Burst.com’s press release verbatim:
Burst.com, Inc., today announced today that it has signed an agreement in principle to settle its case against Apple, Inc. ending almost 2 years of litigation. Apple agreed to pay Burst a one-time payment of $10 million cash in exchange for a non-exclusive license to Burst’s patent portfolio, not including one issued U.S. patent and 3 pending U.S. patent applications related to new DVR technology. Burst agreed not to sue Apple for any future infringement of the DVR patent and any patents that might issue from the pending DVR-related applications.
The $10 million patent license provides Apple with the right to use Burst’s intellectual property in its own technology and products, without further consideration. Burst, however, retains the right to enforce its patent portfolio against others.
Burst plans to continue identifying and evaluating companies who represent licensing opportunities and intends to diligently pursue those likely to yield suitable returns. Burst does not plan to announce specific names of suspected infringing products or companies in advance of negotiating with them or filing litigation to enforce its patent rights. Burst does not plan to publicly release any internal assessments of market segment size or dollar value of those markets, although it believes that they are significant enough to warrant the aggressive pursuit of patent licensing.
Court costs, expenses and attorney’s fees in connection with the settlement of the litigation with Apple will reduce proceeds to the Company to approximately $4.6 million. According to the agreement, payment to Burst is to be made promptly after signing of a definitive settlement agreement. Burst’s Board of Directors has indicated that it will be considering a cash distribution to Burst’s shareholders from the Apple license fee, in an amount to be determined.
The company will not be further publicly addressing issues or answering questions regarding subjects that the Company’s Board of Directors has not yet adequately addressed or resolved, or regarding subject matter that the company’s legal counsel has advised is either privileged in nature, or should not be discussed for strategic or other reasons. As the Board and management make further determinations regarding the matters discussed in this Release and other matters involving the Company’s future operations, the Company may, at its discretion, make further announcements to all shareholders and will also post those announcements on the Company’s web site.
Source: Burst.com, Inc.
All of that for $10 million? Go flip over Jobs’ sofa cushions. Sheesh. At least Burst tagged Microsoft for $60 million.
MacDailyNews Note: For those celebrating the holiday, Happy Thanksgiving and, as always, thanks for visiting MacDailyNews and iPodDailyNews!
Let’s see – Microsoft pays 60 Million and Apple pays 10 mili. Does this mean that APPL is now 1/6th of the installed base?
Well, we shall see who streams moe.. aye.
Happy Turkey day all you Yanks and remember YOU are celebrating the birth of your nation!
Apple can use ALL their patents too for no more money.
Looks like Apple turned this around into a pretty good deal for them.
I bet the programmers at Apple are already trawling all bursts patents to see what they can use in the next big thing.
There’s a holiday? Oh, yeah, the day before Black Friday … the one where we eat enough so we can shop, and shop, and SHOP, and never drop!
Happy Bird Day, everyone.
Dave
err more…oops!!! ow that we are registered, will we ever see the ability to edit our remarks? (subtle hint)
and PLEASE!!!! turn off the check box for “notify me of follow-up comments”. You turned it on, you SHOULD know how to turn it off. Let it be our choice. Thanks.
Happy Turkey day all you Yanks and remember YOU are celebrating the birth of your nation!
Uh, that’s Independence Day, otherwise known as the Fourth of July when the US declared its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1776.
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday to give thanks, traditionally to God, for the things that one has at the conclusion of the harvest season. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada.
The earliest Thanksgiving events were held in the British Colonies, at present day Berkeley Plantation in Virginia in 1619 and at Plymouth in present day Massachusetts in 1621.
We Americans have you Brits to thank for the Israel/Palestinian crisis which is fueling the Arab hatred and terrorism. Instead of fixing the problem long ago, you all just dumped it on the ineffective UN. Thanks a lot.
MizuInOz,
Believe us, if it was that easy, we’d have unchecked that box by default already – we are working to correct the issue.
As for editing your feedback, it’s on our “To Do” list.
I hope this settlements paves the way for rentals!!!
