14 DAY TRIAL // Apple's patent litigation with Burst.com has taken a new turn when the court issued a Markman Claim Construction Memorandum, and is now looking like an uphill battle.
Based on a crucial 1996 Supreme Court decision by the same name, and also known as a Markman Hearing, the Markman Claim Construction Memorandum is a pre-trial ruling that follows a courthouse debate over the exact meanings found inside a given patent. The scope of the Memorandum is to allow the court to focus on the core of a patent during trial rather than dwell on its language, which can often bog down disputes with technicalities. In some cases, Markman results can practically end a trial even before it begins, by entirely destroying one side's arguments.
In this particular case, the 48-page Markman decision validates many of concerns over computer media transmission patents, all four of which may cover Apple's iPod and iTunes software. The Northern District of California judge handling the case considered that two thirds of Apple's arguments made in the hearing would have created overly narrow definitions of key terms, artificially excluding many of Burst's general but potentially relevant points.
Conversely, other interpretations favored Apple, including the right to exclude auxiliary digital ports as transmitters, which could exclude the iPod's dock connector as well as other peripheral ports, since ruling that metadata and playlists could not count as editing software.
Burst's case is helped by its track record in past lawsuits such as the successfully won settlement from Microsoft in 2005 over claims that Windows Media Player violated similar patents. The deal netted Burst a $60 million payout in exchange for a non-exclusive license for Microsoft to use Burst technology.