DigiMedia, LLC vs. Beasley, CBS Radio, et al
As noted on RBR.com, Mission Abstract Data (which also does business under the name Mission Abstract Data ), filed suit against several broadcasters for infringement of the company’s intellectual property, namely, broadcasting music from a hard-drive (or hard drives) that contains at least several hundred songs. This week, CBS Radio, asked for an extension to file their response which was granted by the court without any objection on behalf of Mission Abstract Data.
Mr.Dave Scott, CEO of Dave Scott Companies was quoted in RBR about the litigation. The article is an interesting read.
To quote Mr. Scott:
“I know for a personal fact that my Scott Studios Corp was making and had sold dozens (if not hundreds) of radio studio automation systems with music on hard drive capabilities prior to his 1994 application.”
Mr. Scott also mentioned as that he is not well versed in the details of IP Law. The details, while cumbersome and sometimes confusing, really do matter. For instance, RBR quotes from a patent in their article that has nothing to do with the music on hard drive issue; they seem to mistake that patent, which covers transmission of music over a communications system, with the core issue of music on a hard drive in the patent being enforced with CBS Radio, Cumulus and other broadcasters, which covers broadcast radio. Yes, it’s confusing.
Mr. Scott’s assertion that his firm provided music on hard drive capabilities prior to 1994, while interesting, does not invalidate Mission Abstract Data’s patents, which are clear and specific in nature. To wit: the patent in question was specifically granted based upon a system with: “computer hard drive(s) containing at least several hundred songs”
Mr. Scott may well have sold systems that could put a limited amount of jingles, zinger, transitions or other musical works on a hard drive, but, prior to the development of audio-encoding technologies of sufficient compression with sufficient quality, the amount of music that could fit on hard drives in a cost efficient manner was severely limited. It was not until at least 1994 that audio compression and hard drive capacities developed sufficiently. Prior to that time hard drives were incapable of economically housing much more than one CD’s worth of songs. Given the limitation of technologies at the time, it is far more likely that the systems of which Mr. Scott speaks housed short low fidelity music clips for on air transitions and zingers. But, does several hundred songs versus ten or twelve really make all that much difference in the CBS Radio, Mission Abstract Data, LLC patent infringement suit and the company’s concurrent effort to offer voluntary, non-litigation based licenses? It does and that is where the dry-reading under which IP licensing people suffer, comes into play.
The most relevant patent (US 5,629,867) was granted after the Patent Office examiner looked at the state of published radio technologies as they existed prior to its issuance. It was the determination of the Patent Office that
no one had previously published materials that described a system in which at least several hundred songs were stored in a database resident on one or more computer hard drives in an array that could be played using software on a computer (no particular kind of software, no particular features for automation being required) over a radio broadcast At the time of the patent application’s filing, the Patent Office determined that the invention met all
of the criteria for issuance of a patent including the question of obviousness in view of prior existing systems and documents and the question of inventive step or that the proposed claimed invention was in fact a real invention.
Now, over 15 years later, with our 20/20 hindsight, we might well think it obvious that several hundred songs would fit on a hard drive (after all, an iPod carries that, and then some). But, the US Patent Office examination occured at
a time before MP3 was released, and certainly before MP3 enabled hard drive systems were published and sold for radio stations. At that time, the twelve songs of a CD --a CD has a maximum capacity of around 600 megabytes
would max-out a hard drive, at the time that size drive was a very expensive proposition for a computer hard drive-- and, Michael Jackson was married to Lisa Marie Presley, but that’s another story. The US Patent Office
did not make a mistake here, they examined the state of technology in 1994 and the Patent was granted because no prior art existed and the invention claimed was not obvious.
If Mr. Scott, or another technology supplier did publish and sell a computer system that had computer hard drives that stored at least several hundred songs on a hard drive at least one year prior to filing of the patent application
in1994, that information was not available in spite of a thorough search for such information. Many documents that did predate the patent application were considered by the Patent Office. In addition to 13 prior issued US Patents,
articles about the acquisition of Decision Inc. by RCS, a BPI Communications article about “Radio Station Software” an article about “The Tapeless Revolution Comes to Radio” and two IBM press releases were cited during the
prosecution of the patent. You can find this information on the first page of the patent itself.
All of the world’s best inventions seem obvious, because they are universally used. Those best inventions are used by everyone because they are better than what we previously had. The telephone, the television, and radio itself are
all inventions that seem obvious now but certainly were not at the time of their invention. The invention claimed in these patents, the storage of several hundred songs on a computer hard drive(s) in an array and, using software on
a computer, broadcasting songs from those computer hard drives to the air, represented a huge advancement for radio stations. Gone were many costs in terms of maintenance and operation of CD (and yes even record) vaults and
libraries, those were some of the benefits that were described in the patent specification itself, but there were also unexpected benefits from computerizing music. Radio stations could pre-record on air talent introductions and run a
completely unattended broadcast overnight. On-air talent could easily modify the playlist and still maintain accurate record keeping. Station program directors could program more aggressive formats, tailoring music to different
times of the day, because playing individual songs from many different album sources was free.
No one would ever think of getting rid of their computer hard drives and going back to carts or CDs or vinyl discs. Why? Because this invention of putting several hundred songs on a hard drive and using that to run a radio station is both genius and an economic boom to the radio industry.
