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EFF Challenges Another Bogus Online Music Patent
from the taking-them-down,-one-by-one dept
The EFF's patent busting project continues, as it's filed a challenge against an online music patent held by a company named Seer Systems. The challenge includes plenty of prior art, including some published by the patent holder in a book, long before the patent application was actually filed. It's great to see the EFF continue to try to mow down these patents one by one, but it's worth noting how slow and cumbersome this process has been. The EFF first announced its patent busting project more than four years ago. And, while the program has had successes, it's been very slow going. If it takes this long to bust such obviously bad patents, just think of the trouble dealing with ones that aren't quite as obviously bad.
Reader Comments
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Weird, Seer Systems made the first "pro" software synthesizer available for PC (or one of THE first) (Seer Systems "Reality".) I wonder if they are claiming some patent based on/around that
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Seer Systems, inventors of the first professional synthesizer software for Windows PCs delivered to Intel the first GM Software Synthesizer, for 486DX (integer-class) CPU's (1993).
But their website, and (I thought) company, have long been dead. Guess not
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It is getting a bit tiring reading all these headlines from self-professed do-gooders (not techdirt...it is an EFF headline) that try and cast patentees as evil people intent on harming the public. Maybe this patent should be terminated. Only its reexamination can provide the answer to whether or not it should have been granted.
What gets lost in the rhetoric, however, is the fact that the vast majority of inventors and attorneys who represent the inventors do act in good faith when filing and prosecuting patent applications. How about giving them the benefit of the doubt, stop with the name calling, and simply review matters such as this on the basis of what the prior art shows or does not show.
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I'm going to have to side with Seer Systems on this one. Why don't you guys pick on someone like Microsoft or Verizon. Leave these guys alone.
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A bad patent is a bad patent, no matter who files it. They've already started suing people over it. These are nothing short of "attack patents" created for no other reason than trying to make a profit off other people's legitimate ideas.
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