Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, has begun a campaign of patent infringement lawsuits against companies ranging from YouTube and Facebook to eBay and Office Depot.
Allen’s patents were originally granted to his company, Interval Media, which shut down in 2006. The company w
“We recognize that innovation has a value, and patents are the way to protect that,” said a spokesman for Allen. When asked about the notable absence of Microsoft and Amazon from the suit,
the spokesman wrote in an email, “This is the most recent step in a long process, but it is not necessarily the end of the process.”
But do the patents themselves actually have any value? If so, why wasn’t Allen’s company able to make money on them to begin with?
The patents include 6,757,682, “Alerting Users To Items of Current Interest,” which covers suggesting items from an online store based on the content of the current page. AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, Yahoo & YouTube are all accused of infringing on this patent.
The first question which comes to mind is how this wouldn’t be considered obvious for anyone in the online selling industry? Just because something hasn’t been worked out in code already doesn’t mean other developers haven’t thought of it.
More likely, what it means is either it’s a solution for an as of yet non-existent (or at least minor) problem or it’s simply not something they’ve decided to implement (or prioritize).
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Result for: tv broadcasters
Apple has announced that all four of the major TV broadcasters; ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, have agreed to offer programming in HD on the company’s iTunes platform.
The shows will cost $2.99, a premium over the $1.99 for standard definition and the company says there are about 600 shows available in HD on iTunes now.
Since Apple announced limited HD programming last month, they have sold over 1 million HD shows, most being NBC content that returned to the store after a one year absence.
A few of the new notable shows added are ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Eli Stone,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Life on Mars,” “Lost,” “Private Practice,” “Samantha Who?” and “Ugly Betty.” CBS programming includes “CSI,” “CSI: Miami,” “CSI: New York,” “NCIS” and “Numb3rs.” FOX shows include “Bones,” “House,” “Prison Break” and “Sons of Anarchy,” from FX.
Although I am sure the shows will sell extremely well, I’m not sure I understand why when pretty much all the content is available for free (with limited ads), and in HD, elsewhere on sites such as Hulu.
Result for: tv broadcasters
This week it was reported that NBC was sending out broadcast flags with its Monday night programming thus blocking Vista Media Center users from recording the programming. At the time both Microsoft and the broadcaster argued they did not know what had cause the interference but were investigating.
The incidents caused uproar on the internet especially considering that broadcast flag laws were thrown out and therefore no software needs to abide by them, even if they are sent out by the broadcaster. NBC has made a new statement today, saying the interference were purely a mistake.
“We made an inadvertent mistake,” an NBC spokeswoman explained, “We’re not aware of any other complaints, and we believe we have addressed the problem.”
Because DRM flagging is no longer mandatory, it seems that Microsoft is voluntarily having its Vista Media Center restrict recording. It could also be a monetary deal with the TV broadcasters. Microsoft has said however that it is “working with media outlets to cut down on the number of false DRM flags.”
