No Way!!

[gakto2009]

check this out!!

http://www.skratchworx.com/news3/comments.php?id=1218

[UncleVibes]

N2IT FILES PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT AGAINST
M-AUDIO INSTRUMENTS OVER DISC JOCKEY TECHNOLOGY

Suit Seeks To Stop M-Audio from Selling Torq Conectiv Vinyl/CD product; Claims Product, Which Allows DJs To Control Digital Music with a Record Player, Infringes Patent Held for Final Scratch, Named One of New York Times' 'Best Ideas'


Norfolk, Virginia (April 17, 2009) – N2IT Holding B.V. filed a complaint in federal court against M-Audio LLC alleging that the defendant's Torq Conectiv Vinyl/CD product infringes N2IT's patent on the technology.

The Amsterdam, Netherlands-based N2IT seeks an injunction preventing the use, sale, offer for sale and marketing of M-Audio's Torq Conectiv Vinyl/CD product. N2IT also seeks damages fro M-Audio's alleged past infringement. N2IT claims that M-Audio is infringing the patent it holds for its Final Scratch product, which allows disc jockeys to use a special time-coded record on a record player or its equivalent to manually control and play digital music from a computer. N2IT has also licensed the use of its patents for this technology to other companies.

"Final Scratch is noted as an industry leader, including being ranked one of the 'Best Ideas of 2001' by The New York Times," said John Acquaviva, CEO of N2IT. "The unauthorized use of this technology is irreparably harming our existing business."

According to the lawsuit, N2IT developed, sold, and marketed the highly innovative Final Scratch product. N2IT alleges that M-Audio sells a similar product, Torq Conectiv Vinyl/CD, which functions the same as Final Scratch and as described in N2IT's patent.

"We filed this lawsuit for one simple reason. N2IT's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited. Our system of rewarding inventors for their innovative ideas is
jeopardized when intellectual property rights are ignored," said Jeff Boggs, a Washington, D.C., intellectual property litigation and patent prosecution partner with
Bingham McCutchen LLP, who is representing N2IT.

N2IT's technology created a previously nonexistent industry. Since its inception, the technology has won numerous awards from industry publications, and many of the world's top-ranked DJs use N2IT's technology.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk, is N2IT Holding B.V. v. M-Audio LLC.

It's now time to find & pay good lawyers.
Bad vibes.

[Dj NB]

What is this all about?!

[gakto2009]

heay bobo, i'll call you and give you the details.

[phadedvision]

But...

Just looking at one particular part of the above text:

"The unauthorized use of this technology is irreparably harming our existing business."


I've searched high and low and can't find any existing business at all. The original founders of N2IT were Mark-Jan Bastian and Timothy Self, who formed N2IT, made the first version of Final Scratch and had Jon Acquaviva demo it for them. But Bastian (named on the patents) is now a senior software engineer at TomTom, and Self is VP of Reason's Sales and Marketing. The N2IT websites (www.nn2it.net and www.n2it.nl) have long since gone, but you can certainly dig up plenty of historical info on www.archive.org.

Having got the actual patents awarded in 2006 and 2007, it seems that N2IT's business is now about enforcing the patents by throwing lawsuits at existing businesses to get a licence fee from them. And scanning over the patent, and attempting to decipher the content from the chaff, it would appear that every single DVS purveyor (i.e. anyone who sells a timecode/control signal vinyl with their software) may well be getting a visit from N2IT's legal team at some point.

But why single out M-Audio when they could equally go for Ms Pinky, MixVibes, Virtual DJ, Quad etc etc - or indeed Serato? Perhaps it's that the deep pocketed mighty Avid corporation owns M-Audio, and going for the win against them will put the fear of God into the rest of the DVS industry to simply cave and divvy up the licence fees without a fight.

I'm personally very keen to find out more about this whole thing. Peter Kirn put together a comprehensive timeline of the startings of Final Scratch, but I'm rather more keen to find out exactly who or what N2IT is these days, and if they really do have the current DJ market's nuts firmly in the grip of their lawyer's hands.

The moral of this story - if you've got a great idea, patent it and get paid. And to those using this patented technology - get yourself a lawyer because you're ripping off patented technology.

p.s. happy to hear from anyone connected to this story to fill in the background a little more.

I'm no lawyer, but hopefully the case gets dismissed on account that there IS no business of theirs to be harmed, considering that it doesn't exist. Looks like time will tell at this point.

[UncleVibes]

In France its impossible to get a patent with just an idea.
What is sure in the case of N2IT...
They don't have patents on turntables, vinyl lp technology, time code, computer operating system & sound cards.
All the components of a generic DVS existed before the patent of N2IT. In the early 80's "computer coded vinyl" has been used for different industries purposes.
As an example of how harmful is for international business a patent on just an idea...
Imagine that in 1954 Hergé writer of the comic book The adventures of Tintin "Explorers on the moon" made also a patent for a generic rocket to the moon, a generic moon armored car & more moon goodies... Then Nasa will have to pay a patent to Hergé to conquer the space with a rocket. & maybe also some royalties to Jules Vernes the french writer who wrote "de la Terre à la lune" "From Earth to Moon" at the end of the 19th century.
Should city council & security officers pay tribute to Orwell for it's Big Brother idea of cams in every public/private places? (1984, writen in 1947))

Mixvibes have no more information about N2IT than the one given by Gizmo on Skratchworks. All the development of Mixvibes DVS is made on our experience of digital DJ'ing. We develop our own time code & our own routines.

[UncleVibes]

A lot of potential patents on this cover of the adventures of Tintin. 1954.