
UTorrent / BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement - davewiner
http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-bittorrent-sued-for-patent-infringement-110619/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29
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api
It is not possible to write any software without infringing one or more
software patents. This is getting truly absurd.

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sehugg
Not only that, but it's ironically in your best interest not to even read
others' patents lest you be subject to treble damages. So the original purpose
of the patent system (trading temporarily monopoly for disclosure) seems
almost moot.

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nextparadigms
One more reason why the patent system is severely abused. Whoever is behind
this probably looked specifically for something they can use against
BitTorrent in the patent database.

This reminds me why you should never trust politicians when they say about a
new bill: "Oh, but the law is not intended to be used like that", but then
don't specifically add in the bill how it can and can't be used, and prefer it
leave it more generic.

It's something they said about the new streaming bill that can criminalize
lone bloggers the put embedded Youtube videos that violate copyright on their
sites.

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tomp
Now I may be missing a crucial bit of information, but I never got it why one
wouldn't rather create a company and/or host the web site servers in some
country with less ridiculous patent laws... Just move the servers to Sweden,
problem solved. Now, I'm not sure what would happen to the U.S. developers
that would contribute infringing code, so to make them safe, you would simply
need to erase the records of who contributed what, or keep a system of
anonymous nicknames...

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adamt
In short - you violate a patent if you use, sell or offer to sell something
that violates the patent.

So if you moved the company abroad (or were a non US entity in the first
place) then you're fine, providing you never wanted to sell to US customers.

The issue is that in reality, few companies (wherever they are domiciled) want
to exclude themselves from the US market place. Which despite being not that
big in terms of people (Europe, China, India, SE Asia are individually all
bigger) it is hugely significant in terms of advertising spend, technology
adoption, and funding.

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noonespecial
This is what I expect will finally bring some sanity to the American system.
After the Americans have the door slammed in their face on a few must-have new
technologies because they've become an "intellectual property" banana
republic, the public might start thinking about demanding some change.

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yason
I wouldn't be surprised at all if this "Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network" would
turn out to be owned by a number of holding companies eventually leading to
MAFIAA. Maybe they just bought a company with a remotely applicable generic
patent merely to attack BitTorrent. It would fit in the style and civility of
actions they've exhibited in the last decade.

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meow
It's so generic, it pretty much describes every protocol out there which
streams media on a network: 1) Flash players - check 2) HTTP streaming on ios
using m3u8 files - check .. ..

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abcd_f
I'm sure Adobe will be happy to hear about this patent as well. It pretty much
describes adaptive encoding in media streaming applications... and it is
ridiculously generic.

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deadsy
Where in the claims did you see adaptive encoding? It seems to be describing
any sort of load balancing of media servers based on network throughput to the
client. Do bit-torrent clients do that? Or do they just throttle their own
response to a peer based on the p2p throughput? In any case claim 1 is overly
broad and is obvious. I hope someone digs up prior art and gets it
invalidated.

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sukuriant
IANAL, and (especially) IANA[Patent]Lawyer, but, BitTorrent is such a precise
design, I imagine all they would have to do is file a patent for the more
specific nature of their work, much like how the mp3 format is patented.

That said, .... wow @ that patent.

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sehugg
This isn't a bad time to catch up on the patent-related bills being circulated
in Congress:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Invents_Act>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2288359>

I'd be interested to know how the proposed legislation might affect, if at
all, this particular case.

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floppydisk
Doesn't the internet then violate this patent?

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chopsueyar
This is only for the transfer of media files. Isn't it up to the end-user to
decide what type of files to transfer?

Would this apply to seeding or downloading an open source OS?

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ricardobeat
Damn patents again. How can a p2p network infringe on a server-client patent?
In addition, uTorrent is free, how could it cause any financial losses?

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jestar_jokin
You could argue that offering a competing product for free is "anti-
competitive" behaviour.

Then again, looking at the Wikipedia page for anti-competitive practices, it
ironically includes:

"Patent misuse and copyright misuse, such as fraudulently obtaining a patent,
copyright, or other form of intellectual property; or using such legal devices
to gain advantage in an unrelated market."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices>

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rick888
Why would this change anything?

Most people using Bittorrent are already violating copyright law. Why should
they care about patent law?

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choko
Where does this "statistic" come from? What is the basis of your accusation?
Do your "facts" include the tens of millions of people that use bittorrent
technology for legitimate uses? There are dozens of legal torrent sites,
software/OS distros, and even World of Warcraft that use the technology
legitimately, you know.

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rick888
Are you really trying to tell me that you don't believe that the majority of
BitTorrent traffic is pirated material? (I nver said all)

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nitrogen
Two points which render this claim moot:

1\. The decision on whether a piece of technology is legal is not based on its
majority use, but on whether there are substantial non-infringing uses. (first
Google result, didn't follow link:
[http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ipmanual/05ipma.h...](http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ipmanual/05ipma.html)
"Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.")

2\. The vast majority of freeway traffic is in excess of the posted speed
limit. You don't hear many arguments to shut down the freeways as a result.
[Yes, I know proof by analogy is weak.]

