple and their products but they're getting away with patenting way too many things. I for one hope that EZ4Media wins this one and gives Apple a taste of their own medicine.
Since Roku has more devices competing directly with EZ4Media's product offerings, and isn't listed as a target, I stick with my assumption that this is really more for publicity than anything else.
Also, you have to defend trademarks-- not patents-- for them to remain enforceable.
Roku's SoundBridge was released in 2004 and licensed technology from Apple to use iTunes (sans DRM). The Airport Express was released shortly after the SoundBridge. That was the first "modern" independent media streaming device that I remember.
SlimDevices' squeezebox was introduced in late 2003.
Which makes EZ4Media no different than countless other companies making countless products protected by countless patents... including Apple.
As was mentioned in an earlier post, if a company suspects infringement and doesn't defend their patent then it's far more likely they will lose it. What EZ4Media did is standard and virtually mandatory practice by sending notices of infringement.
Lastly, let's remember that patenting of prior art or natural extensions of existing practice is something many people have accused Apple of doing, too.
I could be wrong, but it seems that while, yes, Apple patents the heck out of their products, they don't go around suing every company that comes along with a similar device. Apple will sue a company that makes a knock-off of their hardware. In the past they've sued over copies of the iMac and iPods. I'm sure they've had some software lawsuits in there, but I can't think of any (I believe the Pystar lawsuit is based on copyright, not patents). Also, they will viciously go after anyone who even slightly infringes on their trademarks (but that's a different issue, too).
So it seems to me that while Apple has tons of patents, they are mostly defensive patents to discourage other, overly broad patents from being used as grounds for lawsuits against Apple.
- Audio codecs
- Video codecs
- Low-power embedded computing platforms (DSP, FPGA etc. etc.)
- Wired networking
- Wireless networking
These all existed well before 2001. As I said, it just requires competent engineering to take these ingredients and deliver a network audio/video player. There's no way anyone should be given patents for doing it.1. is that they didn't put the kibosh on their peeps going to another electronics/computer company a la IBM right away. if there was a legit and enforceable contract to avoid such employment and they didn't do it at the time, do they have a right to sue on that issue now.
2. the patents. I don't know patent procedure but it appears that all the patents were granted after the offending items were released for sale. so this begs the question -- was Apple granted patents for their variation on the theme before releasing them, were these patents in the system such that Apple should not have been granted them (making the true offensive the Patent office for telling Apple they had a good ahead when they should not because of potential conflicts with a prior and not yet refused app by another company). and if these others guys asked first, would Apple have a way to know this before proceeding. because how can they be blamed if they didn't know someone was also doing the same thing, they were told they were in the clear, or they asked first.
Dude touch screens have been around WAY before Apple could even get a hold of their company again. You might wanna put down your Macbook, turn off your Apple TV, and pause your iPod so that you could actually get a clue as to what's been going on! I guess all of those touch screen phones that have been around since at least 2005 were copies....
Nice troll. The important innovation in the iPhone is a multitouch interface, not a touch screen. In fact I doubt if any of the imitators have anything more than a touch screen that is a poor implementation of mouse style interface. It is significant that Apple has a new API architecture for multitouch that goes beyond the mouse, window, menu interface analogous to the way the Mac style interface replaced the command line interface that dominated UI before.
Apple is a big company with a long history but it really has been innovative and trying to obscure that fact by pretending that they are all the same is disingenuous at best.