Apple Tries to Patent iPod User Interface

harlows_monkeys writes "Apple's trying to patent several aspects of the iPod user interface. This one is particularly interesting because the claims are written in fairly clear and simple language, easy to understand by anyone. If this one is granted, it won't be because an overworked examineer was confused by deliberate obfuscation by the application (which is what I think happens for a lot of the ridiculous patents). About half the claims are for things that were implemented in prior players (e.g., Archos), and the other half are for things that are in many other common device interfaces (DVD players, PVRs) and the only novelty is that Apple put them on a portable music player."

Comments

Familiar names...

[andy55]

Inventors: Robbin, Jeffrey L.; (Los Altos, CA) ; Jobs, Steve; (Palo Alto, CA) ; Wasko, Timothy; (High River, CA)

Jeff Robbin was the primary author of SoundJam, licensed by Cassidy & Greene years ago. I worked w/ Jeff on some SoundJam and iTunes related software before Apple bought SoundJam (or whatever it is they did) from Cassidy & Greene. A landslide of credit goes to him for bringing iTunes to where it is today in a variety of categories (the most obvious being the UI). Although he probably wears additional hats at Apple, he's currently one of the iTunes senior engineers (if not the chief).

Re:Familiar names...

[tyrione]

I worked with Tim Wasko at NeXT and Apple. You'd be surprised how much of the UI credit should go to him.

His role is basically that of Keith Ohlfs for OS X.

In fact, before I left Tim was still disappointed that Keith couldn't be rehired.

Re:Familiar names...

[_UnderTow_]

A landslide of credit goes to him for bringing iTunes to where it is today in a variety of categories (the most obvious being the UI).

I tried using itunes for windows a few weeks ago. My motivation was to try downloading the free songs I had won from my mass comsumption of pepsi products. After about a week of use I switched back to what I've been using for over four years, an open source project that used to be called freeamp, but because of a trademark issue is now called zinf (Zinf Is Not Freeamp). Zinf is open source and cross-platform, I use it in windows and in Linux.

Sure itunes looks nice, but I found the way it handled my music library annoying at best. I wouldn't use it even for the free music that I won. I really don't understand the fawning, sycophantic praise for anything apple generates.

Re:Familiar names...

[dasmegabyte]

OK. I have a library of close to 250 gigabytes on three machines (four counting the ipod). And iTunes has been the best organizational system I've found. Once you get the music in there, you have so much power at your fingertips for doing mass associations, creating autogenerated playlists, altering EQs, archiving music, searching for a particular song, etc.

Is it perfect? Hell no. For one thing, it plays fast and loose with ID3 tags, so even songs that are tagged correctly in iTunes sometimes lose their tags when they come out of it. Some of the really useful apple extensions like the star rating disappear when you move the files (which sucks when you're auditioning several thousand songs for possible deletion). For another, the "let's appease the RIAA" decision of not allowing copying FROM an iPod means I need to maintain other applications to get stuff that I placed on the iPod.

Finally, using iTunes sort of requires you to adopt the iPod Way of doing things -- e.g. you have to let it control your library, or else it goes a bit whacko. This makes sense. You should ALWAYS control the lowest level of abstraction using the highest level whenever possible, or risk having to maintain the abstraction on each level. iTunes' ability to treat metadata as a pseudo filesystem makes it a very useful high level abstraction. It takes very little extra effort to do all your file maintenance in iTunes, but if you're such a control freak that you're constantly moving files around, you shouldn't be using a music library application in the first place.

Incidentally, the library handling is much saner on OSX, where you can move files to your heart's content and not worry about the app not being able to find them.

Question

[jwthompson2]

I am stupid when it comes to most things related to patents.

What does this mean, does Apple secure exclusive rights to the specific combination of all the features of the iPod or to the individual features?

If this patent is approved what would be the impact on the portable music player market?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The extent of the patent is coverd by the claims. Apple is trying to take a huge bite with paragraph 34:

While this invention has been described in terms of a preferred embodiment, there are alterations, permutations, and equivalents that fall within the scope of this invention. It should also be noted that there are many alternative ways of implementing both the process and apparatus of the present invention. It is therefore intended that the invention be interpreted as including all such alterations, permutations, and equivalents as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention.

