I'm not sure that the indep claim covers the way podcasts are delivered nowadays. Claim 1 seems to require a single channel which both provides notification of new content and from which new content is downloaded. But, an RSS feed for a podcast just provides a URL pointing to the content. No one really downloads anything from an RSS feed.<p>My guess is that if this patent reads on any technology in use now, it's probably something more like dvrs or on demand TV.<p>Caveat: I haven't read the specification, so it's possible that there's a special definition that I'm missing.
"VoloMedia, which used be called Podbridge, filed for this particular patent in November 2003 — a time, Navar said, before it was obvious that people would download episodic content such as podcasts."<p>Ok, now 2003 still a little late to the game as far as I'm concerned, but 5.5 years to award a patent? Whether or not patents are a good thing, the patent office and the tech industry cannot work together with such long lead times.