By Tony Smith

Published Monday 7th March 2005 12:20 GMT

Apple has found itself facing a pair of intellectual property challenges that separately claim its FairPlay DRM system and its iPod music player contain technologies to which the Mac maker does not have a right.

First up, Lake Forest, Illinois-based Advanced Audio Devices (AAD) alleges its patent, number 6,587,403, for a ``music jukebox``, filed in August 2000 but granted in July 2003, covers the kind of thing Apple has brought to market as the iPod.

According to the patent`s abstract, AAD`s concept covers a ``music jukebox which is configured for storing a music library``. The device includes a ``housing, audio input structure... for receiving audio signals, and a data storage structure... for storing audio signals``.

The key words here are ``audio signals`` - do the iPod`s digital audio files count as received and/or stored signals? The iPod shipped in November 2001, but it was by no means the first device to store digital music. Diamond Multimedia`s Rio - not the first, but certainly the best-known MP3 hardware pioneer - launched in 1998, long before the AAD patent. It too could be said to store a music library, albeit a small one.

AAD will presumably argue that a library means a full collection of songs rather than a subset of it, hence its patent should be more applicable to hard drive-players like the iPod rather than small-capacity Flash-based units like the early Rios.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong company Pat-rights claims FairPlay violates its US patent, number 6,665,797, which details a method of ``protection of software against unauthorised use``. It discusses a ``central program comprising a EI sub-program for providing identity information of the rightful user thereof for accessing a network central computer to obtain service(s) or software product(s) or alike, in which a secure operation on an account of the rightful user for payment therefore involved; and a AS sub-program for using the existence of the EI sub-program in a computer as a precondition for authorising use of those software products obtained on that computer. The central program is for managing the use of the individual sub-programs therein so that the AS sub-program can be protected from being copied individually``.

According to this blog, Pat-rights maintains that FairPlay, when used in conjunction with iTunes, does the same thing to ensure the listener of a protected song has been authorised to do so.

Pat-rights makes the assumption that since Apple didn`t patent such a technique, it can only be because someone else has. It claims to be that someone else, though it`s entirely possible Apple has already licensed the technology from a third-party. Patent duplication is not unknown, after all.

Pat-rights filed for its patent in July 1998 and had it granted in December 2003. A year later, it approached Apple, it claims, but was apparently sent away by Apple`s legal team with a flea in its ear.

Apple presumably - it hasn`t commented on the case, and wouldn`t tell us if it had - believes Pat-rights` patent covers the delivery of software programs, not digital audio content. At this stage, the two sides are in talks, but if an agreement isn`t reached by 21 March, Pat-rights may sue.