Apple had already threatened to sue iRiver for attempting to use the scroll-wheel and a similar user interface in the iHP-120. iRiver went with the 'clit' manuevering device instead. If the iRiver iHP-120 had the same easy to use iPod interface while retaining all those features it could've been an iPod killer.

Re:Question

[Maestro4k]

• I am stupid when it comes to most things related to patents.

  What does this mean, does Apple secure exclusive rights to the specific combination of all the features of the iPod or to the individual features?

  If this patent is approved what would be the impact on the portable music player market?

If history is any indicator, the portable music player market could forget having a user interface even remotely similar to Apple's in any shape, form or fashion. If they did, Apple would unleash the lawyers and sue them into oblivion. Do you remember the whole thing with Amazon and 1-click ordering? Same process, just a different area. Apple has also shown interest in following up with lawsuits, remember the PC makers who got sued for making colored PCs that were just a bit too iMac looking? One of them basically asked for it (IIRC, it looked exactly like an iMac, just had a PC inside and a different company logo), but at least one of the others was more general, having a colored monitor/case.

Basically it'd be at best a major nuisance, and at worst force everyone else to have ungainly user interfaces. (At least accepting that iPod's UI is good and easy to use, my (admittedly limited) experience with it was one of great frustration personally.)

In any case since elements of the user interface have existed in other products prior to the iPod, prior art should invalidate the patent claim. The US Patent Office has issued many questionable patents where prior art existed, and the excuse so far has been the patent was written to obfuscate, or was confusing, so they didn't pick up on it. This time the patent is written clearly, so the interesting thing will be to see if the US Patent Office issues a patent in face of prior art when the patent isn't hard to understand. Many would consider their issuing this patent a sign that the whole patent process is broken beyond repair.

Re:Question

[sahala]

Basically it'd be at best a major nuisance, and at worst force everyone else to have ungainly user interfaces.

How would it force everyone else to have "ungainly" UIs? If they can't directly copy the iPod interaction design then *GASP* they would instead have to innovate and come up with a new and perhaps better way of going about playing music on a portable device. Imagine that...

(At least accepting that iPod's UI is good and easy to use, my (admittedly limited) experience with it was one of great frustration personally.)

Well there you go...you even say that you find the iPod frustrating to use. It's quite entirely possible that someone could come up with something better, perhaps the design to rule them all even to suit your taste in device interactions.

Re:Question

[peachawat]

If history is any indicator, the portable music player market could forget having a user interface even remotely similar to Apple's in any shape, form or fashion.

Yes and they should. And the market should come up with a user interface that is better, more intuitive than iPod's. And original. The keyword is be innovative. When it came out, the iPod UI doesn't look like anything on the market at that time. And I think Apple deserve credit for that. Now every player wants to look and feel like iPod.

Is it a Slashdot mindset that it is always bad if you can't copy anything at will? Why can't other player maker come up with better UI? Why can't we come up with something better and original? Why does every Linux Desktop UI has to look like Windows or Aqua?

Steve Jobs will own the patent?

[c.r.o.c.o]

I see one of the three people in the inventors list is Steve Jobs. I guess the guy standing with the whip behind the engineers deserves some credit, but this is ridiculous!

*grin*

Re:Steve Jobs will own the patent?

[nacturation]

Jobs should get some credit. It was, after all, his reality distortion field the engineers were influenced by.

Re:Steve Jobs will own the patent?

[JohnsonWax]

I think any Apple engineer will tell you that Steve plays a direct role in many of Apple's high-profile products. There's no doubt that some sort of element like the scroll wheel came out of his head, even if he had no direct role in it's implementaiton.

Now, whether he plays a positive or negative role is another matter. It's my understanding that much of the ever-changing UI in OS X+iApps is due to his input.

Re:Steve Jobs will own the patent?

