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Music Media

Audiohighway awarded patent on digital audio players 296

Posted by Hemos from the i'm-gonna-scream dept.
Jelloman wrote to us to say that Audohighway, Cupertine-based company, has said that they have been awarded the patent for "any type of digital audio player used to store and play back downloaded content regardless of the electronic format in which the content is saved." They applied for the patent in 1995, and are saying that with all the players built, they believe they eligible for "compensation agreement". Excuse me while I go smash my head against a wall in frustration.
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Audiohighway awarded patent on digital audio players More

Audiohighway awarded patent on digital audio players

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  • Re:Another Sad Day for the Patent Office (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hey! Lay off buddy! I invented the wheel, and if you say you did one more time, my lawyers will call in an airstrike!

    William G. Gates III

  • Patent For Electron Mobilizer (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Cool, I'm going off right now and put in a patent for my Electron Mobilizer. Basically, this uses an Electomotive Force to push electrons through various types of conductors and semiconductors, subject to Ohm's Law. I think I'll also charge royalties for any other devices made that mobilize electrons, regardless of usage or format of the device.

    Hmmm, computers, audio electronics, the wiring in your house, your Uncle Freddy's pacemaker, these are all infringing on my patent's protection. Pay up, all you users of any sort of electronics.

    Next up I'll patent a device that uses Maxwell's Equations, so all you optics and wireless people will need to pay up too. I better make my move now, it's only a matter of time before I'll be taken ov^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H friendly acquired by bill gates. Oh wait, he's probably already got a patent in for this stuff anyway...

  • Re:AAAarrgh (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay, now screw that GUS card onto the chassis of your car, and travel back in time until before 1995.

    Make sure you have witnesses.

  • Patent #5,914,941 --More information (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Abstract of Patent: (see at: Patent Search [164.195.100.11])

    A digital replacement for an analog audio tape recorder can record audio programming digitally in a faster than real time format and can play back audio programming, where such programming has been digitized and stored in data files using a variety of compression/decompression algorithms. Audio programming is stored digitally on a non-volatile medium, such as a hard drive, or in a flash EPROM, or other solid state non-volatile memory. The device includes a hard drive, a modem for connection to a data base via an on-line service, a keyboard, a display, and an audio system. The device uniquely combines the remote data access capability resident in a personal computer with a set of tailored, streamlined control functions to simplify, automate, and render seamless the process of selecting audio program material; ordering the program material from a service; receiving acknowledgment of the order and receiving the program material via automatic download for storage in a hard drive; playback of the program material when and where the user desires, with fully streamlined control functions; and control of the user interface functionality on the keyboard through a setup mode of operation.

    ----

    seems rather broad, wouldn't a laptop with a MOD Player fall under this, even though it's not a specialty device. Unfortunatly this seems to exactly describe most new MP3 players (Empress, etc.) I believe just having a patent doesn't entitle you to royalties (INAL) Legal or not, it really sucks that something like this is patentable. There is also a longer press release at: http://www.audiohighway.com /news/press/index_press.html [audiohighway.com]

    Brandon

  • I've got Radio Free Ethernet on this Sun, and the date on the manpage is March 17 1992, but I've read the patent [ibm.com] and it dosen't look like Radio Free Ethernet on a Sun counts as prior art.
  • I was playing SID files downloaded from Q-Link (now AOL) on my Commodore 64 back in 1986. There was also a hack for the C64 which let you rip about 5 seconds of poor quality PCM into memory. I remember downloading the program and different sample sound files from a local BBS, circa 1988 or 1989.

    Sorry, but unless the patent covers some specific method of digital-based playback, I think it's invalid due to prior art.

  • The abstract describes a personal computer with audio recording/playback capability and the ability to link to an online service. It need not be specialized; it doesn't even have to be portable, according to the abstract.

    Prior art: IBM PC with OS/2 Warp 3.

    The level of disgust I am filled with after seeing this patent actually granted leads me to the conclusion that *all* "intellectual property" should be done away with. It has become obvious that government cannot possibly police this; it has become little more than a lottery.

    --

  • In his "Claims," he does, in fact, state that the device is portable. Nevertheless, the "idea" (and that's all it is) is derivative, obvious, and broad.

    These kind of patents defeat the purpose of having intellectual property; instead of encouraging innovation, they leech off of others' efforts, and discourage new products.

    --

  • Re:There's lots of prior art (Score:3)

    by Acy James Stapp ( 1005 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @10:32AM (#1802230)
    > I think I'll patent thinking.

    Why? The market is so small. Better to patent stupidity.

  • This thing sounds almost like a laptop with a music player app that is run on bootup. Quoting from the abstract:

    "The device includes a hard drive, a modem for connection to a data base via an on-line service, a keyboard, a display, and an audio system."

    Well, does that mean that a device that doesn't include all of these things would not be subject to the patent?

    Does this mean that a laptop with WinAmp is covered by the patent?

    Here is the part they say is unique:

    "The device uniquely combines the remote data access capability resident in a personal computer with a set of tailored, streamlined control functions to simplify, automate, and render seamless the process of selecting audio program material; ordering the program material from a service; receiving acknowledgment of the order and receiving the program material via automatic download for storage in a hard drive; playback of the program material when and where the user desires, with fully streamlined control functions; and control of the user interface functionality on the keyboard through a setup mode of operation."

    Don't they at least have to have a prototype? Not that it would be too difficult. Just get the old Thinkpad out and rig it up with a pretty UI.

    On the other hand, I don't think any of the current digital MP3 players would be subject to this patent. It is fairly specific about what it does and how the thing will operate. I don't know of any that operate specifically like this. As long as players continue to get their data from a PC, they wouldn't infringe on this patent.

  • They didn't even say portable. In that case, try Apple ][ in the late '70s

    There are earlier examples than that, but I don't know for a fact that music was ever downloaded and played on those.

    I think I'll patent thinking.

