via Seer Systems
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Seer Systems Renews Demand for Accountability, Retraction from EFF
Portola Valley, California, USA - Seer Systems, CEO, Stanley Jungleib has renewed his demand for accountability at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a retraction for false and defamatory statements made by the civil liberties organization.
In a move that should alarm all independent inventors and software developers, the EFF has come to the aid of corporations seeking to profit by denying the validity of Seer's patent (US Patent #5,886,274) on real-time music distribution systems. Seer Systems created the first host-based software synthesizer in 1992 and the first real-time interactive music distribution system, SeerMusic, in 2000. In 1999, Seer was awarded the '274 patent for the technology on which SeerMusic was based.
The EFF has repeatedly called the '274 patent "bogus" and "invalid" and engaged in a campaign to have the '274 patent revoked, listing Seer Systems on its Patent Busting project's "Wanted" list for "willful ignorance of prior art." By "prior art," the EFF refers to Jungleib's own 1995 book, General MIDI, which it asserts is a blueprint for SeerMusic. Music industry leaders and legal experts disagree and have already defended Seer in court cases dating back to 2004.
For the complete text of Jungleib's statements on the controversy, see
http://seersystems.com/?p=61."
I remember Seer Systems Reality which made it on this "first too" list. I added Seer Systems 1992 claim to the list.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
3 comments:
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IMO, this patent is bogus and way over-broad. If the patent office wasn't so overworked, I doubt that it would be granted.
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: I worked for Beatnik, a company that was sued by Seer. I knew Stanley before this, as well as a few other people once at Seer. We ended up settling, because we couldn't afford to fight it.
Not to mention that there is a substantial school of thought - for instance, current EU law - which regards software patents as bogus by definition (and he repeats, several times, that it's a software patent). And - well, unless I'm missing something really specific about this patent, it's pretty much an attempt to patent any system that sends MIDI data over anything that isn't a MIDI interface... which would fail on grounds of obviousness, never mind any other qualification. (Unfortunately, the obviousness test for patents was all but abolished when this one was granted, although it's been strengthened again recently.)
ReplyDeleteMr Jungleib should perhaps make himself a nice cup of STFU and sit this one out, and accept that the criticisms levelled at him are far from obviously false or defamatory. Or perhaps, if he is convinced of the damage they are causing a company that hasn't done a damned thing of note since 1999, he could issue libel proceedings... in England.
Wasn't Dave Smith working for Seer Systems a while ago ?
ReplyDeleteSee : http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/about/index.php
He was the president of this company for a while.
Not that i want to accuse him of anything. I'm not sure i fully understand this patent anyways.
He doesn't work for them anymore, anyways.
I'm glad he's making hardware again :)