As noted on RBR.com, Mission Abstract Data (which also does business under the name Mission Abstract Data ), filed suit against several broadcasters for infringement of the company’s intellectual property, namely, broadcasting music from a hard-drive (or hard drives) that contains at least several hundred songs. This week, CBS Radio, asked for an extension to file their response which was granted by the court without any objection on behalf of Mission Abstract Data.
Mr.Dave Scott, CEO of Dave Scott Companies was quoted in RBR about the litigation. The article is an interesting read.
To quote Mr. Scott:
“I know for a personal fact that my Scott Studios Corp was making and had sold dozens (if not hundreds) of radio studio automation systems with music on hard drive capabilities prior to his 1994 application.”
Mr. Scott also mentioned as that he is not well versed in the details of IP Law. The details, while cumbersome and sometimes confusing, really do matter. For instance, RBR quotes from a patent in their article that has nothing to do with the music on hard drive issue; they seem to mistake that patent, which covers transmission of music over a communications system, with the core issue of music on a hard drive in the patent being enforced with CBS Radio, Cumulus and other broadcasters, which covers broadcast radio. Yes, it’s confusing.
Mr. Scott’s assertion that his firm provided music on hard drive capabilities prior to 1994, while interesting, does not invalidate Mission Abstract Data’s patents, which are clear and specific in nature. To wit: the patent in question was specifically granted based upon a system with: “computer hard drive(s) containing at least several hundred songs”
Mr. Scott may well have sold systems that could put a limited amount of jingles, zinger, transitions or other musical works on a hard drive, but, prior to the development of audio-encoding technologies of sufficient compression with sufficient quality, the amount of music that could fit on hard drives in a cost efficient manner was severely limited. It was not until at least 1994 that audio compression and hard drive capacities developed sufficiently. Prior to that time hard drives were incapable of economically housing much more than one CD’s worth of songs. Given the limitation of technologies at the time, it is far more likely that the systems of which Mr. Scott speaks housed short low fidelity music clips for on air transitions and zingers. But, does several hundred songs versus ten or twelve really make all that much difference in the CBS Radio, Mission Abstract Data, LLC patent infringement suit and the company’s concurrent effort to offer voluntary, non-litigation based licenses? It does and that is where the dry-reading under which IP licensing people suffer, comes into play.
The most relevant patent (US 5,629,867) was granted after the Patent Office examiner looked at the state of published radio technologies as they existed prior to its issuance. It was the determination of the Patent Office that
no one had previously published materials that described a system in which at least several hundred songs were stored in a database resident on one or more computer hard drives in an array that could be played using software on a computer (no particular kind of software, no particular features for automation being required) over a radio broadcast At the time of the patent application’s filing, the Patent Office determined that the invention met all
of the criteria for issuance of a patent including the question of obviousness in view of prior existing systems and documents and the question of inventive step or that the proposed claimed invention was in fact a real invention.
Now, over 15 years later, with our 20/20 hindsight, we might well think it obvious that several hundred songs would fit on a hard drive (after all, an iPod carries that, and then some). But, the US Patent Office examination occured at
a time before MP3 was released, and certainly before MP3 enabled hard drive systems were published and sold for radio stations. At that time, the twelve songs of a CD --a CD has a maximum capacity of around 600 megabytes
would max-out a hard drive, at the time that size drive was a very expensive proposition for a computer hard drive-- and, Michael Jackson was married to Lisa Marie Presley, but that’s another story. The US Patent Office
did not make a mistake here, they examined the state of technology in 1994 and the Patent was granted because no prior art existed and the invention claimed was not obvious.
If Mr. Scott, or another technology supplier did publish and sell a computer system that had computer hard drives that stored at least several hundred songs on a hard drive at least one year prior to filing of the patent application
in1994, that information was not available in spite of a thorough search for such information. Many documents that did predate the patent application were considered by the Patent Office. In addition to 13 prior issued US Patents,
articles about the acquisition of Decision Inc. by RCS, a BPI Communications article about “Radio Station Software” an article about “The Tapeless Revolution Comes to Radio” and two IBM press releases were cited during the
prosecution of the patent. You can find this information on the first page of the patent itself.
All of the world’s best inventions seem obvious, because they are universally used. Those best inventions are used by everyone because they are better than what we previously had. The telephone, the television, and radio itself are
all inventions that seem obvious now but certainly were not at the time of their invention. The invention claimed in these patents, the storage of several hundred songs on a computer hard drive(s) in an array and, using software on
a computer, broadcasting songs from those computer hard drives to the air, represented a huge advancement for radio stations. Gone were many costs in terms of maintenance and operation of CD (and yes even record) vaults and
libraries, those were some of the benefits that were described in the patent specification itself, but there were also unexpected benefits from computerizing music. Radio stations could pre-record on air talent introductions and run a
completely unattended broadcast overnight. On-air talent could easily modify the playlist and still maintain accurate record keeping. Station program directors could program more aggressive formats, tailoring music to different
times of the day, because playing individual songs from many different album sources was free.
No one would ever think of getting rid of their computer hard drives and going back to carts or CDs or vinyl discs. Why? Because this invention of putting several hundred songs on a hard drive and using that to run a radio station is both genius and an economic boom to the radio industry.
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