6 ms·

UTorrent / BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement

73 points by davewiner 15y ago

nextparadigms 15y ago
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.
rick888 15y ago
Why would this change anything? Most people using Bittorrent are already violating copyright law. Why should they care about patent law?
- thomasz 15y ago
  I'd bet that this isn't a move to stop piracy, it's just your typical patent troll shakedown.
  - smokeyj 15y ago
    Or maybe a pretext for DHS to shut-down any torrent sites?
    - thomasz 15y ago
      Or maybe part of an elaborate plot by evil intergalactic entities in league with the Illuminati to conquer the world?
      - sukuriant 15y ago
        I, for one, do not welcome our new intergalactic overlords.
- lucian1900 15y ago
  There is plenty of usage that does not violate anything, and is very useful.
  - w1ntermute 15y ago
    Right. For example, Linux distros have been able to significantly defray the costs of digital disc image distribution by using torrents.
    - masterzora 15y ago
      And World of Warcraft uses the protocol for patch distribution. That's a pretty sizeable number of people using bittorrent for legit purposes.
      - huckfinnaafb 15y ago
        Not that bittorrent needs justification - it is a legal technology that has about as much to do with piracy than a CD burner does.
        seabee 15y ago
        Except that some countries tax blank CDs for this reason. (good job, content creation lobby)
        masterzora 15y ago
        Oh, of course. Not saying it does need justification, but just adding the string of replies about why torrents are not equivalent to piracy.
        rick888 15y ago
        ...you mean the ridiculous amount of people that misread my comments? I never said ALL and I never equated it to piracy. To me, because everyone is so jumpy about it..it means I'm probably correct....just sayin
- DisposaBoy 15y ago
  ... they're two almost entirely different things and besides... it's not directly got much to do with the users.
- choko 15y ago
  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.
  - rick888 15y ago
    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)
    - nitrogen 15y ago
      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.html http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ipmanual/05ipma.h... "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.]
    - jlouis 15y ago
      How about HTTP traffic? BitTorrent is just a highly effective content distribution system like HTTP. But unlike HTTP, it scales even if the upstream bandwidth of the initial data server is limited. BitTorrent simply gets all the flak for this property. Facebook uses BitTorrent internally to distribute new versions of their PHP-code to their server park of tens of thousands machines. Because the single server would be upstream-congested if it wanted to push out a change fast.
    - Dylan16807 15y ago
      There's quite a difference between the majority of traffic and the majority of users.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  People may be able to distribute copyright violating material on Bittorrent, but the Bittorrent clients themselves are simply downloaded from normal websites. If they are found to be in violation of this patent it would be pretty simple to just send C&D letters to websites distributing the clients, a far easier task than going after individual Bittorent users.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tomp 15y ago
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...
- adamt 15y ago
  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.
  - noonespecial 15y ago
    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.
  - tomp 15y ago
    Being European, the thing I most envy the US market is a unified language...
abcd_f 15y ago
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.
- deadsy 15y ago
  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.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    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.
meow 15y ago
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 .. ..
yason 15y ago
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.
api 15y ago
It is not possible to write any software without infringing one or more software patents. This is getting truly absurd.
- vaksel 15y ago
  yeah it's ridiculous. i.e. you just used the term "software" on the internet, if we applied the patent law for software to that, you'd be found guilty of infringing. what I'd like to see is a community effort by programmers to create an arbitration process that bypasses the court system. Software disputes should be judged by those who actually know the topic, instead of some judge who has to rely on "expert" testimony that get paid by the patent trolls
- ltamake 15y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Patents are so incredibly flawed -- they need to be scrapped in the digital age.
- sehugg 15y ago
  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.
- jlouis 15y ago
  Well, BitTorrent as a system still needs to infringe on the patent claims. Nobody says it does yet. In principle, I could make a patent for producing yellow rubber ducks efficiently, and then claim that the BitTorrent code infringes. While the patent is probably less far off than my yellow-rubber-duck one, the hint of truth is in there: it is highly likely that the protocol is not infringing at all on the patent.
floppydisk 15y ago
Doesn't the internet then violate this patent?
chopsueyar 15y ago
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?
ricardobeat 15y ago
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?
- daemin 15y ago
  It's causing financial losses to the plaintiff because they cannot charge companies for a similar product/service. Basically because Bittorrent is free they cannot charge any money for their own system. At least that is the reasoning I see behind the financial losses statement.
- jestar_jokin 15y ago
  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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices
sehugg 15y ago
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Invents_Act http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2288359 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.

