This November, digital vinyl as we now know it will turn 10 years old. This setup is pretty simple in theory: instead of music, put encoded timecode on a record, then decode that timecode to provide information about where the record is in relationship to the needle. The idea is basic enough that, patent or no patent, it was inevitable that various developers would pursue the technique (and the very difficult work of implementation). Simulate the effect of scratching or needle dropping on a computer, and you’ve got virtual DJing, as found in products from Serato, Stanton, Native Instruments, Ms. Pinky, and others.

And as of Friday, it seems that the ongoing saga of a dispute over digital vinyl, beginning with the 2006 "divorce" of digital DJ titans Stanton Electronics and Native Instruments, may be over. NI released a statement Friday saying they had not only settled a US civil action patent case over their use of digital vinyl in Traktor Scratch, but had agreed to license the technology from N2IT Holdings, the US patent owners for digital DJing.

Apologies for the cat photo cliche, but … this involves patent law. We’d better have something cute and furry around to get through it.

The conclusion — the two have settled, Traktor Scratch is licensed per-use from N2IT, and N2IT’s patents are valid:

Native Instruments acknowledges the validity of patents held by N2IT, and has now fully licensed their usage worldwide for its TRAKTOR SCRATCH digital DJ system and related products.

The patents held by N2IT relate to general principles of digital music playback using time-code records, which are being utilized in TRAKTOR SCRATCH as well as in other manufacturers’ digital DJ systems with time-code control.

Acknowledging the validity of N2IT’s patents is actually pretty sweeping. You can read N2IT’s primary patent on Google Patent Search. The key words here are that N2IT patented the basic idea of using a turntable with encoded timecode on it for DJing. Theoretically, that could open up other digital DJ products to patent liability — keeping in mind that NI is a special case, because it was a development partner on N2IT’s FinalScratch product and was familiar with the technology.

How We Got Here: A FinalScratch History Timeline

I’m neither a patent lawyer nor a historian of digital DJ technology, so I quickly get out of my depth with the twists and turns this plot has taken. But I can offer at least a basic timeline of what’s happened, which puts today’s digital DJing in some context — albeit a somewhat strange context.

It goes something like this:

Are you making music without real acoustic instruments? You know, in, like, virtual reality? Then you may have stepped into a strange, alternate dimension. Let’s call it, for the sake of argument, The Gibson Zone. They control the horizontal. They control the vertical. They invented what you’re doing … right now.

Or, at least, that seems to be the message sent by a recent patent dispute between Gibson Guitar Corporation and Guitar Hero developer Activision. (Harmonix, the original Guitar Hero developer, has moved on to Rock Band.)

I know what you’re thinking: maybe Gibson claims to have invented the guitar, or the Guitar Hero controller looks a little too much like an Epiphone or something. Ah, but that might actually make some sort of logical sense, and this is the topsy-turvy world of intellectual property. In fact, both Harmonix and Activision already have licenses with Gibson for their guitars.

Instead, Gibson is arguing they own the rights to anything that can “simulate participation in a concert,” which they patented in 1999. (Look out, air guitar lovers.) Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in patent law, but being the layperson that I am, I would assume the original Gibson patent would have some passing similarity to Guitar Hero.

System and method for generating and controlling a simulated musical concert experience [Google Patents]

Well, let’s review. The Gibson patent is described as follows:

“A musician can simulate participation in a concert by playing a musical instrument…”

Okay, with you so far.

“…and wearing a head-mounted 3D display that includes stereo speakers.”

Nope. Lost. They do know that Guitar Hero is not available for Virtual Boy, right?

At the very least, it looks like Apple is working on significant new music software features, as you might expect. But depending on how you read their patents, new music hardware — even touchscreen hardware — could be in store.

Apple is a big company with a lot of intellectual property, so teasing out patents can be difficult. But, as others have observed before, looking for Dr. Gerhard Lengeling, the Emagic founder who came to Apple along with his company, reveals interesting results:

20060278058: Frameless musical keyboard
20060272485: Evaluating and correcting rhythm in audio data
20060022956: Touch-sensitive electronic apparatus for media applications, and methods therefor
20050288805: Providing synchronized audio to multiple devices
20050204906: Method and apparatus for simulating a mechanical keyboard action in an electronic keyboard
20050204904: Method and apparatus for evaluating and correcting rhythm in audio data
20050145099: Method and apparatus for enabling advanced manipulation of audio
20040125122: Method of manipulating an audio and/or video signal in a graphical user interface (GUI) and a computer readable medium containing a program code for said manipulation
20040125083: Method of controlling movement of a cursor on a screen and a computer readable medium containing such a method as a program code

Lengeling Query on the US Patent and Trademark Office

Reader Doug Joyce, who sent in the link, observes:

There seems to be ample evidence of a touch screen interface for the next Apple offering. There are a few other interesting tidbits in the patent applications as well if you’re into to reading this stuff.

Some of this is old news: synchronized audio to multiple devices was rolled right into the operating system in the form of network communication and device aggregation features.

But what’s that about a “frameless music keyboard”? Or a “touch-sensitive media device”?

Let’s talk about the touch-sensitive media device first.

Remember patent 0060026536? It’s the multi-touch, gestural patent Apple filed that was clearly the precursor of the Apple iPhone. Here’s the curious thing: the iPhone, as demonstrated at the Macworld keynote, isn’t all that focused on multi-touch. With the exception of Apple’s clever zooming gesture, most gestures are single-touch. Most are horizontal and vertical strokes similar to what you can already do on laptop touchpads.

A lot of what gets put into patents never shows up in shipping products, but I would be very surprised if Apple’s multi-touch abilities didn’t start to spread to new stuff. Touchscreens and eventually multi-touchscreens are likely to appear on more computers, PC and Mac alike. And other devices have likely lacked touchscreens only because the digitizer hardware — and the processors to deal with tracking multiple touches — hadn’t yet reached the right economy of scale, something that’s likely to happen soon (the iPhone in June being a good indicator). Phones have the advantage of subsidies from the phone carriers — the iPhone would presumably cost hundreds more if it didn’t have Cingular reducing the cost to get you on a 2-year plan. But the touch trend is likely to continue.

And that brings us back to the original patent. Could Apple in fact be working on a music mixer or other touch-enabled music interface? Or was this just a demonstration of an idea they had, and not a working product? Time will tell. I’ll repeat my concerns: touch is great in its flexibility, but losing tactile feedback is not — maybe something Apple themselves have discovered. But that’s unlikely to stop manufacturers from integrating touch into products for musicians in the near future, whether it’s Apple or someone else. And it won’t just be the Lemur.

Okay, no remaining stories this week will have headlines in the form of a question; I promise. “NAMM: New DJ Hardware????”

With the Web abuzz about Apple’s latest patent, filing, it’s worth reading the actual patent, 0060026536. Like all patent filings, this research may never translate to a shipping product. But it does make for good reading, and it clears up some issues — the most important one being this is about gestures, not specific hardware. Oh, and yes, Apple is working on a touchscreen music mixer:

Full-size keyboards have one problem: they’re big. We’ve seen roll-up pianos, but limp pieces of vinyl with membrane action aren’t much fun to play. Ever looked at your keyboard and just wished you could fold it up?

Inventor David Bubar thinks he’s got the answer. He’s patented a design for a fold-up keyboard, and has published the patent in hopes of generating interest. All the electronics for the keys and even a full-fledged synth action are there, but by dividing the instrument into modules with interconnecting sockets, Bubar claims you can fold his keyboard into an area a third its size. Suddenly, your 88-key mega-synth folds down to the size of those cheap two-octave keyboards.