[harlows_monkeys]

There's no doubt that some sort of element like the scroll wheel came out of his head, even if he had no direct role in it's implementaiton

Perhaps...but click the link in the article, which takes you right to the patent application, and read the claims. They aren't trying to patent the scroll wheel (at least, with this patent). With this patent application, they are trying to patent things that were done before on other players, or that were done on other kinds of devices and all Apple did was copy them for use on the iPod.

Their broadest claims cover any media player that has a menu that brings up another menu (or even a dialog, for that matter), for example.

Re:Steve Jobs will own the patent?

[clifyt]

Quite a few times the inventors / designers at Apple will point at Jobs ideas as the one that got them to the current design.

Case in point, the Lamp Style iMac came from him. Ives had come up with several LCD prototypes -- and they were probably all cool as hell in their own right -- but Jobs wasn't satisfied. While some upper management were touring his wine fields, he took the designers to a plantings of sunflowers and pointed out that the head of the plant was HUGE but didn't seem unwieldy and was natural. He asked the guys to think about that and how the flower's head was supported when redesigning the new iMac (for the 30th time).

The new iMac is directly a result of this and Jobs' idea on how it should work. you can see it in the machine when you look at it and think about it.

There are dozens of these stories out of the net from the designers of the hardware and the software where something that might have been a throw away comment from someone else became the core of what Jobs got out of his engineers (sometimes for good / sometimes for the bad).

So, from past experience, it is only prudent to accept he might have had a good deal of input even if others with the practical experience are listed (that was for the grandparent post as I agree with the parents post :-).

Too far?

[ScooterBill]

It's a pretty slick interface and one that would also be easy to copy. I can't fault Apple for trying to protect against a horde of Asian clone iPods. If a patent is granted and Apple has the common sense to only enforce it in obvious cases of someone copying the interface, then great. If they get the patent and then sue anyone and everyone who has something that sort of works like the iPod, then that sucks.

M

Re:Too far?

[bradkittenbrink]

If they do that, then they risk getting their patent overturned in court. I think it's unlikely that they'll be that stupid.

Re:Too far?

[PacoTaco]

If a patent is granted and Apple has the common sense to only enforce it in obvious cases of someone copying the interface, then great.

It probably won't help them at all. It's look and feel all over again.

Re:Too far?

[SirShadowlord]

Alternatively, realize that Apple may quite likely be filing this patent as a defense mechanism.

It would be demonstrable incompetence in their Intellectual Properties division if Apple was succesfully sued for patent infringement for the iPod by another company?

Now, if this technology cannot be Patented/is not patentable, then Apple is covered, because then Apple can't be sued for patent infringement.

Alternatively, if they are awared a patent on several of their claims, then it makes for good counter-ammunition when someone else trys to sue them.

99% of the time, Patent Portfolio's are built up as a defensive mechanism, kind of like mutually assured destruction.

Any company large enough to have a patent attorney will be doing this sort of thing.

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[andy55]

If it was Microsoft doing this, we'd have seen a long judgmental rant with a biased link at the end.

A fair point, but I think we all agree here that a patent filer deserves to be flamed if their implementation of the patent is garbage (ie, MS WMP). iTunes/Apple has legitimately pioneered most of this new territory everyone else now has no problem ripping off. There was a post a few days ago by someone noting how Apple just doesn't get innovative software handed to them from a magical gnome cave--they spend a lot of money and hire the top talent.

APPLE PATENTS EVERYTHING

[Anonymous Coward]

Being, you know, a corporation which does research and follows the "patent shield" theory, Apple patents EVERYTHING they come up with. Including their interfaces. Including their *themes*. Go look over Apple's patents. They really do try the throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.

Once it starts seeming like Apple is considering *using* said patent, then thi will be news. Until then, this doesn't tell us anything. I've never seen Apple attempt to use any of these patents. Even when they were harassing creators of Aqua schemes, they never resorted to patents, always arguing in terms of copyright...