  • I remember those things well. My favorite trick was the two bit (in both senses of the term :-) digital audio output. IIRC the speaker was driven at ultrasonic frequencies and the duty cycle was varied to more or less position the speaker cone (since it couldn't actually produce the ultrasonic, the cone went to the average position instead). It sounded awful, but then, some people feel the same way about MP3.

  • Thanks for the patent number!

    Now that I read it, none of the current players fall under the patent at all. Just in claim 1, they are eliminated because none of them can initiate a download form said keypad, that happens on the other side. From there, they continue adding features that simply don't exist on any current player.

    IMHO, most of those extra features are not desireable anyway.

  • Re:There's lots of prior art (Score:3)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @11:38AM (#1802235) Homepage Journal

    Why? The market is so small. Better to patent stupidity.

    That's very true, but USPTO might catch that one. I figured I'd patent something nobody there had ever encountered before.

  • The Mac Portable, released in 1990, came with a built-in modem and a TCP/IP stack that could download sound-clips in a variety of file-formats from the internet and play them in 8-bit mono. It ran off of batteries, and you could take it with you wherever you went (if you wanted to build strong muscle tone).

    The Powerbook 170, released in 1992, could replay audio files downloaded from the internet in 16-bit stereo (CD-quality), ran for two hours off of a battery, and could fit in a small satchel or briefcase.

    Doncha just loooove prior art?
  • Preffered, but not only. MacTCP (the precursor to Open Transport) ran spiffily under 6.0.x, and you could dial into the 'net with MacSLIP. MacTCP was a "control panel" (similar in concept to a configuarable daemon with a GUI, for you Linux fans) to the system software, and not built into the core operating system, tho.

    SoupIsGood Food

  • Re:URL (Score:1)

    by X ( 1235 )
    One could certainly argue that Sony MD players meet the requirements of said patent, and they easily predate 1995.

  • Re:URL (Score:1)

    by X ( 1235 )
    Weird, I noticed the Sony MD player is actually listed as prior art, and he claims that it doesn't use compression. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't MD players compress their data? He's right about it being real-time based, but it doesn't take a genius to make an MD cutter... certainly CD cutters can do the job in non-realtime fashions.
  • I distinctly remember transfering the Star Spangled Banner from one HP48G calculator to another through the IP ports in high school. That's way before their application.

    BTW, they haven't given a number, so we don't really know if the patent office was dumb enough to reward this one. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  • Yes, it sounds like this patent will not hold up in court. But look at the waste of time and resources it will take to prove that. Waiting for a court challenge is not sufficient. We need some way to punish companies like this for filing frivolous patents.

    How about this? For each patent that later overturned, they should be made to pay a penalty into a fund that provides for more detailed examination of patent filings. The size of this penalty should be proportional to the profits that the company expected to get from the frivolous patent.

    If a company files more than x patents within y years that are overturned in court, it will be considered a habitual abuser of the patent process. For the first habitual abuse offense, the company should be prevented from ever filing a patent for things developed within the next six months. Repeated habitual abuse should result in increasing the length of the patent moratorium.

    Let's put the cost of these frivolous abuses back onto the shoulders of the abusers!

  • Here's a lame list of links pointing to prior patents related to "digital audio players":

    These are but just a few that I could find in IBM's patent database. Just look for "digital audio player", you'll be surprised.

  • The patent hasn't been granted from what I can gather from the articles lack of information.
  • Any analog recording undergoes lossy compression as well. Cutting an LP for instance involves making scratches in wax (approximately) and the scratching device can only respond to a certain range of frequencies.

  • I had bothered to check their website and at the time they didn't display it.

  • There's lots of prior art (Score:5)

    by substrate ( 2628 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @09:56AM (#1802246)
    It's a pretty sketchy article, and the patent so far hasn't even been granted from what I'm reading. The patent shouldn't be granted if its as vague as the article indicates. Prior to 1995 it was entirely possible to download music files and play them back on a portable device. Namely a laptop computer. Laptop type computing devices have been around for a while. I distinctly remember a MOD player or something on a friends clunky 8086 laptop in 1987 or 1988.

    I don't know whether its that patents are so wrong or its that some people are so stupid, lazy and greedy. Though I suppose if those personality traits weren't so prevalent then patents wouldn't be needed.
  • If you read the actual text of the patent, the full 18 claims cover a suprisingly large area, including the concept of downloading content to the player via direct connection, modem, LAN, or wireless connection, the methods of interfacing to it to do that, or play back, the use of a computer to manage it, the use of such a device for e-commerce application (pay-per-listen), and a way of transmitting data to the unit via cable TV signals.

    They pretty much cover the whole gamut. This is a bogus patent though, because the prior art of MD players covers those concepts, since early this decade there were MD players that had digital inputs. The stuff about PC's being prior art in this case doesnt' seem to hold up, since this is fairly specific about it being a portable device for this purpose specifically.

    I've read the average cost to get a bogus patent struck down is about a million and a half dollars. This company probably knows it too, and will keep their licenses inexpensive enough that it won't be worth the money for a company to sue about it. $1 per player or some such B.S, or $1 million for a corporate license. Do that, and no one is going to challange the patent. Its not worth it. They probably know that.

    Its no different than companies like Walker Digital snapping up patents on business concepts that are completely obvious in order to extort patent license fees when anyone else comes up with an idea (most of which aren't rocket science, and are pretty common sense).

