Patents based on prior art should be thrown out, and the so-called inventor charged for legal costs. Maybe a "Burst" of heavy fines will put a damper on this kind of garbage.

You do not have the faintest idea at all what you are talking about. Burst incented the IPOD in 1991. That is the grant date of their patent for an audio video transceiver with compression means.

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,963,995.PN.&OS=PN/4,963,995&RS=PN/4,963,995

If the information was so "already available" as Apple says, why did it take Apple over 1.5 decades to implement?

here's why....

http://burstingsquidoo.com/Treatises/Treatise%20-%20Patent%204963995.html

Patent trolls: die die die. For adding costs to consumers without doing any real "inventing". For breeding a new bunch of lawyers.

Teleportation is probably not implemented because someone has already held the patents to it and ready to sue anyone that actually plans to sell a working teleporter. I want my iTeleporter!

If Jobs were to really address the problem he is facing with his stockholders he was cause to much panic. They would rather concentrate on the UK release of the i-phone. Burst has valid patents, Apple is infringing, the loss in court will not be a shock to burst shareholders. A cut in i-phone pricing cant mask this problem. Sorry, this is a game over situation. ignorance is bliss only for so long...

Bob Cringely said it best on January 12, 2006:

Here's something I've noticed lately: Big companies believe in patents as long as they are talking about THEIR patents. Because Burst is three guys in an office in Santa Rosa, companies like Microsoft and Apple tend not to take them seriously. They forget that Burst spent 21 years and $66 million developing that IP, and the company has code that is still better than anything else on the market -- code not even Microsoft has seen. Unless someone buys the company first, Burst is going to win this and eventually license the world. They are in the right, for one thing, and in practical terms they now have as much money for legal bills as any of their opponents. Apple can't win this one.

Dirt Road sez "Patents based on prior art should be thrown out"

I doubt if you can give one patent that does not have prior art.

Dirt Road sez "Patents based on prior art should be thrown out"

There is no patent that does not have prior art. Think about it.

suits like these have come up before, and they will come up again.

the problem is that when you read the patent filings, an ipod-like device is clearly not what burst had in mind when the thing was filed. if anything, it looks like they should be suing apple for final cut pro instead.

really, all the ipod is, is a portable computer. a plain old mac can do everything the ipod can, especially a laptop, as it's portable. the only difference is the mac can do a whole lot more, and you can't fit it in your pocket.

What I read is Lang spent about twenty years and $66 million developing these patents. Apple and Microsoft talked to him then came out with their own systems using his ideas. Microsoft paid Burst $60 million last year for a license and Apple thought MSF would win their case against Burst. This is not a cut and dried patent troll case and Apple may not prevail.