The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a bid to cancel a US patent for an online music distribution tool, claiming that the key terms of the invention were disclosed and copied before the patent was ever filed. In a detailed re-examination request, the EFF outlined its concerns that the 'bogus' patent will open the door for numerous lawsuits and restrict the development of related technologies by other innovators.

US patent 5,886,274, aka the '274 patent, relates to technology for grouping different forms of music data together on the same file, distributing the file online and playing it back on users' terminals. The EFF has questioned the patent's validity on the grounds that its creator – digital music expert, Stanley Jungleib – published its essential claims in a book of 1995. This was more than a year before the patent's filing date of July 1997. Titled General MIDI, the book was an overview of the popular MIDI, or Musical Instrument Digital Interface, protocol – an industry standard that controls synchronisation between electronic instruments. At the time he published the book, Jungleib was considered a pioneer in his field.

However, according to the EFF's re-examination request, some of Jungleib's claims were anticipated by the 1993 publications, Sound Blaster: The Official Book, by Richard Heimlich and others, and AudioFile: A Network-Transparent System for Distributing Audio Applications, by Thomas M Levergood. The EFF also highlights other examples of prior art, in the form of several patents for digital audio tools filed and/or granted before Jungleib's 1997 approach to the USPTO.

'Because these prior art references were never considered by the USPTO, they raise substantial new questions of patentability,' says the EFF's request. 'Moreover, the '274 patent is causing substantial public harm by stifling developments in the digital music composition and playback field, and is threatenting to compromise as least two public media standards – MPEG4 and XMF. In fact, the '274 patent has already been asserted against small companies, and is currently threatening others trying to innovate in this field.' One of these firms is mobile device specialist, Beatnik, Inc, which has been sued by the '274 patent's corporate owner, Seer Systems – the company Jungleib founded to market his technologies.

EFF senior IP attorney, Michael Kwun, said: 'Mr Jungleib extensively publicised techniques for music distribution in his book, and he did not seek a patent until after the methods entered the public domain. Patenting technology that has already been publicly disclosed and widely adopted opens the door to lawsuits against legitimate innovators who are creating new products in good faith.'

The EFF is weighing in against the patent under the banner of its Patent Busting Project – an initiative to cancel 'bad patents' in an effort to protect innovators. The group is particularly concerned about the impact of bad patents on small businesses that cannot afford to retain lawyers. 'Every year,' it says, 'numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields.' So far, the project has triggered four re-examinations at the USPTO.

In other patent news, leading IP-management company, CPA, has acquired renowned German patent search organisation, SVPG. The purchase is set to further strengthen CPA's expertise in life-sciences, pharmaceuticals, biotech and engineering – subjects in which SVPG has a long and distinguished history. In a statement, CPA Executive Vice-President of Legal Services, Chris Veator, said: 'We are continuing to expand our portfolio of patent lifecycle services, of which patent research is a critical component. Patent research is an area of strong growth in the outsourced legal services industry and the acquisition of SVPG is a significant part of CPA's growth strategy.'

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