Slash Lane
The 8-page complaint, filed Tuesday by Tune Hunter, Inc. in the patent litigation-friendly Marshall Division of Texas, broadly alleges that nearly a dozen tech companies are contributing to infringement of is US patent No. 6,941,275 for a "Music identification system" granted in September of 2005.
When it originally lodged its patent application with the USPTO nine years ago, the little-known firm described its invention as relating "to a music identification/purchasing system, specifically to a method for marking the time and the name of the radio station in portable device such as a key holder, watch, cellular phone, beeper or the like which will allow the user to learn via internet or regular telephone the name of the song, artist and/or music company by matching the stored data with broadcast archive."
The concept is strikingly similar to technology delivered by Shazam's popular namesake application for the iPhone, BlackBerry and G1 handsets, which helps users identify songs playing in their surroundings by capturing a sample of the track, analyzing it, and then comparing it with a remote database based on its acoustic footprint. If a song is correctly identified, users are presented with links to iTunes and Amazon — another named defendant — which they can use to immediately purchase the song.
In its complaint, Tune Hunter doesn't specify its gripes with each individual defendant. Instead, it charges them broadly with contributing to the infringement or inducing the infringement of its patent "by making, using, selling and/or offering to sell, and/or causing others to use [...] music identification systems and/or devices that are covered by one or more claims" of its patent.
The company, which is seeking that each defendant pay damages, attorneys' fees, and be enjoined from further infringement, claims to have notified "at least one or more" of those defendants about its patent, but says those parties took no action and continued their "willful and deliberate" infringement.
Shazam is available as a free music identification app for the iPhone.
Among the other defendants named in the suit are Samsung, Napster, Motorola, Gracenote, LG Electronics, Pantech Wireless, and Cellco Partnership (doing business as Verizon Wireless).
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69 Comments
I'm gonna sue Tune Hunter for emotional distress.
Jimzip
Shazam is an amazing thing, so I don't blame these guys for trying to argue they thought of it first, but it sure doesn't sound like the same thing at all to me.
The description of their patent idea here:
... a music identification/purchasing system, specifically to a method for marking the time and the name of the radio station in portable device such as a key holder, watch, cellular phone, beeper or the like which will allow the user to learn via internet or regular telephone the name of the song, artist and/or music company by matching the stored data with broadcast archive. ...
Sounds to me like what they patented was the idea of taking note of the time it was played and on what station so that their "service" (which was presumably never started or even designed yet), can look it up and tell you what it was that was playing. There is really nothing here to suggest that this is really that similar to Shazam, which analyses the song itself, and doesn't care what source it came from or what time it was played.
I never understand why people like this go after everyone and the aunt? Surely simply suing Shazam should be enough?
I guess that is a problem of becoming the mandatory publisher for all iPhone software.
Shazam does not work in the same way, it uses a sample of the music and compares it to a database.
The other 'idea' uses the date/time/radio station to find the track on the internet.