Re:APPLE PATENTS EVERYTHING

[90XDoubleSide]

Example:

United States Patent D478,999
Jobs , et al., August 26, 2003

Staircase

Claims: We claim the ornamental design for a staircase, substantially as shown and describe

(I know it's a design patent. It's still a funny thing to find when you're going through a technology company's patent filings :)

Re:APPLE PATENTS EVERYTHING

[falcon5768]

and can you blame them? Apple wasnt so patent happy back in the old days and look what it got them, they lost their interface design to the company making their Office software wh then turned around and made a 2nd rate OS based on it.. iMac is released and 4 seperate comapnies make a PC with EXACTLY the same design original iPod comes out and Dell and Rio make iPod clone that look EXACTLY like the iPod sans the good looking interface... one of them even uses Apples font! The company makes designs that then get hacked apart by cheap knockoffs... why is it not cool for a software/hardware company to protect its design , but perfectly fine for your shoe company, or your coffee pot maker to protect it... you really would be surprised how many companies protect their products by patening them... AND if they are patenting the thing I think they are, its the combination trackpad button setup of the iPod mini and rumored redesign on the 4th gen iPod they are patenting, not the player itself... which is understandable cause It really is a VERY good design

Re:APPLE PATENTS EVERYTHING

[Insolence2003]

I just wanted to comment that the Staircase they have a patent for is the staircase design in every two-story Apple Store. I have been to four of them, and each with this exact design. (did anyone realize this?)

I don't see this design patent all that funny... it's a unique design that is used in the real world. =) Very cool if you ask me!

Go Apple!

Well, duh

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was Microsoft doing this

If Microsoft were trying to patent the Apple iPod they'd deserve all the flames they could possibly get...

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[petabyte]

They're patenting aspects of the iPod user interface. iTunes is very important to the iPod but isn't apart of the iPod AFAIK (I've never actually seen one).

We're flaming Apple because they're patenting something semi-obvious (though most posts will return to the usual flaming of the totally broken US Intellectual Property system). That I have no problem with.

I did't RTA, so I'm just as qualified to comment..

[Rude Turnip]

If this is a so-called "design patent," then it isn't a big deal. It would be a patent on a specific design and layout, not the underlying concepts of a music player, which can be implemented in many ways. I believe they have a design patent on their trash can icon, as well. Again, not a patent on the idea of a trash can, but one specific design (a metal wire basket in OS X).

Re:Yeah, thats right

[BasilBrush]

My car uses a wheel for controlling it's most important features too. And it also isn't covered by anything in this patent. Why don't you at least try skimming the patent before posting the first thing that comes into your head.

"There is nothing new under the sun."

[dbirchall]

At this point in history, the vast majority of patents that are filed draw upon previous inventions. Very few people think far enough outside the box to come up with things that bear no resemblance to those which have come before, and share no parts with them. Does that mean inventions that combine or enhance existing technologies and methods in ways that have not been seen before should be barred from being patented? Some Slashdotters seem, from their knee-jerk reactions, to hold that view.

Perhaps if I went searching through old articles, I would find someone posting that the Segway wasn't worthy of being patented, because it used gyroscopes, handlebars, wheels, and even a grip-throttle - all of which everyone knew had been around for ages in other devices.

Perhaps a flying car wouldn't be worthy because it used parts from cars and airplanes, both of which have been around in some form or another for a hundred years.

See where I'm going here?

If you take enough different ideas or things from enough different places, and put them together in a way that hasn't been seen before, and the result is something that significantly improves upon what had been seen before, to the extent that people look at it and say, "Wow, that's sure new and different," you've basically had an original idea. Sure, you've been standing on the shoulders of giants - but so has everyone else.

Hierarchical Menus and Playlists

[Ohreally_factor]

1) Apple can do no wrong. Drink the Kool Aid, bathe in the warm glow of the Reality Distortion Field, and shut up.

2) This patent seems to involve the graphical display of content and features of a MP3 player through a hierarchical menu structure and through playlists.

3) They are patenting a feature on a physical device, not a software method. They're not patenting the software. The technology they are patenting is embodied in a physical device.

