RTP-area local music and culture

[Richard Tanzer <mr_reznat_ AT yahoo.com>]

United States Patent  6,614,729, "System and method of creating digital 
recordings of live performances," Griner, et al.  (September 2, 2003) may 
not be as broad as it first appears.

The first claim is     
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An event recording system, comprising: 
  (i) an event-capture module to capture an event signal and transform
      it into a primary event file that is accessible as it is being
      formed;
 (ii) an editing module communicatively connected to the event capture
      module, wherein the editing module accesses and parses the primary
      event file into one or more digital track files that can be recorded
      onto a recording media; and
(iii) a media recording module communicatively linked to the editing
      module for receiving the one or more digital track files, the media
      recording module having a plurality of media recorders for
      simultaneously recording the one or more digital track files onto a
      plurality of recording media.     
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A patent claim is only infringed if each and every element of the claimed 
invention is practiced.  Considering the Griner patent, for example:

Suppose you record the first 2 minutes of a concert using "an event-capture 
module" (a CD, or a file on a hard drive, or an audio tape, or whatever 
medium is most convenient), but NOT onto a Tivo-type medium that is 
"accessible as it is being formed."

1 minute and 59 seconds after the beginning of the concert you start 
recording onto the next CD, or file in a hard drive, or whatever.  You 
record on that medium for 2 minutes, then you start the next recording, 
etc.  In that way the whole concert is recorded on a total of perhaps 60 
files on a hard drive.

At 2 minutes and 1 second after the beginning of the concert you run your 
first recording through an editor and copy it onto a bunch (perhaps 500) of 
CD's.  At 4 minutes and 1 second after the beginning of the concert you run 
your second recording through the tape editor and copy it onto the CD's.  
In this way, at 2 minutes after the end of the concert the recordings are 
available for sale.

Because you did NOT use a "a primary event file that is accessible as it is 
being formed," you apparently did not infringe the patent.  

Another way to avoid the patent might be to directly record the concert 
onto a bunch (say 500) of Tivo-type media, without editing.  As the concert 
is still being recorded, read the data from each of the 500 Tivo-type 
medium, edit the data through 500 different editing circuits, and re-record 
the data back onto the same Tivo-type medium from which it was read.  In 
that way you would not be practicing item (iii) of the claim - you would be 
simultaneously recording the one or more digital track files onto a single 
recording medium - NOT "a plurality of recording media."
 
With a little bit of creativity there are many other ways of achieving the 
objective of this patent without infringing the claims.  

This is not legal advice - you are not my client - I am not your lawyer.


-  Richard 



fikri_y AT yahoo.com (Fikri Yucel) wrote in
20040602204917.23043.qmail AT web40907.mail.yahoo.com:">news:20040602204917.23043.qmail AT web40907.mail.yahoo.com: 

> I am not a lawyer either, but I know a bit about
> intellectual property issues.  A patent grants
> exclusive rights and protection to an idea, whereas a
> copyright grants protection to a specific expression
> of an idea.  So, yes, you can patent a concept--that's
> what patents are for.
> 
> But a patent only grants you exclusive rights for 20
> years, and after that, into the public domain it goes.
>  (Copyrights generally last until 70 years after the
> death of the author.)  It's useful to keep in mind
> that the purpose of patents is NOT to promote
> monopolist power; the real purpose is "to promote the
> progress of science and useful arts" which ultimately
> serve the public good.  Many innovations require a
> huge amount of research and development which costs
> huge money; without some limited amount of protection,
> the thinking goes, far fewer people would undertake
> that research and development, and so, there would be
> far less progress.
> 
> Having said all that, it's also useful to keep in mind
> that historically lots and lots of patents never
> amounted to anything, and those that did were often
> challenged in court.  Up until the 1970s the courts
> were not very sympathetic to patent holders.  Since
> then, revisions to the laws have strengthened the
> patent system.  Now intellectual property issues
> (patents, copyrights, trade secrets, etc.) are
> uber-hot stuff, especially because of the challenges
> of keeping up with rapidly evolving information
> technologies (and other technologies for that matter).
> 
> For a patent to be granted, the patent office has to
> assess whether or not the idea is "useful, novel, and
> not obvious" at the time of the invention.  The patent
> now held by Clear Channel was issued in 2003.  If
> someone could demonstrate that the technology
> described in the patent was already used, offered for
> sale, or described publicly before the patent was
> issued, then the patent could be lost.  I suppose you
> could also challenge them on the "non-obvious"
> criterion, but any of those challenges would take big
> bucks in legal fees.
> 
> Anyhow.  Here's an informative link if yr interested:
> 
> http://www.piercelaw.edu/tfield/ipbasics.htm
> 
> -Fikri
> 
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