    If you can't get rich because of any skills, get rich on an Internet IPO. Not clever enough to do that, get rich practicing extortion by patenting obvious products and business practices and keep the licenses cheap enough that no one will waste the $$$ to fight them. Ah America. Makes you proud, huh?
  • Excuse me, but DAT and MiniDisc count as something falling under that patent- and BOTH are from before the patent application. Simply put, the Patent system in the US needs to be shot and put out of OUR misery.
  • Portable digital music players are not novel, the idea has been around for a long time. The reason they are possible now is the introduction of cheap, small, and efficient integrated circuits in the market place. These players are guilty of taking advantage of the cheap prices and assembling the parts. That's the whole purpose of having commodoty IC's: reuse in different applications. I would think this guy who applied and awarded this patent is guilty of a criminal offense of extortion. Lock him up for stupidity too. Why are people not vigilant anymore these days?
  • I'd like to challenge your patent on ass-whuppin. Say, nice tie... *pow!!!@#$%* [kmfms.com]
  • Interestingly enough, there's a lot of AC posts with the same one-line-type of diatribe. I wonder if it's someone from Audiohighway. Regardless of this fact, there are quite a few portable DAT players. Just because something isn't specifically patented doesn't mean it isn't prior art. The whole point to a patent is that it is something new that the inventor is entitled to have their rights protected; I can't patent, say, a Von Neumann machine simply because there aren't (as far as I know) any patents on Von Neumann machines.

    However, there have been plenty of digital recording devices which have also had portability for quite some time. Hell, the C64 had a (very crude) 4-bit DAC, and it had plenty of modems, and it was possible to download Castle Wolfenstein which used the 4-bit DAC to play digital audio, and there was a portable version of the C64...

    Also, DATs have been around since when, 1987 or so? And there's plenty of portable DAT players out there. Minidisc also predates 1995 by quite a bit.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Ah, okay, so it does specifically cover devices such as the Rio, and not just any digital playback device. However: MOD players on laptops in 1992 had that functionality. (I know that in '92 notebook soundcards were nonexistant, but I built one of those LPT DAC things and used my mom's notebook as a portable Internet digital music player at that time.)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • It's AWHY and they got 8% out of that news today. But they've done better.

    I had to laugh at that patent, but I've never filed one. Maybe they are supposed to sound completely idiotic. I wonder who has the patent on the kitchen sink?

    Their patent specifically said the device contains a hard drive. Well, forget anything that's
    out there right now.

    Dorks!

    -kabloie
  • Is it even possible to record in faster than real time?

    Yes. Just use any old stereo with two cassette decks and high speed dubbing. Of course, this has no bearing on the patent issue... I think. Well, IANAL.
  • Unfortunately there's prior art.

    Otherwise, that would be great -- phrase the description as something like "a method for extorting money from other companies by exploiting the USPTO's incompetence to acquire a patent for some overly-broad technique that is is common use." You can't do it, though, since other people have thought of it first (not the frivolous-patent patent, just frivolous patents).

    Question: if you could do it, would you charge guys like this a cut of their licensing fees as your licensing fee, or would you just refuse to license your technology at all?

    David Gould

  • >Hmm.. Actually, claim 1 says compressed. Prior art for this, pre 1995?

    Surely any digital recording can be considered a form of lossy compression, as only a finite number of samples is taken.

    IANAL, but it doesn't appear as though the patent would affect much: there seems to be a very specific set of requirements, all of which have to exist at once in the same apparatus. For example, according to claim 15, anything without a wireless modem wouldn't be covered. Perhaps their lawyers made their money by doing a lengthy investigation to find a particular combination of existing ideas that nobody happend to have used before.

    I think I'll go and patent something very similar, but with the additional claim that it should "be orange with blue spots, and the word 'wibble' written in yellow on the front". Or does anyone know of any prior art for that?

  • Gee, since I can pull down ISO images of audio CD's, write them and playthem on my discman, I guess sony owes them a buttload of money.
  • Or does the description of the device in the patents sound more like a computer then something like the Rio. I mean, it states that it would have a keyword, modem, hard-drive etc. These people are going to get creamed on prior art.
  • Nothing like a good controversy to create publicity. I had most definately never heard of these people, and now I've seen their web site. Any lawyer with even 1/4 of a brain would realize that a patent will not be issued for this application, and even if issued will not stand up in court. But, before those decrees are handed down, a nice press release has made a great publicity splash.
  • I think most people are missing the major point here- they're trying to patent a time travel machine!

    From the patent-
    "A digital replacement for an analog audio tape recorder can record audio programming digitally in a faster than real time format..."

    So, if you're recording a song faster than it's being played, before the song is finished you'll be able to play it back and hear how it ends!

    But think of the possibilites! You could record yourself reading off stock market prices and play them back before you're done, and then use that to become the world's greatest day trader!

    We'd need to overhaul most languages to add a new tense- the future playback - in order to talk about things that are happening in the future but we're listening to now.

    It's making my head swim. I'd better go lie down.
  • Oh come on! The essence of the 'non-obvious' requirement is to prevent things like this.

    I am absolutely sure that any competent engineer would have whipped up substantially the design of the Rio, etc. if you suggested that Flash memory, harddrives, or something similar were about to reach a price point that made it feasible.

    What is not obvious about extending the idea of a portable listening device with electro-magnetic memory (Sony (cassette) Walkman) to a portable listening device with optical memory (cd player) to a portable listening device with electro-magnetic-optical memory (Sony Minidisc) to a portable listening device with Flash/Harddrive/SuperRam...?

    Just assembling the technology de jour in an obvious way doesn't make a valid patent.

    IMHO, It won't hold up long...

    sdw
  • Cyberfox writes:

    > In closing, I'll repeat: if you honestly think
    > you know of a specialized audio playback
    > device integrating a hard drive or solid
    > state memory with a dedicated

    You mean to tell me that the specialization is
    what qualifies the patent?

    Specialization in this case means "removing other
    functionalities of the device," since a laptop can
    do what a Rio does and also other things.


    Please tell me that doesn't count as grounds for patent approval.

  • Just think -- with a vaguely worded enough patent on my internet gaming software, I could force the makers of chess sets everywhere to pay me!!

    How does the patent office decide who to give patents to, seriously? This patent seems to be applicable to a gramophone. It's digital, after all -- it has 2 states, "on" and "off".