4) A patent can be based on other work, even other patented work. If any previous art that Apple has built on is patented and that patent is owned by another company, Apple must still pay that other company. If a third party wants to license the technology, they must pay both Apple and the other company.

5) Patents mostly suck, unless Apple applies for them, because of 1).

Re:Hierarchical Menus and Playlists

[AEton]

Agreed re: 1) and 5). I'm trying to find a way to say tactfully and nontrollfully that there's a bizarre element of doublethink going on here.

Slashdot posts about one "gee, that's a silly patent" story per week. There's usually a good mix (I read at +4, +3 for that brief time that the server was too slow to hand out enough mod points) of comments saying "the patent isn't so broad as the submitter made it out, and really this is perfectly legitimate" or "I know how to make money! I'll patent the use of cookies as incentives...in a porable media player!" or "This is another example of why the patent system is seriously messed up and needs to be reformed" or "I found prior art!" or "This patent is frivolous because algorithms are copyrightable speech, not patentable inventions" or "This patent is utter nonsense because it's common sense" or something else.

This time reading at +3/4 I see only vocal supporters of Apple. After reading the list of claims that seem pretty broad on something kind of intuitive - reading an MP3 file...on a portable media player! And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these claims cumulative rather than limiting? That's quite a lot to assert.

It seems like for whatever reason Apple gets the benefit of the doubt a lot more often than other companies; I'm not sure why. Every corporation seeks to maximize its profits.

Re:Hierarchical Menus and Playlists

[sc00p18]

It seems like for whatever reason Apple gets the benefit of the doubt a lot more often than other companies; I'm not sure why. Every corporation seeks to maximize its profits.

I think the main reason apple tends to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases is because most of the time they focus on and succeed in creating products that are technologically better than the competition. People on slashdot tend to notice good technology when they see it, and are appreciative of it. They get bonus points for using an open source kernel in their OS. They get bonus points for creating rendezvous and documenting it nicely so others can use it. They get bonus points for expose, which is a truly useful innovation. The list goes on...

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[harikiri]

The slashdot crowd roots for the 'underdog', in this case it's Apple vs Microsoft (and others who try to clone the iPod interface).

We bitch and moan about Microsoft because of the behemoth it is. Apple has 'slashdot-cred' because they produce cool stuff (OS X, iPods, powerbooks... drool).

You must be new here... (obligatory!) ;)

Re:Maybe, maybe not

[servoled]

Actually this claims priority to US provisional application No. 60/399,806 which was filed July 30, 2002.

US Patent law also gives the inventors a year after the invention is made public to file an application without the public knowledge of that invention being held against the inventors. After 1 year, the invention would be rejected under 35 USC 102(b).

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats no excuse for utter hypocrisy.

Re:Haha

[Bull999999]

He already filed to get "You're fired!" trademarked.

Re:Good for them

[actiondan]

It doesn't mean that they're _eliminating_ the competition; they're just FORCING the competition to make something _better_ instead of copying what Apple already has.

errr.. have you read the patent application.

Here is the summary:

In a portable multimedia device, a method, apparatus, and system for providing user supplied configuration data are described. In one embodiment, a hierarchically ordered graphical user interface are provided. A first order, or home, interface provides a highest order of user selectable items each of which, when selected, results in an automatic transition to a lower order user interface associated with the selected item. In one of the described embodiments, the lower order interface includes other user selectable items associated with the previously selected item from the higher order user interface.

That sounds an awful lot like a menu system to me.

I don't have an IPod. Could someone with some experience of them fill me in - is there anything especially clever and non-obvious about the design of the menu system that warrants patent protection?

Dan.

Re:Good for them

[servoled]

Please don't read the summary. The summary doesn't get any legal protection and is just there to give a general idea what the patent is about. If you want to know what they are trying to patent READ THE CLAIMS!!

It's times like this that I wish the flash tag was still around...

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[Bull999999]

So the slashdot crowd roots for IBM because IBM's the 'underdog' in the case of SCO vs. IBM?

Where is the outrage?

