Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#31

Post by napierzaza » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:11 PM UTC

jameskilton wrote: post #4

rkalla wrote: post #3

I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws. We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers. Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding the…

IANAL but I have to imagine that one simple rule would bring back the validity of patents as an innovation protector: If you have a patent, you MUST have a product or be working on a product using the technology in question or you cannot litigate others using your idea. Patents are required to protect the truly innovative individuals and groups from huge corporations who can, as you said, just steamroll them and stea…

Not really. Firstly because not every invention can so easily be produced. What if I patent something to do with space travel? What if it's something that isn't simply a software paradigm? And if it is just something that can be done in software, why not create some semi-working version to prove it's in production? Or are you going to add that it has to sell? Or be appealing? What if you say you have a version for sale but it's a million dollars a unit?

That law is so simple I'm sure there are even more ways to get around it than there are real inventors who will be shafted by it just because they don't own the facilities to produce it enough to satisfy you.

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#32

Post by monochromatic » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:12 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #29

rwmj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in 1992 we used to stream music over the network of Sun machines at St. Andrews university[1]. The way we did it was pretty trivial: just piping into rsh from and to /dev/audio. However it was certainly streaming of music by anyone's definition. [1] Making the admins of said network mighty pissed off in the process -- I believe the whole campus was on 10 Mbps at the time.

From what I can tell reading the patent, what you describe would not be prior art. Two things would need to be present -- DRM of some sort. And music metadata. These are two things that I suspect Spotify makes use of. I suspect you probably didn't at St Andrews for your streaming, but let me know if you did.

Just a semantic thing, but it is still prior art... it's just probably not prior art that, on its own, is enough to invalidate these claims. It could still be relevant for obviousness purposes.

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#33

Post by r0s » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:13 PM UTC

MrVitaliy wrote: post #8

jameskilton wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I have to imagine that one simple rule would bring back the validity of patents as an innovation protector: If you have a patent, you MUST have a product or be working on a product using the technology in question or you cannot litigate others using your idea. Patents are required to protect the truly innovative individuals and groups from huge corporations who can, as you said, just steamroll them and stea…

That rule is easily circumvented. Just write a 10 line python script that references the patent. Release it as MyPatentApp version 1.0 and we're back to litigation square 1. I believe that in such a quickly changing engineering landscape as software, best way to fix patent troll problem is to make software patents expire in 2-3 years.

Agreed, shorter time spans are the way to go:

I'd propose an even quicker expiration if the patent is sold/transferred, to curtail hoarding.

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#34

Post by nsfmc » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:27 PM UTC

rkalla wrote: post #3

I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws. We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers. Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding the…

as a contrast, trademarks are handled in what most people would consider a 'commonsense' way, where it is required that the trademark owner actively use the mark for some period of time and also police that others aren't using or abusing the mark in any way.[1]

Obviously, Trademarks and Patents are two different beasts, but the mechanism for enforcing and protecting trademarks i think is usually along the lines that most people consider fair, which is that the trademark is used to protect an interest for as long as that interest is active (and semi-vigilantly policing its mark) and is using that trademark to protect its own notoriety.

Obviously, trademarks and patents are two different beasts. But (and this is why i'm repeating myself) my point is that you don't have to get rid of these sorts of laws. Trademarks are equally nebulous, but their model seems to me a huge success in the world of intellectual property management whereas (software) patents seem to be a stickier situation altogether.

just my two cents, because again, i don't think we should necessarily get rid of software patents, but i think that thinking of them using this old framework has been problematic in a way that trademarks haven't been (despite similarly ridiculous, yet defensible, use cases, i.e. trademarking 'tiffany blue').

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Maintaining_rights

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#35

Post by dools » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:27 PM UTC

I'd like to file a patent please. It's for a system of computer fastness where somehow we manage to get a processor to switch at a frequency of 1000ghz and use that speed to perform rapid computations to execute various programs really fast.

wait 15 years

Booyah!!

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#36

Post by mikle » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

jameskilton wrote: post #4

rkalla wrote: post #3

I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws. We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers. Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding the…

IANAL but I have to imagine that one simple rule would bring back the validity of patents as an innovation protector: If you have a patent, you MUST have a product or be working on a product using the technology in question or you cannot litigate others using your idea. Patents are required to protect the truly innovative individuals and groups from huge corporations who can, as you said, just steamroll them and stea…

I don't think this rule is sufficient. Beside the other points people already raised, you still have the issue of people patenting obvious stuff with prior art (like the recent Apple vs HTC case, for example).

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#37

Post by justinsb » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:36 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #23

rkalla wrote: post #3

I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws. We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers. Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding the…

It's very hard to come up with genuine instances of software patents protecting small developers from larger competitors. The little guy usually can't afford the money and time to patent things, much less enforce them. But even disregarding that, assuming your patent isn't overly broad (in which case it should definitely not be valid), your competitors can just work around it and then steamroll you with their money a…

Stac Electronics is an example of Microsoft doing exactly what you described; it was patent - not copyright - law that allowed Stac to collect damages.

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#38

Post by madflo » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:37 PM UTC

rkalla wrote: post #3

I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws. We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers. Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding the…

As an indie E.U. based developer, I must confess that everything that I'm reading here about patent trolls is scaring me off. It will probably keep me from even thinking about building a product for the U.S. market for a while.

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#39

Post by breathesalt » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:43 PM UTC

rkalla wrote: post #3

I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws. We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers. Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding the…

- everyone with money

There's your problem right there.

Re: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market

#40

Post by prodigal_erik » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 7:48 PM UTC

codeodor wrote: post #30

"You could have asked any semi-competent engineer how would you build a digital music streaming service, and you would have received a similar general explanation." The question I had after reading that was "who thought to ask about building a digital music streaming service in 1995?" I was a little disappointed the post didn't cover that. Statements like that remind me of the often cited "I could have done that" whe…

The purpose of a patent is to compensate you not for inventing something but for disclosing exactly how it works. If what you did is straightforward, why should we grant a generation-long monopoly to whoever bothers to do it first?