Patent Attorney: Apple Will Go After Billions With Media Download Patent
Dec 7th, 2006 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, Digital Video DownloadsMichael Starkweather, a patent lawyer in Salt Lake City that recently negotiated an out-of-court settlement between Apple and the owner of a patent covering the downloading of media files, thinks Apple will now use it to control billions of dollars in digital media downloads.”I believe that, with this patent in hand, Apple will eventually be after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to pay royalties on every download of not just music but also movies and videos,” said Starkweather.
Starkweather wrote the patent in 1996 for a Vermont inventor. The concept consisted of a desktop computer holding multiple songs with an interface allowing a hotel guest to select three songs and play them on an electric grand piano.
According to Starkweather, he saw the broader value and broke the patent into three elements; remote music storage, selection of music to download and playing music on a music device. Starkweather realized that downloading movies was an obvious variation to downloading music.
“Sometimes it’s easy to break an invention down to its key components,” Starkweather says. “That’s why patent writing is an art, not a science, and requires creativity.”
Why is it nearly impossible to find the original article links in your stories. Please put the link to original stories this will assure proper attribution and make it easier for all of us to get full story.
Todd
Good question.
Posts that are based on things like interviews, email discussions and press releases will typically not link to other sites. This is because the post is not amplifying or commenting on other Web content, and there may not be anything to link to.
If a post is a standard blog-style entry, ie – highlighting or responding to other content on the Web – we link to it within the story, or provide a “via Todd” link at the end.
If you take a look at either the previous item:
https://www.podcasting-news.com/2006/12/07/microsoft-predicts-it-will-sell-1-million-zunes-by-june/
or the next item:
https://www.podcasting-news.com/2006/12/07/sirius-open-to-merger-idea-xm-says-no-way/
You’ll see what I mean.
Let me know if you have questions or suggestions on this.
[…] Podcasting News – The concept consisted of a desktop computer holding multiple songs with an interface allowing a hotel guest to select three songs and play them on an electric grand piano. According to Starkweather, he saw the broader value and broke the patent into More Destop Computer Info […]