nsane.forums Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 BitTorrent Inc., the makers of uTorrent and the BitTorrent Mainline client, have been sued for infringement of a file-sharing related patent. According to the complaint, the BitTorrent clients infringe on the rights of San Francisco-based company Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network. The company demands compensation and if the court agrees, this case could have a disastrous impact on the BitTorrent landscape.By now we’ve become accustomed to copyright infringement lawsuits, where people are suspected of illegally distributing movies and music using BitTorrent. However, according to a lawsuit filed at a U.S. District Court this week, BitTorrent is also an infringement in its own right. Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network filed a complaint at the court this week where it alleges that BitTorrent is infringing on a patent originally filed in April 1999. The company claims to have suffered significant losses and wants to be compensated for the ongoing patent infringement. “By making, operating, using and/or selling [uTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline] and or other software, BitTorrent has infringed and continues to infringe, contribute to the infringement, or induce the infringement of at least claim 1 of the ’944 patent,” the complaint reads. The patent in question is titled “Media file distribution with adaptive transmission protocols” and was granted in November 2007. It describes a file-sharing system consisting of a file database, a transfer client and a distribution server. “A server/client media file distribution system is provided in which the server system is adapted to receive transmission requests from clients, status information from a network, and protocol information from each client,” company writes in the patent abstract. “The server, based upon this information, adaptively transmits a given media file stored therein to one or more clients using the optimal transmission speed and/or network protocol based on the network status information and protocol information,” the abstract adds. The above is certainly not how most people would describe BitTorrent, but its is up to the District Court Judge to assess the validity of the patent infringement claim. Aside from BitTorrent Inc., Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network have also sued Kontiki Inc. on similar grounds. Kontiki offers a media content delivery technology that is hybrid of central servers and P2P transfers. Unlike BitTorrent Inc, Kontiki’s user base mostly consists of businesses who can use the software to stream and distribute video. According to the complaint, this software also infringes on the aforementioned patent. Although it’s not easy for an outsider to assess whether the case holds water or whether it’s classic patent trolling, the fall-out could spread far and wide. Together, the two BitTorrent clients mentioned in the lawsuit have a user-base of more than 100 million users worldwide. If BitTorrent Inc. is suddenly required to pay royalties for each and every download, this will drastically impact the company’s operations. Not to mention the spill-over effect it may have on other BitTorrent software companies. BitTorrent Inc. was asked for a comment on the lawsuit, but TorrentFreak was told that the company currently has nothing to add. View: Original Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambrocious Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 The difference between the two companies Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network and Bit-Torrent is that Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network would have most likely charged people to download their client and banked billions of dollars from it. Bit-Torrent is releasing it's client for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CODYQX4 Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 Note just how simplistic and all consuming the patent langauge is. The fact that this is even allowed is a slap in the face of everything patents are supposed to be for, to innovate, but you can patent broadly and sue with no intentions of making something.Think I'll patent a new way to screw over society so I can bankrupt all the MAFIAA companies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambrocious Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 Note just how simplistic and all consuming the patent langauge is. The fact that this is even allowed is a slap in the face of everything patents are supposed to be for, to innovate, but you can patent broadly and sue with no intentions of making something.Think I'll patent a new way to screw over society so I can bankrupt all the MAFIAA companies LOL!!! That's a good idea man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HX1 Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 I dunno.. seems like it would not take any effect until after an actual patent was issued.. and it has to be, like CODY stated.. for something in particular.. then you have to consider the man who came up with the idea..which I remember reading post from so many years ago.. to begin with.. Unless uT or BT has stolen specific code and methods of such.. then I would leave it at something as a frivolous claim at patent infringement.. or loss of intellectual property... You cannot protect anything but specific design... trying to patent it against any and all things that may or may not be capable of the exact same thing isn't even possible... That would come under a whole new heading... and wrong..I think they would have to prove that it in effect is something which has been created either so similar its almost exact or stolen for this to be a viable case.. but hey what an opportunity to pull apart and expose an open source program..:rolleyes: :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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