Digital Media Patent Could Disrupt More Than The Apple Cart

A company formed after the burst of the Internet bubble to control assets of defunct ZapMedia Inc. has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that could potentially send shock waves through industries that distribute digital audio and video content over the Internet.

ZapMedia Services, which now owns Patent No. 7,020,704, has put it up for sale. Organizing negotiations, Atlanta-based Lava Group Inc., which manages patents and intellectual property, has been fielding calls from executives becoming aware of ZapMedia's portfolio.

ZapMedia's patent describes a distribution model for audio and video digital content, a combination of streaming media from a portal to many devices, and what some might consider a digital rights management platform.

The patent, issued in March, is the first in the portfolio to gain approval. Three other patents are pending, said Lava Group president and CEO Robert Frohwein on Wednesday. "The patent covers content that's acquired and licensed over the Internet, as well as content that you may have acquired or licensed and uploaded to the portal," he said. "Until now, the patent has really flown under the radar because it's not assigned to a particular company. Claim No. 7 is particularly important."

Claim No. 7, which pertains to the media asset management system, is expected to create the most controversy. The first portion of the claim refers to a user account that corresponds with at least one person, and a virtual media asset library with reference to multiple assets the user has a license to access. The second portion of Claim No. 7 refers to software that can connect the media portal to more than one device.

Andrew Floam, an attorney with Rockville, Md.-based intellectual property law firm Edell, Shapiro & Finnan, wrote and filed the patent in 1999, when he worked at the Atlanta intellectual property law firm Needle and Rosenberg. "I haven't thought about the patent in years and wondered what happened to it," he said. "I thought the idea was a little out there at the time because no one distributed audio and video media assets on the Internet."

Floam remembers ZapMedia having difficulties gaining the rights to distribute media assets over the Internet. Ironically, Apple Computer Inc. may not have been the initial innovator to many of these emerging technologies and could become subject to third-party patent rights, he said.

ZapMedia, however, isn't interested in enforcing the rights. Instead, the company plans to leave that up to the patent's new owners.

But even after the patent changes hands, for a company to successfully enforce a patent, it must withstand challenges, according to John Ward, partner at patent strategist Greenberg Traurig LLP. Many times disputes are settled with reasonable royalties, he said. It's a cost of doing business.

Maybe so, but Ward seemed most impressed that ZapMedia's patent dates back to the fall of 1999, two years before the birth of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod. CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod on Oct. 23, 2001, as a Mac-compatible product with a 5-GB hard drive that put 1,000 songs in your pocket, according to Wikipedia.

"The patent seems fairly broad and could potentially apply to some companies providing downloadable music and movies," Ward said. "When you enforce a patent there are many ways to interpret the actual terms of the patent, which can narrow the scope and present obstacles to enforce."

A diagram in the patent describes the business model and the method in which content would flow from multiple media providers through an Internet portal and to consumers. On the surface, some industry experts believe the drawing appears similar to the distribution model used by Apple's iTunes Music Store, RealNetwork's Rhapsody, MTV/Microsoft's URGE, Napster, MSN Music, Wal-Mart Music, as well as movie download sites Vongo, CinemNow, MovieLink and others.

The patent is owned by ZapMedia Services, successor to the assets of ZapMedia Inc., a privately held $30 million funded Atlanta-based start-up that developed the technology. In its heyday, ZapMedia co-branded products and services with others, such as Microsoft Corp., and inked a $270 million deal with media conglomerate Gannett Co. Inc. ZapMedia focused on convergence technology, bringing custom entertainment to consumers. The goal was to allow consumers to access movies, music, video via the Web, as well as play CDs and DVDs through their existing televisions and stereos. The ZapMedia "ecosystem," developed in-house, consists of the ZapStation hardware reference design (device), ZapMediaEngineSM (software), and the ZapMedia Entertainment Service (portal).

That's IT?

This is the claims section of the patent:

What is claimed is:

A system for managing the distribution of licensed media assets, the system comprising: a portal comprising at least one server computer executing a media library database server application that manages access to a master library of licensed media assets by establishing a virtual private library for each of a plurality of users, each of said virtual private libraries comprising licensed media assets of said master library that are licensed by one of said plurality of users and that can be accessed by a plurality of media player devices via one or more communication networks; a first media player device being operated by a first user and being operable to: communicate with said portal to access licensed media assets in a virtual private library for said first user; receive a new licensed media asset independent from the portal and that is not currently included in the master library or the virtual private library for said first user; and transfer the reference of the new licensed media asset to the portal for inclusion in the virtual private library for said first user; and a second media player device being operated by said first user and being operable to: communicate with said portal to access licensed media assets in said virtual private library for said first user, including said new licensed media asset, of which the license includes multiple device access to the media assets.