    The idea that one could patent something this broad indicates that there is a paradigmatic problem with the *concept* of a patent. It shouldn't even make sense (wrt the law) to own a patent on something this broad... this is a mistake it should not be possible to make.

    However, this patent is just in the U.S. ... I think I'm going to move to China -- their government is starting to seem less totalitarian than ours.
  • Olde Timer says:

    A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

    I remember when you could find programs for the original Macintoshes that could play tunes on the variable speed floppy drive.

    Those were the days, my friend...
  • This should have been invalidated by prior art in the 1960's when paper tape and punched card rhythm machines were all the rage.
  • Anyone got an old sampling keyboard with a floppy drive?

    Or a Newton MP100 with, say, an .aiff or .au player?
  • Either it does cover all portable PCs and PDAs (with sufficient audio hardware), in which case it's just absurd that it could be a valid patent, or it doesn't, then anyone's free to sell a mp3 player disguised as a PDA by adding a calendar, a notebook etc. (not a big deal). I wouldn't worry about this too much, in 1-2 years we will have plenty of combined PDAs/audio players/cellular phones/wireless internet terminals at our disposal. :-/
  • wasnt the audio home recording act passed into law by 1995. it would seem hard to defend a patented idea that could easily have be forseen by this law
    --
  • this [theonion.com] kinda fits nicely
    --

  • ... Is it even possible to record in faster than real time?



    Um, it is here. Try something like cp foo.mp3 bar.mp3. Unless your hardware is ancient, it shouldn't take as long as playing foo.mp3.

  • I think the real problem is that the patent office cannot distinguish between something that is fundamentally and conceptually new... and something that is just the natural progression of the technology.
    Downloading music and playing it on a player is a direct result of increased bandwidth. With enough bandwidth, it's a complete no brainer. While some of the methods people invent to get that bandwidth might be patentable, the obvious tag-along effects should not.
    Unless that quote from the company was incorrect, I think we have enough of the story to accurately judge this to be a mistake on the patent office's part.
    He's planning on collecting a royalty from every company building digital audio players.. whether they've heard of his company or not.
  • It doesn't have to fly in court. They simply send a letter requesting royalties.. *threatening* to take them to court if they are not paid. They make these royalties low enough, that the companies doing business find it more cost effective to pay the $1M rather than $10M for court costs. Now, suppose a device maker refuses to pay... they simply send them a notice licensing them to make their product free of royalties... hence preserving their ability to make justified threats against other companies.. (If the patent was dragged into court and struck down, they couldn't threaten anymore.. because it'd be frivolous harassment..)
    As long as they avoid a judgement.. they've got a nice little gold mine.. many companies will just pay the money.... because they won't be asking for much.

  • see ompages.com [ompages.com] to break a patent
    on the obvious idea of webmail that handles encryption keys that ziplip.com [ziplip.com] seeks to monopolize.

    Free thought, free speech, anonymity, security, freedom!!!

  • The best response to this kind of "intellectual property" nonsense is to boycott Audiohighway. Tell everyone you know what's going on and tell THEM to boycott audiohighway. Since they are going to force people to pay more for players, the only effective response is to take the money back from them by not buying their other products.

    Given the broad contact range of the internet, just putting "boycott audiohighway" in your sig will reach tens of thousands of people. Remember, Jesse Jackson brought PepsiCo to its knees just by making speeches.

    mp
  • I'm not familiar with audiohighway, but their press release says that they expect their new patent to help their present business -- they do not make it sound like they are expecting to rely on "compensation agreements" for their income. I assume that they market MP3-type products. So, don't buy them.

    mp
  • I just filled in AudioHighway's on-line survey and told them if they didn't back off from their stupid patent that I'd never use their site again - I strongly recommend that you all do the same...

    Kris.

    Win a Rio [cjb.net] (or join the SETI Club via same link)
  • Chris is right on the button about this - there were a boatload of professional synthesisers with inbuilt MIDI sequencers and sample download available before 1995. If we want to get even pickier, some of these devices were rack-mounted without keyboards but with a front panel - so all they could do was play downloaded music content.

    Case in point: the Kurzweil K2000 rack-mounted sampling synthesiser. It had an internal hard disk, external MIDI and SCSI interfaces, a keypad, an LCD display, analog sound I/O, S/PDIF digital I/O, and it was introduced in 1991, way before AudioHighway's patent application. It could download sample data directly from the MIDI or SCSI interfaces, or you could share the hard disk with an external machine (the K2000's SCSI controller could live on a target ID other than 7, and was happy with multiple SCSI initiators on the bus). The only thing I don't know for sure is whether it had an inbuilt MIDI sequencer, or whether it played back *compressed* digital audio. If it didn't then I'm sure that one of the contemporary models from E-Mu, Akai, Roland or a whole raft of other manufacturers would have. We're getting pretty close to shooting down claims 1, 4, 8, 9... (I'm getting bored of reading gross legalese, so above 9 I stopped reading).

    As for portability - well, it was a self-contained unit which could be easily carried under one arm. I think that the "portable" aspect is one of the dodgiest - compared to a PDP 11/45, my home PC is eminently portable. (I've moved both!).
  • I am hereby announcing my intent to file a patent covering any applications of ass-whuppin' to the US Patent Office for egregious stupidity. Contact me for a license to apply any such ass-whuppin'.

    bowms
  • Although I agree that this is a bogus patent (it should have never been awarded -- much too general), you didn't read the article. They applied for the patent in 1995 before digital players were in production. You can't patent the CD player now, since it's easy for anyone to show prior art.

    /peter
  • so they patented it before they had a player? I think i'm going to patent a Teleportation Device, Regardless of Form or Compression Type!



  • Back in 1989 in college my final project in electronic engineering was a digital playback portable device designed to playback audio from a downloadable source....

    I would gladly show up in any court with my project (Still have it... I think) and the schools' copy of the thesis/paperwork..
    Hmmm, I think I should cross-sue these turds for infringement? espically when I made the design/idea PUBLIC DOMAIN!

