Patent protection for online music file systems?

Seer Systems, a US company, has been awarded patent protection for a system and method of merging various types of data, distributing the data over the internet and playing the media file. The EFF has filed a reexaminiation request with the US Patent & Trademark Office on the grounds that the system in question does not fulfill the requisite elements needed before patent protection is granted. This is an interesting case and CyberPanda agrees with the EFF that patent protection is not appropriate in this case due a lack of novelty. Another important consideration is the impact of such IP protection on technological innovations and the interests of consumers.