News
Apple sued over iTunes video downloads
By Charles Starrett
Contributing Editor
Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010
News Categories: Apple, iTunes
Apple has been sued by a New Jersey-based company over its iTunes video download offerings. The suit, filed by Multi-Format, Inc. in the Northern District of Illinois East District Court, claims that Apple’s products infringe on the company’s 2003 patent entitled “Multi-format audio/video production system.” Patently Apple reports that the suit names the iPhone, iPad, iPod classic, iPod nano, iPod touch, Apple TV, and iTunes as infringing; the patent itself describes the delivery, conversion, and playback of digital video. Multi-Format is seeking damages and interest from the date the infringement began.
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1
Yep.. another stupid law suit over stupid patents..
Posted by Sid32 on September 22, 2010 at 1:55 PM (PST)
2
Two things stand out for me here:
1) The patent is from 2003, so it’s taken them 7 years to notice and/or file a suit? Seriously?
2) ITunes was launched in 2001, two years before this patent.
I admit that (1) may be down to the way the legal systems work etc, but can anyone explain (2) to me?
Posted by Pitmonster on September 23, 2010 at 1:37 AM (PST)
3
The iTunes Store was launched in 2003, two years after the iTunes application. Further, the iTunes Music Store (as it was called at the time), didn’t offer video downloads until 2005, which is what the lawsuit is about. In fact, it wasn’t even renamed to the “iTunes Store” until 2006.
In terms of the first point, it’s unclear whether the patent was originally developed by the company in question, or whether it’s just an opportunistic patent troll that bought the patent from somebody else for the express purpose of cashing in on a patent infringement suit. There have been a number of infamous patent suits in recent years conducted entirely by litigation companies that found some poor sucker who developed a potentially valuable patent in his basement, offered him a few thousand bucks for it, and then turned around and used it to sue for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Posted by Jesse Hollington in Toronto on September 23, 2010 at 5:42 AM (PST)
4
I hope they win, apple sucks
Posted by Zac on October 1, 2010 at 8:51 PM (PST)
5
Hmmm. Zac, does Apple suck because your friends tell you it does? Or does it suck because you wish your preferred OS was innovative, instead of imitative?
Posted by Tim on October 1, 2010 at 10:28 PM (PST)