The system of claim 1, wherein said media library database server application of the portal manages usage rights of users to licensed media assets.

A media asset management portal for enabling a user to access media assets via a plurality of media player devices, the media asset management portal comprising: a virtual media asset library associated with at least one user account which contains at least one media asset that a user associated with the user account is licensed to use on at least two media player devices, the virtual media asset library enabling each of the at least two media player devices corresponding to the user account to access the least one media asset; and a network interface for controlling communication between the at least two media players and the virtual media asset library via a communications network; a master media library database application that synchronizes the at least one media asset contained in the virtual media asset library with at least one of the media player devices by receiving the at least one media asset from one of the at least two media player devices and synchronizing the at least one media asset with the virtual media asset library.

The media asset management portal of claim 3, wherein the master media library database application synchronizes the at least one media asset received from one of the at least two media player devices with another of the at least two media player devices.

A portal for enabling a user to manage media assets across a plurality of associated media player devices via a communications network, the portal comprising: a virtual media asset library for storing a plurality of licensed media assets associated with a user account, the user account specifying a plurality of media player devices associated with the user account; and an application associated with the virtual media asset library which enables each of the plurality of media player devices associated with the user account to access at least one of the plurality of licensed media assets via a communications network, to synchronize the plurality of licensed media assets between the virtual media asset library and a local database residing on at least one of the media player devices and is configured to receive a new media asset from one of the plurality of media player devices and add the new media asset to the virtual media asset library.

A portal for enabling user to manage media assets across a plurality of associated media player devices via a communications network, the portal comprising: a virtual media asset library for storing a plurality of licensed media assets associated with a user account, the user account specifying a plurality of media player devices associated with the user account; and application associated with the virtual media asset library which enables each of the plurality of media player devices associated with the user account to access at least one of the plurality of licensed media assets via a communications network, to synchronize the plurality of licensed media assets between the virtual media asset library and a local database residing on at least one of the media player devices and the application is configured to: receive a new media asset from one of the plurality of media player devices; add the new media asset to the virtual media asset library; and enable another of the plurality of media player devices to access the new media asset.

A media asset management system comprising: a portal comprising: a user account corresponding to at least one user; and a virtual media asset library for storing a reference to a plurality of media assets which the user has a license to use; and a plurality of media player devices associated with the user account, the plurality of media player devices including a media asset portability application that enables the user to access the plurality of media assets referenced in the virtual media asset library across the plurality of media player devices.

The media asset management system of claim 7, wherein the media asset portability application is configured to post a new media asset added to the corresponding media player device to the virtual media asset library for access by the other of the plurality of media player devices.

The media asset management system of claim 7, wherein the media asset portability application is configured to move one of the plurality of media assets from the corresponding media player device to another of the plurality of media player devices.

The media asset management system of claim 7, wherein the media asset portability application is configured to provide at least one of the plurality of media assets from one of the media player devices to another of the plurality of media player devices.

As I read it, the patent appears to describe a system where media assets continually reside on the "virtual media library", located at a remote server, to which access is granted to licensed user accounts, but which does not explicitly contemplate the permanent transfer of media assets from the virtual media library to a private media player equipped with a mass storage device.

It looks more like the media player devices contemplated are more akin to internet radios than an MP3 device like an iPod.

The closest this patent comes to describing a situation where media may actually reside long-term on the "media player" is in Section 6, where reference is made to a "local database residing on at least one of the media player devices", but from the context it appears that this local database is merely a database of the media to which the user had obtained a license, not the media itself. This may be inferred by the entirety of the section, which reads more completely a "local database residing on at least one of the media player devices and is configured to receive a new media asset from one of the plurality of media player devices and add the new media asset to the virtual media asset library."

Thus we see that even here, the new media asset is added not to the media player, but only to the virtual media asset library, which is clearly defined as being remotely located.

This patent is even less than it appears.

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