[DisCHORDDubstep]

Lol! Just a while back, beats sued a Windows Phone 8 App developer named Rudy Huyn for making an app named "6Studio" since there could have been some confusion with beats studio... Since... You know... A headphone called beats studio can totally be confused with an app on a phone called 6studio. No joke. Anyways, Bose suing beats? Seems legit, though I don't think they'll go after any audiophile companies. They target completely different markets and customers.

 

[crashtest33]

Awesome! Two brands that produce over-priced garbage sueing each other. I hope the both loose a ton of dosh on lawyers fees and go bust (one can hope)!

 

[DisCHORDDubstep]

btw audionewbi Bose is not as bad as u think. their speaker systems (like the soundlink mini and Bose companion II 2.0 speaker system) are pretty good and their ANC headphones are decent (but are being beaten by much cheaper Creatives in terms of overall Sound Quality and ANC ability).

soundlink? I tried the Bose sounddock 10... I have speakers that came free with my computer 10 years ago that have more detail. The sounddock 10 had more bass than the solo hd's I tried a while back. (I actually liked the solo hd's.) and it wasn't very detailed either.

 

[Eddie C]

 

[JWahl]

I can understand both sides of the argument on the patent law.  I agree that it's good to have patent protection on genuinely novel engineering for a limited amount of time.  Then it should be publicly released for the common good.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what that length is here in the U.S.  I do know Bose's ANC tech has been out for what seems like forever and a day and I'm honestly surprised there are still any valid patents on it.  I think a year after utilizing a patent should be plenty of time to have that short monopoly.

 

[cb3723]

Juicy stuff.

+1 on beats suing Yamaha. What happened with that?

I think if it can't get settled in court dre and CEO of Yamaha America duked it out in the car park, fist to fist - as dre is former NWA and straight outta Compton he had the upper hand and opened a can of whoop ass on Yammy dude.

Dre's always gonna beats anyone in a fisty cuffs showdown

 

[brassmonkey]

But somehow I suspect Bose is not during Beats because they use or have ANC technology as so much as for the way Beats is accomplishing it. I'm sure there are plenty of ANC headphones that do not accomplish the task in the same manner as the Bose. You can have the finished outcome trough different processes. I don't think this lawsuit is a case of what they do as rather as how they so it.

 

[jude]

I have to largely agree with @macbob713 here, especially with my experience with two of Bose's later products, the Bose QC15 and the Bose QC20.
 
While I have noise-canceling over-ears with sound quality I prefer over the QC15, I still haven't heard a commercial over-ear actively cancel more noise than the QC15 (and the louder it gets around you, the better (comparatively) the QC15 sounds). The Bose QC20 actively cancels more noise than any other consumer active noise canceler I've yet used, period; and, again, because of this, the louder it gets around you, the better it can sound compared to most other options. That is, the louder the noise around you (especially, in my opinion, when a lot of that noise is low frequency noise, droning noise), the more dealing with that noise becomes perhaps the most important thing to contend with.
 
The QC15 and QC20 are very comfortable, too. Though the QC20 is an in-ear, its eartips are more like  shallow bowls that rest atop your ear canal--it's about the least invasive in-ear I've worn, and I can wear the QC20 all the way from Detroit to Tokyo without issue.
 
Long story short, Bose makes some quality gear, especially with these two flagship travel headphones. (I've briefly heard one of their Bluetooth speaker models, and was also impressed by it.)
 

Bose has always inflamed the high end community, ever since Amar Bose challenged a very negative review published by Consumer Reports on the company's first loudspeaker, the Bose 901. The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which vindicated Bose. Back in the 1970's, the 901 was one of the hottest selling speakers in the US. Good reviews flowed from Stereo Review and other publications until Stereophile published a scathing review critiquing the speaker. The speaker went on as a big seller for decades and numerous improvements were made to it, all the way to the current version 6, which was upgraded again last year. It was the final project Dr Bose worked on prior to his death.
Bose has always been an innovative and creative company. Bose himself taught electrical engineering at MIT, and recruited his top students to careers at Bose. When Dr Bose died, he left controlling interest in the company to MIT so the company would continue on as it did under his management. Bose has and continues to make very good audio products. They are designed for the mass market, and brilliantly marketed. Are they the finest name in sound, no, but they are the best known brand in the world.
I've owned the 901 in the past, and in the right room with good equipment sounds really good. I also used to have a lifestyle surround system, and that was great with movies but just ok with music. Still have my Quiet Comfort 15's, which I use for travel and for patio use, but that's it. For real headphone listening, I'm using the AKG K812 with the SPL Phonitor 2.

