If you could sue a notorious company for an imaginary guild, and there's a tiny chance to get some money in the process, would you do it? I hate lawsuits, and I hope I won't ever end up in a court of law, no matter the reason. Well, at least I got something to do, but if you're some obscure company, than if you sue Apple, you may be on the right way to an off-court settlement... if your reasons are backed up by facts, and - obviously- it's all about patents, once again!
The obscure company I mentioned is ZapMedia Services Inc. (please don't sue me for that, at least not before you get a decent website, OK?), and their patent infringement lawsuit is targeting the iTunes site, as well as related media players, basically all the iPods.
According to their news release, ZapMedia tried more than once to solve its problems with Apple the friendly way(I don't even want to think about what they did for that and how their dialogue with Apple went on), but it didn't just work.
Here's what their press release says about this whole deal: "Beginning in the late 1990s, ZapMedia, Inc., the predecessor of ZapMedia Services, created a unique platform and vision for the enjoyment of digital media assets. In connection with this vision, ZapMedia developed a system by which it could provide hardware, software and content to consumers to allow them to gain control over their digital media assets. To protect this intellectual property, ZapMedia has obtained U.S. Patent Numbers 7,020,704 and 7,343,414, each of which is entitled ‘System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices’."
Obviously, the above is only the prelude to their attack on Apple, but here you get that part, too - "In the course of its efforts, ZapMedia met with many major technology and media companies around the globe, including Apple, describing its vision in great detail. Without asking ZapMedia for permission, Apple subsequently unveiled its own system. Apple announced its iPod MP3 player with an integrated iTunes software application in October of 2001 and its iTunes store in April 2003. Dating to June 2006 and continuing through the fall of 2007, ZapMedia made Apple aware of the patents and their availability for license."
Oh, that was all??? Come on, "[...]hardware, software and content to consumers to allow them to gain control over their digital media assets" sounds like thousands possible things to me, so maybe next thing I'll go out and patent my own way of walking on the street, "gaining control over my legs and arms to keep the balance and ensure continuous motion forward, as well as into other directions". What do you think?