Happy Thanksgiving, and God bless our soldiers, who make this day possible.
Thank you to our soldiers and marines, as well as to the Almighty.
Damn, greedy lawyers! 56% of the take!
As for editing your feedback, it’s on our “To Do” list.
How about making a preview page to load after the first entry, with a edit box beneath and a submit /preview button?
This way people can correct grammar, typos, urls, links etc.
Happy Thanksgiving, and God bless our soldiers, who make this day possible.
I’ll agree to that.
Nobody wants conflicts, but unfortunately sometimes its necessary. Better to nip it when it’s small than wait until it can cost hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of lives.
C’mon Pete, blaming the Israeli/Palestinian problem on the Brits is ridiculous (an unnecessary in a thread about patent disputes).
a.) Palestine (now known as Israel) was the ancient land of the jews and prior to the Brits carving out a tiny bit of middle eastern land for the Jews to call their own, the land was largely undeveloped. Transjordan was where the “Palestinians” of that era lived.
b.) The “Palestinians” who now live in Israel were refugees from countries like Jordan and other arab states around Israel who were kicked out of those countries and settled in Israel AFTER the Brits set up the current borders. Israel took them in.
In other words, the arab states around Israel are responsible for the current Israeli/Palestinian conflicts.
Remember, the radical “Palestinians” (and most are not given that Israel is the ONE country in the ME that gives them a vote) are proxy infiltrators on behalf of Iran and Syria.
As for Great Britain, it is sad to see its once great culture succumbing to Islamic pressures. I hope it can turn that tide.
Now back to the patent discussion…
Burst got the short end of the drumstick on this one. 10 Mil? Sounds like “go away” money.
Wow!
I hope they put Burst patents to good use.
$10 mill well spent.
I thought Apple was in the wrong in this fight. Just because they off only paying 10 mill doesn’t mean they weren’t in the wrong either. Sometimes might beats right.
Nonetheless, I look forward to Apple coming out with some cool new products with Burst technology.
Hey, Pete.
Let’s not forget which country (G.B.) was instrumental in the formation of Israel in the first place ( the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate of Palestine come to mind). I’d argue the local Arab governments weren’t exactly happy with Britain at the time. And the resulting Arab-Israeli War of 1948 wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of British foreign policy.
BTW, thanks for the Thanksgiving salutation, and I do believe most of us Yanks are quite pleased with out independent status.
Happy Thanksgiving to All!
You think that is bad Conrad Black paid his lawyers $107 million and they lost the case (Almost sounds like a modern day CEO pay big win or loose).
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071122.BLACK22/TPStory/National
Sorry, Pete. I completely mistook the gist of your original post. Just woke up, and the mind’s not too clear yet.
I’m not sure the Brits are to blame for the current situation, but to the extent British policy led to the formation of Israel, there is some culpability.
Oh ya and Happy Thanks Giving!!
Don’t spend to much on Black Friday, the more we leave on the shelves now the better the sales will be after Christmas.
This is going to pave the way for movies and television rentals on AppleTV and iTunes. This is probably what has been holding up the AppleTV.
Oz is Australia , Pete. We really don’t give a lick about the Pommies.
As for the birth of your nation.. yes July 4th is a the day you celebrate the hypothetical day of independence… actually it is a different day… research your history.
However, the day of Thanksgiving was not just about harvest and making good with the locals (the people you invaded to steal their homeland from them – but that is another issue), It was about giving thanks for escaping the tyranny of “Jolly Ole England”… the despotic place where you had no freedom of speech, no right of habeas corpus, no right to unlawful search and seizure, no freedom of religion or no religion, no freedom of the press, no right to bear arms… you know the bill of rights that were enacted AFTER the signing of the Declaration of Independence & Constitution. (Hmmm, do you still have all of those rights now)?
It has been attributed to the Plymouth Plantation – and if this is what you feel it is related to then consider it was not a day of invitation and harmony. The first Nations people were not invited except for the chief (who was later drawn and quartered and his head put on a staff at Plymouth).
It was not and is not a national holiday – there are none in the USofA – it is enacted by each individual state by choice.