 

[cb3723]

But somehow I suspect Bose is not during Beats because they use or have ANC technology as so much as for the way Beats is accomplishing it. I'm sure there are plenty of ANC headphones that do not accomplish the task in the same manner as the Bose. You can have the finished outcome trough different processes. I don't think this lawsuit is a case of what they do as rather as how they so it.

Absolutely, I totally agree and own quietcomfort15 from Bose and original and new beats studio cans and the difference in the ANC between each brand is like chalk and cheese.

Tyll Hertsens did a comprehensive comparative review of ANC quality on a array of different headphones and concluded that Bose were way ahead of the competition in that department - he actually called Bose's ANC as "unbelievable".

But Bose's ANC isn't just significantly more effective than beats ANC alone, it significantly better than any other manufacturer that has this feature.

My guess is like yours - beats are looking to up their ANC feature and the way they are looking to achieve this is where the infringing on patents comes into play.

But the publicity isn't going to hurt either brand - positive or negative, as long as their names are been discussed, especially on a site like this - the marketing dudes from each brand rub their hands with glee.

[VIDEO]http://youtu.be/YDPVryZ773w[/VIDEO]​

Spoiler

If you have never experienced just how über amazing Bose's ANC is - next time you pass your local Apple store, go check them out - they usually have a model out on display to check for yourself - don't play any music though just make sure the ANC is turned on and put them on and find the world on mute - its pretty cool and Bose rule the ANC school.

 

[Makiah S]

I'm sure the suit was timed accordingly.

 
 

Oooh interesting... btw does anyone know the result of the lawsuit in which beats sued yamaha for copying its headphone design?

 
 

  To get publicity sure, but while Beats had plenty of $$$ if I were Bose, I'd rather be up against them on their own rather than their brand new owners with more money than God. 

all good points 
 
I'm kinda hoping though Apple Trashes em in court, I'm not a huge Apple fan, and neither am I a big Bose Fan. But more importantly Bose's timing really urks me, here's to a Victory for Apple! 

 

[Buddhahacker]

 
No, I'm not and I'm just stating my opinion of it and I hate it.

The reason is it limits freedom of us customers and ruins competitiveness and leads to stale product development. Say what if ANC was patented. Person wants a ANC headphone but is picky about the sound quality. Then the person has to rely on that particular headphone company to get a good sounding headphone. Well we all know that is not an easy task, especially to fit into everyone's taste as we all have our different personal taste on how it should be. It could also cause the developer with the patent to become lazy and release half-assed attempts with little efforts as they are the only competitor with that feature. U.S. patent law is a competitiveness edginess dampening system and limit of freedom of choice to the customer. Yes it's good that it protects the development efforts of the developer but again to me, it's more of a harm than it does good. That companies have abused the system doesn't make it better.

Luckily europe has released this. There has to exist some limit at which and how things are patented, in U.S. the bar seems set too low. Patenting certain technologies is just harm for customers in the world.

+1  Completely agree with you.  Patents have become a weapon and not a protection as they were originally envisioned.  I have been involved tangentially in a couple of patent lawsuits and in both cases the company bringing the case knew they would lose  but they used the lawsuit as a way to cause fear in the customers of the targeted company. That targeted companies were smaller than the suing companies and freezing customers along with the costs to fight the suits caused significant financial strain on the smaller companies.  They both won in the end but in both cases they lost about a years worth of revenue due to lost sales, delayed development and legal fees. 

 

[Bansaku]

I think if it can't get settled in court dre and CEO of Yamaha America duked it out in the car park, fist to fist - as dre is former NWA and straight outta Compton he had the upper hand and opened a can of whoop ass on Yammy dude.
 

 
 
Are you insane? $10 says all top level Yamaha employees are required to attain a 5th level black-belt in their choice of any Japanese martial arts! 