    1989..... 1995.... I beat them by a good 6 years!
    They must have drooling morons working there for me to beat them to their own game!

    Based on a 68000 processor I was able to record about 15 seconds with $300.00 worth of ram (about 2 meg) in raw format and crappy quality. ran off of a pack of D batteries for quite a while. (there's only so many times you can listen to a few audio clips... and I couldnt afford to buy more ram)

    Nope :-) that company can bite me hard and long... their patent don't apply to me because I have proof of pre-existing technology :-PPP

    Maybe I should re-design it (anyone good at CF interfaces? and mp3 decoding?) and publish the whole shebang free on the net! hehehehehehe

  • Usually I am dissapointed when a technically skilled person goes into the legal profession (US engineer/lawyer ratio is 1:10, japan's is 10:1) but I make an exection for anybody going into patent law.

    The problem isn't that the patent office ppl are stupid, it's just that they usually don't have the necessary background to understand these new patents, and the few patent office ppl who do are overloaded with way too many applications.

    If you really want to help prevent the issuance of overobvious patents, go back to school to learn about patent law and get a job at the patent office.
  • Heh, Even Older Timer :-).



    I remember when we would "download" mag tape software from the "internet" (IBMs distribution center) and play music on the printers of 1401s, 1800s and s/360s. New? Hardly.


    This patent is just representative of where things are in the good ole USofA. Greedoberallus.

  • After reading the patent (well scanning really) it seems to me the only thing that would fall under this patent is a notebook w/ a sound card, or a palmtop w/ a sound card. Things like the rio have neither a hard drive or a keyboard. And if it really does cover all types of portable digital audio players then a sony minidisc player would definately qualify as prior art. It's portable, it's digital, and it's compressed.
  • unfortunately, it is logically impossible to boycott a company that does not have any actual real products. Since you could or would not buy these products in the first place, refraining from buying them does not actually constitute something that can be described by a verb such as "boycott".

    Too bad.

    -mcc-baka
    http://home.earthlink.net/~mcclure111/cyberleary .html
    INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT

  • Re:URL (Score:4)

    by Sultin ( 14768 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @12:52PM (#1802286) Homepage
    is it just me or is everyone missing the requirements stated in the patent?

    "The device includes a hard drive, a modem for connection to a data base via an on-line service, a keyboard, a display, and an audio system."

    none of the new digital audio devices like the rio or the nomad fit this description; none of them have hard drives, modems, or keyboards (unless this term refers to any input device with buttons). the newly released or soon to be released devices based around mp3s store things in solid state memory of one kind or another and although they do comunicate with your computer they have no modem (modulator/demodulator), they use some type of digital comunication (USB, serial, etc.). these devices themselves do not have anything to do with the downloading of the files.

    also the patent states that the device will be capable of "ordering the program material from a service; receiving acknowledgment of the order and receiving the program material via automatic download for storage in a hard drive". does the rio do that?

    I wish more people would take the time to do their homework before stirring up trouble for this company. the patent is vague but not nearly as vague as everyone seems to think it is, and that is necisary considering that the device does not yet exist.

    I know that the abstract section of the patent has been posted to /. and that alone was enough for me to rule out the portable mp3 players on the market or in development (at least those I've heard of), yet I was still curious enough to scan the full text of the patent before speaking my mind. I suggest everyone else that reads about this patent and is angry about it do the same.

    and just to be fair...

    Whoever the idiot was that wrote that press release should go back to school or at least find someone to show him the diference between a good informative press release and one that make his company look like a lying sack of $**t. (translation: that press release said they had patented things like laptops or the rio or nomad.... it sould have said that it patents things simmilar but quite a bit more advanced.)

    my ramblings are deteriating now so I'll stop.

    P.S.
    please excuse the spelling, I am a product of the US public school system.

    -----
    "No one expects the spanish inquisition"
    -- Monty Python

  • You used an oscilloscope? I'm jealeous. I would just unscrewed the motor from its mounting so that it could rotate. Then I just slowly turned the motor, while continuously accessing the drive, until the error light didn't seem to flash much. Then I screwed it back down. Drive fixed. ;-)

    Oh, and I had to walk five miles in the snow, uphill both ways, without shoes.

  • This is a simple one to prove prior art on. Any laptop equiped with an audio interface consitutes a portable device for playing downloaded content. Personally I didn't have mine til 97 or so, but it wont be hard to find some commercial example of a machine with a built in audio interface. Maybe Powerbooks or something.

    Either way this patent is so hideously vague I cant imagine that any court could let it hold up.

    -Rich
  • This was a program that played two-part music on an Apple II -- pretty impressive, considering that the only sound system built into that machine was a speaker that went "click" every time the CPU addressed a certain memory location.

    #include

    This program was available in 1985, if not earlier.

  • grumble ... that #include line came out right when I previewed it, really it did ... let me try again without the brackets...

    #include "rant_about_how_kids_today_have_it_easy.h"

  • Wouldn't Minidisc also server as prior art? I believe they encode (compress) music digitally. Minidiscs have been around long before 1995; I definitely got my first Minidisc player in 12/1995.
    ----------
  • Have a look over the body of the text at the USPTO Database [uspto.gov].
  • Seriously? Maybe I just wasn't paying attention at the time, but I think AppleTalk was still the preferred networking flavor.

    -Imperator
  • Actually, try Apple's Macintosh Portable, released around 91, though it may have been as much as 4 years earlier, because my memory is faded. It was a hideous machine, about 40 pounds for 40 MB HD and 4 MB RAM, and the screen was tiny. Went up on the shuttle a couple of times, replaced by the first batch of Powerbooks (the 100, 140, and 170).

    -Imperator
  • Don't be silly. This isn't a software patent at all.
  • Greetings,
    If you'd bothered to check their website like I did, you'd find that they have been granted the patent, and it is patent number 5914941.