As I said Happy Thanksgiving Day – the birth of America came long before 3 September 1783. That is the day the Treaty of Paris was signed that recognised the sovereignty of the United States of America. It was later ratified by the US congress in 1784.
So what is 4 July 1776 all about? Study up – it may surprise you. But what would an Aussie know.
Cheers.
This lawsuit seems like some form of legal pickpocketing. These types of guys file scores of vaguely worded patents and wait, like spiders for flies, so they can sue and hopefully get rich. Them and lawyers, the perfect couple! Scavengers and leeches.
I give thanks to the Almighty Dollar every day!
Now isn’t that what T-Day is all about? A kickoff for the Xmas buying season. Buy Buy Buy!
The original Thanksgiving was celebrated at Plimouth Colony, Massachusetts, NOT Virginia. The early Virginian colonies FAILED. The present day State of Virginia is trying to rewrite history to drum up tourist dollars, now that they’ve lost gun sales revenue, due to federal restrictions. ;^)
And actually post WWI and WWII carving up of countries and redrawing borders has MUCH to do with a lot of current strife. Look at Iraq, a Brit invention, and the Balkans. These borders were recreated either as punishment for siding with Germany (ie; Bulgaria) or for easy exploitation of resources by Europe and the US (Mid East borders). They had NOTHING to do with either ethnic, tribal or historical and stable borders… Mid East and the Balkans.
They should have put Israel in Utah and let them fight it out with the Mormons! ROFLMFAO
Caution: Beeblebrox’s posting above is dangerously close to historical revisionism.
Readers should know that the history of Jewish and Palestinian demographics is highly charged and much-disputed, caught up as it is in the ideological combat between Zionists and anti-Zionists.
Beeblebrox’s description is NOT a neutral statement of historical reality. Rather, Beeblebrox is only presenting a selective interpretation of certain historical events.
You may or may not be interested in the subject, but whatever you do, don’t take Beeblebrox’s word on it (or mine, for that matter).
Instead, start reading here if you’re interested in a fuller, less biased (but still disputed) account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#Demographics
Am I missing something? DVR??? What has Apple done yet that includes DVR?
How is my post “historical revisionism”?
FACT: The current geographical land is part of (though not all) the Jews’ ancient land.
FACT: There was no Palestinian state (hardly even a population) in the current location of Israel at the end of WWII.
FACT: GB had a right to divide up the land as it so chose given that it was a spoil of war.
FACT: Transjordan (and other nations bordering Israel) kicked out their “Palestinians”, most of whom moved to Israel after the fact.
OPINION: Regardless of where in the ME, GB had set up a homeland for the Jews (and they did deserve one after the holocaust did they not?) the arab and persian nations would have deployed the same tactics against them (unless the new homeland was in Utah I guess
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Show me how any of these are incorrect “Historian”.
BTW, using the logic of some of the posters above, one could argue that GB itself is responsible for the Iraq war. If they hadn’t lost the US revolutionary war then there would have been no US and no US population to eventually elect that evil Bushitler Cheney McChimlper Neocon Cabal.
In fact, Israel would not even be an issue today since, without America, Great Britain would have been over-run by the Germans in WWII and therefore, would not have been in a position to divide up the ME at all. The Germans would have done it instead (no doubt turning most of it over to the Turks).
Care to continue the blame game?
MacDailyNews Take: All of that for $10 million?
Correction: All of that for $4.6 million. The rest goes to the bloodsucking lawyers.
MizuInOz: Let’s see – Microsoft pays 60 Million and Apple pays 10 mili. Does this mean that APPL is now 1/6th of the installed base?
Nah. The reason Apple can settle much more cheaply than MS is because Apple successfully requested the judge to invalidate 14 Burst.com’s patent claims (ouch!) and would have continued with the 22 other claims. Burst’s choices are to continue the litigation and more patent claims may be invalidated, or to settle for a little cash. Apple’s choices are to pay a little cash, or to continue paying lawyers’ fees with the possibility of getting sued again in the future.