Obscure Company Claims It Just Patented Podcasting
Wait a minute. What?
The patent, awarded on Tuesday, is here. Some early analysis is here, here, here, and here. The company in question attempts to explain itself here. (A sample: "Today, podcasting is 100% RSS-based. However, the patent is not RSS-dependent. Rather, it covers all episodic media downloads.")
The bottom line: These guys filed for their patent in 2003. Podcasting emerged in 2001. Someone's missing something big here, and I suspect that someone is the patent office, not me.