    Cyberfox!
  • Greetings,

    I did not see a particular section that covered 'or software implementing this process', so the answer is no, a general purpose portable computer implementing the same functionality would not be covered under the patent.

    The Rio I have in front of me has:
    A keypad (same as in the patent).
    A interface (similar to the modem in the patent) to my computer.
    A LCD display (similar to what is described in the patent).

    The portions that the current crop of portable digital audio players don't match are more in LACK than in inclusion. These include recording (although that's changing), ordering content directly, and the inclusion of a more-than-PC communication system. Subsetting a patented device is not immunity from the patent. It just means you'll probably have to fight in court.

    Cyberfox!
  • Greetings,

    Hello?!? Knock, Knock?

    Did you read this at all? This isn't a software patent!

    Why in the world you would post, when you have no basic comprehension at all, is beyond me. Think, think, think before you post.

    Cyberfox!
  • Greetings,

    Uhhh... If you read the actual text of the patent, you'd see where they reference MiniDisc, and explain why their part is different.

    This isn't a bogus patent. They ARE specialized, they ARE different, and they DID come up with something new. Now the only question is whether it falls into the Comptons argument: Patent protection would cause more harm to a new industry than the lack of patent protection will cause to the company in question. At least that's my guess.

    Cyberfox!
  • Greetings,

    Or in better form, and straight from the horses mouth, you can get it from the USPTO.

    Of particular interest is the description, as well, in which a lot of the points you want to raise are addressed.

    Cyberfox!
  • Greetings,

    What the... That link didn't work at all. ARGH. Evidently Slashdot can't handle really long URL's, or URL's in quotes.

    The URL is:

    http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/sr chnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5914941'.WKU.&OS=PN/591 4941&RS=PN/5914941

    But for some reason I can't include it in an "a href=" tag.

    Cyberfox!
  • Greetings,

    It's plausible (to extend your question to a reasonable level) that a more general purpose device (PDA + MP3 player) could be considered a different enough device that it would not be subject to the claims. If a PDA shipped with an MP3 player and software to connect and get MP3's from the net or your computer, then it might have to be fought in the courts.

    If it were an aftermarket application, then the device wasn't 'designed' to do this, and therefore most likely wouldn't qualify.

    To answer your original question, however, I believe it could be reasonable argued that the primary purpose of the unit was the specialized playback of digitized audio obtained over the Internet or from your home computer.

    Thus it would be subject to the patent licensing claims. This is why a general purpose PDA which had an aftermarket MP3 player would not fall under those claims. It's primary purpose is not digital audio playback, although it's capable of it coincidentally.

    This would all very likely get fought out in the courts, though.

    The primary point I was making is that given the specific nature of the product, I believe there is no prior art, despite people saying extremely ignorant things about their Macintoshes, Commodore 64s, and laptops being prior art.

    Cyberfox!

  • A reality check... (Score:4)

    by Cyberfox ( 17743 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @11:26AM (#1802306) Homepage
    Greetings,

    I've read their patent (yes it was granted, come on people do your research), I've read their press release, and I will preface this with IANAL, as always.

    This patent (5914941) seems reasonable.

    If you honestly think you know of prior art for a specialized audio playback device integrating a hard drive or solid state memory with a dedicated interface to be able to obtain music from the Internet or a personal computer that dates before 1995, I'd love to hear about it.

    No, your Powerbook with a music player doesn't count. It's not a specialized audio playback device. No, your Minidisc doesn't count, it doesn't have the interface, and it doesn't have a hard drive or solid state memory.

    OBVIOUSLY your Amiga with a network card, and playing MOD files doesn't count, it's not specialized *AND* it's not portable.

    Listen up. These people came up with something original in 1995. It's obvious to us now, but it wasn't obvious that all these pieces could work together back then. They thought of it, they produced a working model (yes, they did, check out their site), and they patented it.

    I don't like it, and I think there is POTENTIAL for it to be partially broken based on non-specific algorithms. However, MPEG1 Layers 1, 2, *AND* 3 are all mentioned in their patent, and they even say that Layer 3 is preferrable.

    It's also worth looking at their current professional associations. Creative Labs *AND* Diamond both have notable relationships with these people, which means that both of them probably are aware of this, and are probably willing to work with them.

    I agree that many patents suck, and I hope to heck that this goes the way of the Comptons patent.

    Cut audiohighway some slack, though. They DID innovate, they AREN'T patenting the action of breathing, or the letter 'e' or the wheel or anything obvious. It's obvious to you and I *NOW*, but it in 1995 the idea that there would be a market for a dedicated device like what we now see as the Rio was NOVEL. When the Rio was RELEASED even, the majority of people weren't sure if there was a market for it. We now know better, but look how long it took?

    These people guessed right, they produced hardware, they described it, and they applied for a patent.

    I keep seeing people talking about the 'natural progression of technology'. If you see something that others DON'T see, whether it's the natural progression of technology or not, make it, patent it, and build a damn business around it. The biggest wins are almost ALWAYS people who predicted the growth right, and got there first. I sure as hell don't begrudge them THAT.

    In closing, I'll repeat: if you honestly think you know of a specialized audio playback device integrating a hard drive or solid state memory with a dedicated interface to be able to obtain music from either the Internet or a personal computer that dates before 1995, please post it!

    I don't think it exists, and if you let go the knee-jerk reaction (same as I had!), I'll bet you think it doesn't either.

    Cyberfox!

    p.s. Few people will be happier than I if I'm shown wrong, and/or the patent is overturned on any basis. I just don't believe it will.
  • They innovated how? Are they marketing a digital audio download and playback device? Did they actually create a device? That is still unclear to me, but it doesn't seem to be the case...

    I agree with part of what you said. If you see something that others don't, certainly build a business around it. Why the hell do you think you have to have a patent, though? If your idea is any good, and if it serves a real need, then why do you need the artificial monopoly of a patent?

