Company Receives Patent for Podcasting
VoloMedia, a podcast analytics, advertising, and distribution company, just received a patent for "providing episodic media," including podcasts. According to the company, which filed for the patent in November 2003, U.S. Patent 7,568,213 covers all episodic media downloads, not just the RSS-dependent downloads that power today's podcasts. VoloMedia CEO Murgesh Navar says that the company doesn't plan to go after individual podcasters, but that the company plans to "work collaboratively with key participants in the industry." We do wonder, however, if VoloMedia can really claim to have invented podcasting in 2003, given that the concept was already under development by Dave Winer and others in late 2000 and early 2001.
The only company mentioned specifically in the announcement is Hulu (as an example for a content platform that might one day offer episodic, downloadable content), but in an interview with NewTeeVee's Chris Albrecht, Navar also revealed that the company is already in talks with Apple and a number of TV networks.
Prior Art?
While the patent was filed in November 2003, it is not clear when exactly VoloMedia argues to have invented podcasts. In his blog post, however, Navar argues that this was "almost a year before the start of podcasting." We have wondered about this timeline, however. Using enclosures in RSS feeds was first publicly written about by Dave Winer in January 2001. Indeed, the system for downloading and distributing podcasts in Winer's "Payloads for RSS" from 2001 looks quite similar to VoloMedia's patent. When we spoke to Winer earlier today, he also pointed us to an early podcast by Chris Lydon from July 2003.
The podcasting movement only really picked up steam in 2004, when moving downloaded files to iPods (which were also just coming of age) and other MP3 players became a lot easier thanks to numerous developers who wrote the first podcast clients.
Looking at the patent, it quickly becomes clear that VoloMedia laid out the fundamentals of podcasting in great detail, including how to synchronize content between mobile devices and PCs. Navar argues that in November 2003, it wasn't obvious that users would start to download episodic content. Given that Dave Winer first met with Adam Curry to discuss the concept in December 2000, however, we really have to wonder if this claim would hold up under greater scrutiny. We asked VoloMedia for a statement and will update this post once we hear back from them.
More to Come
For VoloMedia, which just switched gears towards a stronger focus on serving ads after it fired its sales team, this patent obviously comes at a good time. With some luck, the company will either be bought by another podcasting company interested in the company's intellectual property (and Navar says that more patents are in the pipeline), or it will receive a nice influx of cash based on licensing deals with other companies in the podcasting business. That is, of course, if the patent really holds up...
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We had public videotaped demonstrations of interoperable podcasting at BloggerCon in October 2003, before they filed - here's a blogpost with the video in:
http://epeus.blogspot.com/2005/12/of-bloggercon-and-podcasting.html
And here's a block diagram from 1991 showing something that would be covered by their over-broad claims:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmarks/24857689
Posted by: kevinmarks.com
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July 29, 2009 10:13 AM
WTF, I have been in the streaming industry professionally since 1999 and have been streaming on the web since '95 if not earlier. What are these guys talking about. Providing a VOD or AOD files is something that they invented, wow. I had a video blog (as we now know it) on my personal web site back in 1994 - '95 and almost got fired from my Network Admin job on the stock exchange for emailing video clips during market hours back then. (I have the original .mov clip on my old HD still by the way)
Later I was doing all the live streaming for Akamai '99-'02 including many webcasts live and on-demand for Apple, HP, MSFT, etc. for their keynotes, how can these guys get a way with this.
Vassil
Clearly a bogus claim re. podcasting & videoblogs, but I do wonder about "it covers all episodic media downloads" - what of the medium *text*? Prior art there would go back at least as far as Netscape's RSS.
Whatever, software patents are an incredibly bad idea.
You have to be kidding me. Not a chance this ever holds up.
Utter nonsense. Dave Winer and Adam Curry invented podcasting. Everyone knows that. Shit I'm sitting here looking at Adam's neon "Podfather" sign as I write this...
Documentation of the IT Conversations podcast launched in September 2003. And Dave Winer's podcast of Chris Lydon's interviews earlier that month. I know, because it was Chris' podcast that inspired me to create the feed for ITC. http://www.blogarithms.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/29/boguspodcastingpatent/
Posted by: rds.com
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July 29, 2009 1:06 PM
funnily enough someone started the patent procedure on RSS, about a year after it had been invented by someone else (it wasn't followed through, ones hopes because the person in question thought better of the idea)
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78025336
They must be kidding, they must really been kidding.Dave Winer and Adam Curry invented podcasting.
with some creativity, even the http protocol implements this patent.
patent -> http
episodic media -> data
channel -> url
remote publisher -> server
channel dedicated to the episodic media -> 307 redirect url (or page with links being updated)
...
Webcomics also where around at that time. I (and probably many others) have created scripts to download new pages as they arrive way before 2003.
Which begs the question, if someone implements
"A method for providing episodic media, the method comprising: providing a user with access to a channel dedicated to episodic media, wherein the episodic media provided over the channel is pre-defined into one or more episodes by a remote publisher of the episodic media",
and someone else implements
"receiving a subscription request to the channel dedicated to the episodic media from the user; automatically downloading updated episodic media associated with the channel dedicated to the episodic media to a computing device associated with the user in accordance with the subscription request upon availability of the updated episodic media, the automatic download occurring without further user interaction; and providing the user with: an indication of a maximum available channel depth, the channel depth indicating a size of episodic media yet to be downloaded from the channel and size of episodic media already downloaded from the channel, the channel depth being specified in playtime or storage resources, and the ability to modify the channel depth by deleting selected episodic media content, thereby overriding the previously configured channel depth."
who is violating the patent?
This is going to bring some initial turbulence in the area of Free media, but I think eventually they will find its so wide spread that it's going to be impossible to corral something that's been free to use for a decade! Good Luck to the patent holder.
this is a bureaucratic mess that could cross legislative interests between the USPTO and the US Copyright Office. first the USPTO grant for VoloMedia the patented method to publish episodic media means everything from podcasts made in your bedroom and iTunes TV shows up for distribution could incur a fee. the US Copyright Office on the other hand has already established statutory rates (and are still mulling over more propositions) for these types of media distribution. and this potential additional 'licensing fee' after all the hubbub would piss a lot of people and MNC's off. the way the internet is used evolves at lightning speed compared to today's legislative practices, and this patent would only point out how archaic this system is; it shouldn't hold up.
"Episodic Media"? Isn't the concept as old as series of novels, such as JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, written in 1917 and (I'm sure) preceded by countless others?
I have for a long time wondered how it comes the the patent office isn't liable for the obvious damage they are causing to the markets when they issue yet another ridiculous patent on a well known concept from the traditional world.
Everything else in the US seems to be liable for their foolish and not so foolish actions.
Adding a computer or internet transport to a well known business model is not in and by itself an inventive step as far as I am concerned and I think it should fall on the 'not obvious to someone in the trade' requirement of patent law.
If Volomedia had come anywhere near **teaching us how** to podcast we would have all heard of them in 2003 when podcasting was kinda new. Winer and Curry were **teaching us how** to podcast back then and anything to the contrary is so, so, so mistaken.
What about all the DVRs "downloading" episodic content from digital cable and satellite? I think TiVo came out in -- what was it -- 2000? 2001?
I like it. Very much. And I can see how it has grown organically from where you where yesterday (and from before that too) which is cool.