(credit: EFF)
Have you ever talked about the lyrics of a much-loved song with a friend? Perhaps the discussion took place online? It might surprise you to discover that you’ve gotten pretty darn close to infringing a US patent.
This month, EFF’s Stupid Patent of the Month feature has singled out Patent No. 9,401,941, owned by CBS Interactive, which has claimed its monopoly to “processing user interactions with song lyrics.” The patent’s big reveal is a “computer-implemented system” for “processing interactions with song lyrics.” Supposedly, this adds to existing technology by allowing a user to select particular parts of songs, view a menu, and then write an interpretation of a selected line.
Of course, even if such an idea were patent-worthy, there were already websites offering that feature before the patent’s priority date of 2011. The most notable is perhaps Rap Genius, a website founded in 2009 that is now simply called Genius.
Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – How talking about song lyrics got patented