    After all, business designs are arguably what makes a company successful or not. Look at GE, Coke, IBM, Microsoft. Has Microsoft patented the concept of an OS? Has IBM patented e-business? No! These companies have been successful because they understand a need (which you said, cyberfox), and then designed their businesses around it. Not because they said, hey, US Government, we want you to grant us a monopoly on a thing, so that we are the only ones who can use/supply it. This type of thing, by the way, is called a free market. It's supposedly what our economy is built on ... although the more and more frequent incursions upon it these days make one wonder.

  • Geez. Try 68K Macintosh, with digitized sounds (Score:3)

    by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @12:03PM (#1802318) Homepage
    I forget the name of the utility, but it let you assign different sounds to various system events. These sounds could be (often were) digitized clips from various movies, downloaded from bulletin board sites. And there were certainly portable 68K Macs. (The 68K establishes the time frame - I remember this stuff from late 80s/first couple years of the 90s)

    (Example events/sound-clips:
    Inserting a floppy: "Ooh, input!" (from Short Circuit)
    General error alert: "Human error." (HAL from 2001)
    and so forth. There were some pretty long sound clips available, kinda useless for system event sounds though.)


  • Yes, patents do have to be specific, and this one (sort of) is. The problem is that absolutely nobody on /. as far as I can tell knows how to read a patent.

    [Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer. This is not to be taken as legal advice.]

    The ONLY part of a patent with any legal significance, as I understand it, is the "claims" section. As broad as you think "digital audio player" is, this is NOT what has been patented, and does not have to be more specific.

    The patent itself is here:
    http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05914941 __

    Skip right down to the "Show all 18 claims" link, and click it.

    For a product to infringe the patent, it must be completely covered by at least one WHOLE claim. If it is similar to -part- of one claim, then it doesn't infringe. There are some pretty specific requirements within these claims that a potentially infringing product must satisfy.

    None of this is to suggest that the patent is any more legitimate, but read the -claims-, not the title or abstract before you get mad. :)
  • Is it just me, or does this press release seem like a cheap way to boost their stock prices? I seriously doubt they think their patent will hold up in court. Nobody on /. does, not even the PHBs that read /. It's more like "Hey everybody, we just won a patent that's going to make us rich. Buy our stock. Our ticker symbol is Nasdaq - AHWY"

  • Patent office is screwed (Score:3)

    by Josh Turpen ( 28240 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @10:13AM (#1802337) Homepage
    There have been a few officials at the USPO that have stated that the patent office no longer has the resources to investigate the patents that are applied for. Instead they just approve everything and let the lawyers fight it out afterwards. He who has the mightiest lawyer wins.

    The problem with that is it negates the whole point of patents in the first place: inovation. Now, instead of loan inventors creating inovative ideas, we have a bunch of big corporations with a new tool to help promote their own monopolies.



  • Suppose I invent a "Brain Fluid Pressure Relief System" consisting of a hammer, a tap (like those used to harvest sap from maple trees) and a temporary tattoo in the shape of a bullseye (to be applied to the forehead). The patent claim will read something like:
    I claim an apparatus for the relief of brain fluid pressure, comprising a hammer, a tap and a bullseye tattoo.
    The fact that the claim includes the word "hammer" doesn't mean I'm claiming a patent on the hammer. To infringe my patent, the infringer would have to create an apparatus that includes each and every one of the items you claim. Without the accompanying objects, therefore, a hammer is not covered by this claim.

    In general, it is not a bar to a patent that the invention in question includes some patented or unpatentable components, provided that it otherwise meets all the requirements of the patent laws.

    [P.S. You guys better not rip off my neat idea. FDA approval, here I come.]

  • Fear not. Patents that prove too much usually won't hold up in court. This patent probably won't be that useful to its creators because it's covering such a broad range. It will be challenged in court, and my guess (I am currently working in a patent law firm as a summer associate) is that it won't fly.
  • Apparently, greed outweighed common sense here. How does this company expect this patent to be approved (if it is still pending, as it appears to be)??? I would have thought companies would have learned by now that vague, incredibly broad patents have this strange habit of going "POOF!" whenever they're challenged? If I wasn't already sure the world was full of idiots, I'd be smashing my head against table too...

  • their stock will be boosted initially and then crash like crazy when the lawsuits invalidate the patent. not good for long term holdings..a few days, maybe. not more than that.

  • URL (Score:5)

    by Sosarian ( 39969 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @10:15AM (#1802368) Homepage
    Here is the URL to the actual patent. It would have been nice if this accompanied the original posting.

    US5914941: Portable information storage/playback apparatus having a data interface [ibm.com]

  • MD (Score:2)

    by Inhume ( 45152 )
    Yes, the MD format operates using ATRAC, a very advanced (relative to mp3 or anything else) compression scheme. From the MiniDisc Community Homepages:


    ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding) divides the 16 bit 44.1 KHz digital signal into 52 sub-bands in the frequency domain (after a Fast Fourier Transform). The sub-bands in the low frequencies are finer than the ones in the high frequency range. A psycho-acoustic transfer function that takes advantage of the masking effect and the absolute hearing threshold then removes enough information to reduce the data stream to 1/5th of the original size. Each channel receives that treatment separately (the Sony MZ-1 portable MD recorder features one ATRAC encoder/decoder chip per channel). PASC (Precision Adaptive Sub-band Coding) divides the digital signal into equally spaced sub-bands and removes less information (to only 1/4th of the original size). PASC is essentially the MPEG Layer 1 audio standard (can be decompressed with MPEG Layer 1 players after a trivial preprocessing step).


    Both are data compression algorithms, used to store the information content from a stream of 16-bit samples in fewer bits. The purpose of compression is to reduce the rate at which the disk has to deliver or record bits, and to reduce the total number of bits stored. There are many compression algorithms. The ones used for computer data (for example in archiving programs) are lossless; the result of decompression is identical to the input.


