Apple, Google and Napster named in video download patent suit

[Leecher]

Filed under: Portable Video
Apple just can't catch a break this week, what with all those backdating shenanigans and lawsuits galore. Now it's been lumped with such ilk as Google and Napster in a patent lawsuit regarding online video distribution. What Napster has to with this is anyones guess, but Apple and Google seem appropriate (and well enough funded) targets for the suit. The patent, owned by now-defunct online movie service Intertainer, was filed in 2001 and granted in 2005, and apparently outlines the business model for providing video from multiple providers to consumers on the TV and the Internet. Sounds rather vague to us, and it's apparently vague enough to encompass Napster, so we're not quite sure how this one will hold up in court -- probably a lot better than we would figure. Intertainer was an early entrant into the online movie biz, but got beat out by Movielink, and now makes a living licensing its patented technology and bothering other companies that are apparently better at profiting from its ideas than it is.

[Thanks, Mike]
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