SightSound Patents Return; Napster Gets Sued

from the oh,-those-guys... dept

You may remember SightSound as the company that sued CDNow years ago for violating their patent on "electronic sales and distribution of digital audio or video signals." You might wonder how that could possibly be patentable, but you'd have to ask the USPTO to find out the answer. Bertelsmann, the eventual owners of CDNow, tried to have the patent thrown out, but eventually settled the case. However, that means SightSound still has those patents, and they're trying to use them... to get money out of companies. The latest is the "new" Napster, who apparently talked to SightSound about licensing the patents, but eventually decided it didn't make any sense. That, of course, means that SightSound needs to break out the lawyers and file a patent infringement lawsuit. Again, if anyone could explain how something as obvious as "electronic sales and distribution of digital audio or video signals," could be patentable, I'm all ears.

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