 
Anyway, this whole patent war is ridiculous. One thing that hasn't been said is the fact that technically Bose did not create 'active noise cancelling', they simply implemented the concept (first) in their headsets for commercial and military use. Simply put, noise cancelling is physics. You take the source's sound wave and inverse it, therefore the two waves cancel each other out. Theoretically speaking, virtually anyone with a microphone and speaker can create their own active noise cancelling device. Now if Beats actually pulled a China and literally copied Bose's ANC technology circuit for circuit, as opposed to using their in-house developed ANC technology, then, and only then can I see this being a viable patent case. Otherwise Bose is simply trying to pull off a convenient cash grab from the one of the world's richest company. That said, one simply has to listen to each companies' offering and realize that Beats DID NOT copy Bose's technology. And both still sound like poo to my ears!
 

 

 

[StanD]

I find it ironic that Apple is on the other side of a patent lawsuit. I'm sure that Bose can afford a patent attorney well versed.
If the technical aspects line up well for Bose, Apple may be in for a rough ride. If the details of the claims hold up and Beats is held in violation, Apple will be paying up. In any case, the Lawyers always win.

 

[billybob_jcv]

Hmm, I think you guys are missing a major aspect to this lawsuit. Bose isn't suing over the concept of ANC - Bose doesn't own that - it's been around for ages. In fact, I worked with engineers back in the early 1980s at Lockheed that were using ANC to dampen the noise inside the P3 and S3 electronic warfare aircraft. According to Wikipedia, the first patent for ANC was filed in 1934.

Patent lawsuits aren't normally about big concepts like ANC - they are about tiny little details within the design, and that's what we're seeing here:

• Method and apparatus for minimizing latency in digital signal processing systems
• Dynamically configurable ANR signal processing topology
• Dynamically configurable ANR filter block topology
• High frequency compensating
• Digital high frequency phase compensation

The more specific the patent, the easier it is to claim an infringement, and the harder it is to defend the infringement claim. Beats has to show that their design is significantly (in a legal sense) different, or Beats has to show that they own their own patents that cover this infringement claim and that those patents predate the Bose patents. Just because a patent was issued to Bose doesn't mean they absolutely were the first - it just means that the patent lawyers were able to convince the patent office they were the first. Patents that were granted can also later be invalidated. Companies often purchase the earlier, broader patents from the patent owners in order to help defend their current, more specific patents. It helps to establish an unbroken chain of "prior knowledge" that makes it hard for the other company to defeat.

 

[spook76]

Bose has always inflamed the high end community, ever since Amar Bose challenged a very negative review published by Consumer Reports on the company's first loudspeaker, the Bose 901. The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which vindicated Bose. Back in the 1970's, the 901 was one of the hottest selling speakers in the US. Good reviews flowed from Stereo Review and other publications until Stereophile published a scathing review critiquing the speaker. The speaker went on as a big seller for decades and numerous improvements were made to it, all the way to the current version 6, which was upgraded again last year. It was the final project Dr Bose worked on prior to his death.
Bose has always been an innovative and creative company. Bose himself taught electrical engineering at MIT, and recruited his top students to careers at Bose. When Dr Bose died, he left controlling interest in the company to MIT so the company would continue on as it did under his management. Bose has and continues to make very good audio products. They are designed for the mass market, and brilliantly marketed. Are they the finest name in sound, no, but they are the best known brand in the world.
I've owned the 901 in the past, and in the right room with good equipment sounds really good. I also used to have a lifestyle surround system, and that was great with movies but just ok with music. Still have my Quiet Comfort 15's, which I use for travel and for patio use, but that's it. For real headphone listening, I'm using the AKG K812 with the SPL Phonitor 2.

Unfortunately while I agree with then Justice Rehnquist's dissent, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Consumer Reports. The Court stated that Bose needed to prove "actual malice" and they agreed with the US circuit court that Bose had failed to do so.
See Bose Corp. v. Consumer Union, 466 U.S. 485 (1984).

Using a standard developed to encourage free speech about public figures (NY Times v. Sullivan) in a product disparagement case is as Justice Rehnquist stated a ludicrous outcome.