Patent Owner Mass-Sues Over Anti-Piracy Methods

August 29, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology 

Scott Moskowitz – who claims to have patent rights on “signal abstraction” – is suing dozens of companies that use basic anti-piracy techniques. Troll or genius?

According to his company, Mr. Moskowitz invented a form of cryptography designed to stop online piracy; as such, he’s suing Google, Shazam, and dozens of other companies for using his work without consent.

Scott’s company – Blue Spike LLC – filed a whole lot of lawsuits against companies that use common digital water-marking techniques. Amongst them, we find big names such as Soundhound, Viggle, TuneSat, and even Facebook.

However, the question that boils is: does he actually own the patent or is he just exploiting America’s frivolous patent system?

According to the company’s filings, Scott is “a pioneer in this new field between cryptography and signal analysis”; also, it claims that “signal abstracting” is a new way to detect unlicensed music, text and films on the internet.

These are among the most effective techniques available for combating piracy, which are completely undetectable to the thief, yet still enable content owners to easily search through large amounts of data to identify unauthorized copies of their works … “signal abstracting” identifies digital information and material [..] based solely on the perceptual characteristics of the material itself. … Signal abstracting avoids watermarking’s vulnerabilities by leaving the source signal unchanged and catalogues the signal’s identifying features or perceptual characteristics in a database.

Furthermore, the filing also explains that Moskowitz worked in the past with the federal government and several professional societies, that he has two degrees from UPenn, and was mentioned by the Forbes and New York Times for his work.

There are, however, several signs that point to the fact that this may be a hoax. First of all, his website doesn’t list any products/prices or clients. Second, Blue Spike’s office is registered in Tyler, Texas – ground zero for patent trolling cases. As for his genius, Scott’s degrees are from business school.

And since we’ve mentioned America’s crippled patent system, we should underline that Moskowitz applied for his invention in 2000 – the fatidic year when the U.S. Patent Office issued patents for “outstanding” inventions such as swinging on a swing and exercising your cat with a laser beam.

His lawyers say it’s about “going forward with what you believe in and not letting people walk all over your rights.” Blue Spike is not a patent troll, the claim.

Here are some other companies sued by Blue Spike: Rovio; MySpace; Audible Magic; Specific Media; Photobucket; DailyMotion; Soundcloud; Myxer; Qlipso; Brightcove; MediaFire; Zedge; Harmonics; iMesh; Metacafe; iPharoah.

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