    PASC and ATRAC are both "lossy" algorithms. In order to get greater compression, they do not attempt to preserve every bit of the original data, but rather only the acoustically "important" bits. Considerable cleverness goes into finding the sounds masked by properties of the human auditory system, ones that you would not hear even if they were reproduced. By all accounts the two schemes do amazing well, considering they operate in real time.


    So basically, yes. MD definitely compresses, at roughly a 4.6:1 ratio (I assume... it squeezes 74 minutes of music into 140MB worth of media). I personally have a MD, and it rocks. If this company thinks they're going to beat Sony in court, they've got another thought coming. The MD standard has been around for almost a decade.
  • Patent number 5,914,94 1 at www.uspto.com [uspto.gov] describes the patent as announced.
    What's more, it appears to explicitly include laptops, desktop computers, etc.

    My faith in the US Patent office, already quite low, is now unrecoverable.

  • Well, claim 1 of the patent [164.195.100.11] 5,914,941 does say 'portable'.

    But I agree, there's lots of prior art for claim 1. Here's another solid one: the Psion 3a [wisc.edu] palmtop was released in 1993, and has everything claimed in claim 1. Including "a keypad for effecting control of said apparatus" (what will these people think of next!).

    Hmm.. Actually, claim 1 says compressed. Prior art for this, pre 1995?

    I know that US patent law differs from every other country's (it's AFAIK the only country to use date-of-invention rather than date-of-filing, which causes a lot of trouble), but I'd be disappointed if most of the claims 2-17 didn't fail on the grounds of obviousness, even if prior art didn't exist. (And, for instance, claim 16 is predated by the NICAM system in Europe - I don't know if digital interleaved audio is used on TV in the USA)

  • Re:There's lots of prior art (Score:3)

    by Zaxo ( 60646 ) on Wednesday July 14, 1999 @12:35PM (#1802391)
    Yep. If you go through the 18 claims, each is nothing but a description of what had been state of the art for years before the filing date.

    You can't go after the companies that do this stuff directly; patents are issued to individuals, not companies. When James M. Janky signed that application, he was formally signing an affidavit that he had exercised diligence in confirming that each claim is new and original to him.

    That's perjury I see in those claims.

    If a company's lawyers keep landing its engineers in jail, the company won't survive long.

    Will it happen? Naw, the lawyers get too much fun and profit in looting new industries.

    Zax

  • A late response, but...

    One could argue that the Atari STacy [computingmuseum.com] portable computer was built primarily for musicians, and therefore is covered by this patent. It had multiple MIDI ports (note that the music format is unimportant as specified in the patent), and had lots of specialized software packages to record music streams and send them back out again, faster than realtime if necessary for storage. A lot of musicians used 'em for their concerts.

    And yes, I've read the patent [ibm.com], and before you answer with "It doesn't cover all 18 claims," I'll say it myself: This doesn't cover all 18 claims. However, one of the requirements for a patent to be granted in the first place is that it is new art and not easily derived from existing technology.

    In this case, the STacy argument covers claims:

    1

    most of 2 (I'd argue all, if anyone ever paid for connect time to Compu$erve to download a MIDI file)

    3 (for the same reason)

    claim 4 is slightly confusing since, AFAICT, they're laying claim to the fact that the music was transported at all rather than how it was transported

    5 is trivially covered by any modern computer

    6 is simply an update of the technology (Commercial Off The Shelf -- COTS), and already covered by sweeping clause #4

    7 is again covered by 4, which beginng to appear to be just too general to be of any use

    8 covered.

    9 covered.

    10 is quite covered thank-you-very-much by any of the software available for the STacy that lets you control a song play-set for a concert or performance.

    11 mostly covered (again, each impingement by prior art weakens the validity of the patent).

    12 Duh, yes.

    13 See 12 (I know someone who used the joystick interface to control the music programming selections so that he didn't have to ride the keyboard)

    14 covered by any reliable exchange protocol (encryption is not necessary since the wording in the patent is "preferably includes an appropriate time dependent encryption/decryption keys")

    15 COTS.

    16 COTS (closed captioning decoding for TVs)

    17 yes.

    18 yes, with the caveat that I don't know of anyone who actually encrypted their MIDI streams.

    So, while it's not perfect, it's certainly a start on showing that the patent is easily derivable from existing technology, and is not new art, but rather a simple and intended as possible application implementable upon existing technology.

    I think this is another example that shows the Patent Office just doesn't have the expertise or manpower necessary to research technology related claims.

    Ray
    --
    Every truth has a context

  • The point people are trying to make is that the term "digital audio player" is much too vague, as it would definitely cover home computers (I was downloading and listening to MODs back in the early 90s -- well before the 1995 patent application date). In all likelyhood the article was too vague, and the actual patent deals with something similar to the Rio or other portable MP3 players (or covers those explicitly). What would really help is the text of the actual patent.

    I personally don't think we have the whole story.
  • Your soundcard would almost definately qualify as a "digital audio player" in this light. The GUS (for one) can store and playback MODs (for one format) all by itself -- of course it takes the computer it's plugged into to load ("download") the MOD to the card and provide power, but it definately fits the claims of the patent.

    So, when was the GUS first made? Heck, even the Soundblaster (.voc) fits those claims.

  • Back when I worked supporting an all Sun based company I used a set of programs called radio/broadcast to play music to the workstations. I would use workman to play a CD from the CD-ROM, which was wired to the audio in port of the back of the Sun.

    I had quite a bit of fun being the company DJ. I even hooked up a radio so people could get up-to-the-minute news reports.

    On weekends I would play music loudly through all desktop machines. This helped me locate all working desktop Suns, and It was damned fun.

    I later moved to converting entire CDs to .au files on Sony MO disks. We had a MO jukebox, which I used as a jukebox. :)

    So. This has been done before, long ago. These people are completely fooling themselfs.

    Does anyone have an old copy of radio/broadcast? I might have it on an old 8mm if they live that long. Please email me if it's needed to stop these fools.

    -- James

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