“Patent Bust” of Seer Systems’ Electronic Music Patent Sunk By USPTO Action

San Francisco, CA – October 29, 2010 – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected the EFF’s “Patent Busting” re-examination attack on Seer Systems’ patent #5,886,274. According to the EFF’s website, Seer and its ’274 patent were “Wanted by EFF Marshalls” for “Crimes Against the Public Domain; Willful Ignorance of Prior Art; Eggregious Display of Obviousness.” The USPTO disagreed, ruling that the core original claims of the ’274 patent are valid, as are six newly-added claims. From a technical standpoint the entire affair cost Seer only a few minor amendments of wording that rendered three of the original claims in the ‘274 patent no longer necessary.

Founder and Chairman Stanley Jungleib, responds: “Seer’s ‘274 Patent inventing scalable digital audio distribution has now withstood all reasonable tests and challenges. Seer Systems has already settled litigation with Microsoft, Yamaha, and Beatnik. Thanks to EFF this Patent has now received enough attention that no one in the MIDI or audio domain can claim ignorance of its validity and implications. Seer Systems looks forward to licensing responsible customers under fair terms. And, as necessary, we will continue defending our intellectual property consistent with our substantial record.”

Seer’s outside litigation counsel, Alex Weyand of the Weyand Law Firm, San Francisco, commented: “Why the EFF did not contact our client first, and instead chose to learn the hard way, remains a mystery.”

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Seer Systems is not clear about the motives behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s decision to place Seer Systems on its list today. In truth, Seer Systems is a small company that invested all it could to develop valuable technology only to have others try to take it away, without authority, for their commercial gain.

Putting a stop to this by the proper exercise of legal rights is all that Seer Systems is trying to do. EFF never contacted Seer Systems about how its technology is being illegally exploited or why it thinks it is wrong to stop others from violating the law and acting unfairly.

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9910 CANADIAN MUSICIAN CVR
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1999.10 Game Developer Ad

1999.09 www.prorec.com: Reality
1999.09 www.prorec.com: SurReal

1999.09.15 SurReal Mix Oct.
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Operating System: Windows 95 or Windows 98
CPUs: Intel Pentium II; AMD K5 (reduced performance)
CPU Speed: 133 MHz (200 MHz for capture)
Memory: 40 Mb, 64 Mb recommended
Drives: Hard drive with 20Mb free space, CD for retail installation.

Audio output: virtually any audio card with DirectSound drivers. Select SoundBlaster output emulation if possible. (Use the demo downloads to test functionality.)

Partial list of supported sound cards: all Creative Labs; Ensoniq Audio PCI; E-mu Creation Studio; Turtle Beach MultiSound Pinnacle, Fiji, Daytona, Malibu, Tahiti, Monterey; Terratec EWS64L; Guillemot MAXIsound; Creamware Triple DAT; Hoontech Sound Track series; AVM Apex and Summit SST.

Note regarding laptops: if your laptop has operating DirectSound drivers but produces stuttered output, try to defeat the “Advanced Power Management” feature. {all ® or ™ as appropriate}

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SeerMusic Downloads:

All downloads place an .exe on your desktop.
To explore SeerMusic™ all you need is the Remixer. After installation, go to the “SeerMusic” page
Seer reMixer Engine [18.1Mb]

Reality is the professional synthesizer and one of the very few ways in the universe of accessing genuine Sondius physical modeling. The Reality Manual is in the archive at 1999.08. For compelling fidelity try to access its output digitally (for example, via S/PDIF).
Reality 1.5 Demo [7.8Mb]

SurReal is the playback-oriented workhorse:
SurReal Demo (small) [3.5Mb]
SurReal Demo (large) [18.6Mb]

Remixer is the basic player.

Seer WAVmaker additionally converts SeerMusic™ and General MIDI files into WAV or MP3 files at the highest possible audio quality, regardless of the speed of your computer.

Seer WAVmaker also includes all the features of Seer reMixer+ Internet Music Player.

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1999.08.01 Reality 1.5 Review; Game Developer: 4 stars

1999.08.01 SurReal review Computer Music (UK)-gushing

1999.08.15 SurReal Review; Eq Sept (anderton)

On March 23, 1999, the US Patent Office issued Patent #5,886,274 to Seer System. The title of the patent is “System and Method for Generating, Distributing, Storing, and Performing Musical Work Files.” (Check out this scan of the patent from the Seer Systems archives.)

Due to the EFF’s “Patent Busting” campaign, there seems to be considerable confusion around what exactly the “274 patent” describes. The EFF has gone so far as to call it “bogus” and “illegitimate,” but when pressed for their justification, the EFF respond that “free speech” is sufficient justification. They also point to Seer Systems’ founder, Stanley Jungleib’s book General MIDI as “prior art” that makes the patent invalid by describing the same music publishing system (in the section titled “GM2000″).

Does General MIDI describe the system described in the 274 patent? Does it even describe the SeerMusic system that Seer Systems released three years after General MIDI’s first publication?

Not at all.

In 1994 when Jungleib completed the first draft, and even in 1995 when the book was finally published, the devices with which musicians worked were still hardware devices – mostly keyboards and drum machines. Computers were used for sequencing and for editing synth programs, and Internet access was becoming increasingly commonplace, but software synths were simply not the sort of thing you could buy at a retail music store.

Jungleib wrote GM2000 to help synth manufacturers understand the difficulties facing composers and to encourage manufacturers to support General MIDI. GM2000 proposed a future version of GM in which a playback device could help hardware devices determine the most appropriate sounds for performing a composer’s work. If all else fails, the synths would have GM-mapped sounds to fall back on. In other words, the system would make the “worst case” a bit less bad.

Jungleib did not describe an end-to-end software solution that ensures that a composer’s work will sound identical on another system. Jungleib envisioned that system in October of 1995, months after the release of General MIDI. He then reassembled the Seer Systems design team and began work on Reality, the first step towards the SeerMusic system, in which he implemented the system that would eventually be protected by the “274 patent.”

If you’ve ever considered publishing a MIDI file of your own, but gave up on the idea because of all of the variables between you and your potential listeners, the difference between GM2000 and the 274 patent are obvious.

BTW – If you don’t have a copy of General MIDI, you can read it for free online and see for yourself.

Intel-qualified multimedia vendors taught to use SeerMusic.