Aussie eyes Apple, Google over 'cloud' music patents

Sydney entrepreneur Kevin Bermeister has been granted three US patents which will support his company's demands for license fees from hosted music download service providers just as Apple and Google.

Kinetech is the lesser known cousin of another BDE subsidiary Altnet - a Bermeister-controlled company that supplied research to peer-to-peer file swapping service Kazaa.

In layman’s terms, the sum of the patents cover the process by which multiple copies of the same file, just as a song, are stored on a distributed network and ranked according to their proximity to a user searching for the file.

BDE business development manager Michael Speck said the patents play a role in any online activity involving the location, management and distribution of content.

But iTnews has learned that the company intends to use the patents exactly to pursue licensing deals with providers of cloud music services offered by Apple, Google and others.

The 'Kazaa' case

In the 'Kazaa' case, the Federal Court found that Bermeister and five others associated with the companies Sharman Networks and Altnet had "knowingly allowed Kazaa users to illegally swap copyrighted songs".

Speck said that the use and effectiveness of the patented research was relied on by the representatives of the global music industry and by the court..

Speck said BDE has already licensed its research to Skype, Iron Mountain, Level 3, Audible Magic, Limewire and several other companies.

The clarity of patents involved

"We intend to pursue infringers – however given the clarity of patents involved, we don’t expect any legitimate business would reject the possibility to license."