73 points by davewiner 15y ago

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.

rick888 15y ago

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

thomasz 15y ago
I'd bet that this isn't a move to stop piracy, it's just your typical patent troll shakedown.
- smokeyj 15y ago
  Or maybe a pretext for DHS to shut-down any torrent sites?
  - thomasz 15y ago
    Or maybe part of an elaborate plot by evil intergalactic entities in league with the Illuminati to conquer the world?
    - sukuriant 15y ago
      I, for one, do not welcome our new intergalactic overlords.
lucian1900 15y ago
There is plenty of usage that does not violate anything, and is very useful.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  Right. For example, Linux distros have been able to significantly defray the costs of digital disc image distribution by using torrents.
  - masterzora 15y ago
    And World of Warcraft uses the protocol for patch distribution. That's a pretty sizeable number of people using bittorrent for legit purposes.
    - huckfinnaafb 15y ago
      Not that bittorrent needs justification - it is a legal technology that has about as much to do with piracy than a CD burner does.
      - seabee 15y ago
        Except that some countries tax blank CDs for this reason. (good job, content creation lobby)
      - masterzora 15y ago
        Oh, of course. Not saying it does need justification, but just adding the string of replies about why torrents are not equivalent to piracy.
        rick888 15y ago
        ...you mean the ridiculous amount of people that misread my comments? I never said ALL and I never equated it to piracy. To me, because everyone is so jumpy about it..it means I'm probably correct....just sayin
DisposaBoy 15y ago
... they're two almost entirely different things and besides... it's not directly got much to do with the users.
choko 15y ago
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.
- rick888 15y ago
  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)
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    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.html http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ipmanual/05ipma.h... "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.]
  - jlouis 15y ago
    How about HTTP traffic? BitTorrent is just a highly effective content distribution system like HTTP. But unlike HTTP, it scales even if the upstream bandwidth of the initial data server is limited. BitTorrent simply gets all the flak for this property. Facebook uses BitTorrent internally to distribute new versions of their PHP-code to their server park of tens of thousands machines. Because the single server would be upstream-congested if it wanted to push out a change fast.
  - Dylan16807 15y ago
    There's quite a difference between the majority of traffic and the majority of users.
Symmetry 15y ago
People may be able to distribute copyright violating material on Bittorrent, but the Bittorrent clients themselves are simply downloaded from normal websites. If they are found to be in violation of this patent it would be pretty simple to just send C&D letters to websites distributing the clients, a far easier task than going after individual Bittorent users.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tomp 15y ago

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...

adamt 15y ago
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.
- noonespecial 15y ago
  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.
- tomp 15y ago
  Being European, the thing I most envy the US market is a unified language...

abcd_f 15y ago

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.

deadsy 15y ago
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.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  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.

meow 15y ago

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 .. ..

yason 15y ago

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.

api 15y ago

It is not possible to write any software without infringing one or more software patents. This is getting truly absurd.

vaksel 15y ago
yeah it's ridiculous. i.e. you just used the term "software" on the internet, if we applied the patent law for software to that, you'd be found guilty of infringing. what I'd like to see is a community effort by programmers to create an arbitration process that bypasses the court system. Software disputes should be judged by those who actually know the topic, instead of some judge who has to rely on "expert" testimony that get paid by the patent trolls
ltamake 15y ago
Couldn't agree more. Patents are so incredibly flawed -- they need to be scrapped in the digital age.
sehugg 15y ago
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.
jlouis 15y ago
Well, BitTorrent as a system still needs to infringe on the patent claims. Nobody says it does yet. In principle, I could make a patent for producing yellow rubber ducks efficiently, and then claim that the BitTorrent code infringes. While the patent is probably less far off than my yellow-rubber-duck one, the hint of truth is in there: it is highly likely that the protocol is not infringing at all on the patent.

floppydisk 15y ago

Doesn't the internet then violate this patent?

chopsueyar 15y ago

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?

ricardobeat 15y ago

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?

daemin 15y ago
It's causing financial losses to the plaintiff because they cannot charge companies for a similar product/service. Basically because Bittorrent is free they cannot charge any money for their own system. At least that is the reasoning I see behind the financial losses statement.
jestar_jokin 15y ago
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices

sehugg 15y ago

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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Invents_Act http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2288359 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.