Spotify, just two weeks since its U.S. debut, the popular European music service has already received a big welcome, complete with praise as well as a patent lawsuit. The company has just been sued by multimedia software company PacketVideo for patent infringement. Oddly, the patent is essentially for music streaming or some words which resemble that. The patent in dispute is fairly broad, mentioning any “device for the distribution of music infringement. Filed originally in 1995, the patent was later purchased by PacketVideo with the intent of collecting licensing fees from it. Below is the main description of the items covered by the patent: “a central memory device which is connected to a communications network and has a databank of digitized music information and, a terminal which is connected to the central memory device via the communications network, the central memory device being equipped with a retrieval module and the said modules having the capability to interact via the communications network in order to order and transmit selectively chosen music information, wherein the selectively chosen music information is organized with a defined format for transmission in a digital music information object, the format including a core and a number of additional layers, the core including at least one object identification code, object structure information, a consumer code and an encryption table and the one or more additional layers including the actual music information, wherein the central memory device has an encryption module for encryption of the music information object before transmission using the encryption table, and wherein the terminal has a decryption module for decryption of the music information object before its reproduction using the encryption table, an interpretation module for interpretation and reproduction conditioning of the music information object as well as an authorization device having identification information for identification of the terminal and of the consumer which is retrievable by the interpretation module and by the decryption module for authorization checking.” It seems like the patent would apply to a number of other music streaming services as well, including MOG, Rdio, Pandora, and Raphsody (just to name a few). Whether the music service are already paying a licensing fee to PacketVideo is unclear. If not, this could just be the first round of patent trolling for the company. Spotify is currently one of the services that seems to be making the most headlines, having a total of over 70,000 paid subscribers in its first week already. Stay tuned for more news and info on the topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed. Authors: