I still dont believe in being able to patent an idea that you still have not come up with the technology to do..its bs

What if their chicks? Do you shoot their boobies?

There's prior art. Winamp was using playlists in, like, 1994.

Edit: hmm, 1996. They might be able to squeak it in; if they patented less than a year after prior art, then the prior art gets a pass, but not everyone. Still checking further.

Hmm, well, a cursory check shows that Winplay3 from 1994 does not seem to have playlists. MAPlay was also released then for Unix, but I can't quickly find a version that old. So I can't prove that there's prior art, but I think there must be.

I also don't think this patent will pass the new Supreme Court 'obviousness' rule; if you can play one file already, what could possibly be more obvious than doing more of the same thing? Obviously you'd want to play more than one track, and, gee, that's what a playlist is. And playlists themselves have been around since forever; putting a playlist on a computer would also seem remarkably obvious.

I don't think it's anything to worry about.

Sleazy stuff:

...U.S. government sued for building roads, which cars with built-in mp3 players (with playlists) drive on.

Is it me or this seem retarded?

I'll go one further. The SID player on my C64 had a playlist.

Sounds like one of those "Hey we can't make any money off an idea that was painfully obvious, what shall we do? I know, sue everybody!"

Apple is conspicuously absent in that listing, which is strange since iTunes itself can use playlists pretty heavily. It just strikes me as strange that they didn't include one of the biggest MP3 players in their suit.

These guys are gonna get smoked on prior art.

The patent review board? It's out there and has been for a while. PJ over at Groklaw has been covering it and pushing folks to get out there and list prior art. The problem with this is that it happened well before the prior art review.

However, having thought on it some more prior art isn't where these guys are going to blow their leg off at the knee; it's non-enforcement.

Oh, and Drunken Sleipnir said:

If you wrap something in enough obfuscatory language, the Patent Office employees tend to just approve it. Some guy literally got a patent on swinging from side to side on a swingset, instead of front to back. Seriously.

/Wordsmythe

I suspect that they are not really looking to win. Instead, they are hoping that at least a few of the companies will decide the fight is not worth it and will settle.

The 'company' is peculiar. Its actually a 'meta-company' of accounting firms from various countries. I am curious as to what each country offers the company, as it looks suspiciously as though they were hand-picked for some reason.

These are the types of people that reawaken my urge to become a hermit.

It was intended as a joke (it's the way Garfield says it so I thought it was funny.) Get it now?

The USPTO already performs a review. I don't think an additional "review board" will solve anything. Soon enough, that board will become overwhelmed. Then the level of review of each patent will degrade.

This is what is referred to lovingly as a patent troll company. It has no real business. Otherwise, a defending company could countersue for violation of its own patents. This company exists solely to gather royalties.

Patents don't "violate" each other. But a subsequent patent not not be truly "novel" if an earlier patent covers the same thing. One device can violate multiple patents.

This is a common tactic. Get an early settlement to fund your litigation costs, then sue the rest of the industry.

A patent is just what you get after filing your invention with the patent office in your jurisdiction. You don't have to actually implement anything in your patent in order to have it issue.

IMHO, the issue here is that in the late 90's federal courts suddenly enabled patents on "business methods". That suddenly enabled patents on things like software. Since then, it's been something of a land rush while USPTO agents, typically folks schooled in "old school" inventions on things like hardware have had difficulty policing this. Both because of the volume of filings and because of unfamiliarity with software concepts.

But, in the end, the US patent system is based on an adversarial system, just as with other parts of the US justice system. A patent can be challenged, even after it has been filed. The USPTO acts as a filter to tried to weed out the truly bad ones. The close calls end up being decided in court, not by a USPTO agent, and I doubt any review board could substitute for that.