[Ilan Volow]

In the several years I've followed Slashdot, I've read countless article after countless article bashing Apple for things like not making their Cocoa UI open source, or suing rival hardware manufacturers for copying their latest innovation, or going after theme-makers who attempt to copy their Aqua for use on other platforms. Maybe some of those concerns are legitimate, but there's another legitimate concern whose presence is never expressed: why is it always Apple who has to be the one inventing these great things? In my opinion, there should be equal outrage about the rest of the computer industry (Open Source included) not furthering technological progress for the common man.

• Why can't we have outrage over all the non-innovative cloners not taking innovative risks to make life better for end users? Why can't we have articles like "dell refuses to innovate" or "Gateway poo-poos idea that would make things easier for end users because it was deemed too risky"? Why can't we have these kinds of articles in addition to "Apple sues dell for copying their innovation" or "Apple threatens gateway for look-and-feel infringement"?

  
  

• Why can't we be outraged over Creative Labs or Diamond Rio or anyone else not being the first to make an ergonomically excellent hard-disk based portable mp3 players with a superior UI? Why can there only be outrage over Apple preventing these people from copying the UI that they themselves weren't willing to make in the first place?

  
  

• Why can't we have outrage over Open Source/Free Software projects caring little about things like interface design or not coming up with innovative UI's? Why can't we have articles like "linux distribution spends $700,000,000 on dot-com buyouts and $50 on usability research" or "$DESKTOP_PROJECT coordinator tells HCI person with legitimate UI complaint 'quit whining about what you get for free' while telling industry pundit 'quit spreading M$ FUD About Linux Being Hard To Use'"? Why can we only feel outrage over articles like "Apple threatens $DESKTOP_PROJECT over copying Expose" or "Apple Sues Linux Distribution For Copying Aqua Theme?"

  
  

We shouldn't be pissed about Apple trying to horde and brutally protect it's innovations, we should be pissed about them being the only ones creating innovations worth hording and brutally protecting.

Re:Where is the outrage?

[Bull999999]

What did you expect? May people here are outraged that "for-profit" corporations acutally exist for profit!

Re:buh..?

[justsomebody]

No wonder, Apple was really trademark of Adam and Eve, Apple just copied it

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[Lord Kano]

Apple put a new spin on existing technology, and they found success with it. The iPod was just a better implementation of the MP3 players that had been on the market for years beforehand. iTunes is just Apple's flavor of a media player, like WinAmp or WMP.

Apple once again found the sweet spot with iTunes, but they didn't really break any new ground.

LK

Re:Good for them

[harlows_monkeys]

Please don't read the summary. The summary doesn't get any legal protection and is just there to give a general idea what the patent is about. If you want to know what they are trying to patent READ THE CLAIMS!!

Although he read the summary rather than the claims, he did get the right idea as to what they are trying to claim. Here's the first claim:

1. A method of assisting user interaction with a multimedia asset player by way of a hierarchically ordered user interface, comprising: displaying a first order user interface having a first list of user selectable items; receiving a user selection of one of the user selectable items; and automatically transitioning to and displaying a second order user interface based upon the user selection.

This is PATENT not TRADEMARK

[InfiniteWisdom]

If they do that, then they risk getting their patent overturned in court.

My understanding (IANAL and all that) is that that isn't how patent law works. You're allowed to take your patent and hide, and when you see fit start suing as selectively as you please. On the other hand, you must agressively pursue trademark infringements or risk losing it. This allowed Unisys to lie in waiting while GIF became popular and then come out and ambush the big guys. IBM is known to not pursue violations of their "small" patents till they decide its time to kill someone at which point they can almost always find something out of their huge portfolio of patents that their victim is violating.

Patents can only be overturned if prior-art is shown to exist. And as mentioned in a recent slashdot story only 151 patents have been overturned since 1988.

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[The Infamous Grimace]

they havent done anything innovative. they follow everyone else.

Can you say 'FireWire'? I knew you could.

(tig)

Re:That's a very neutral summary

[udippel]

They're patenting aspects of the iPod user interface.

Parent has read the claims. Most posters haven't, before they started bashing.

Parent has done a great job in pointing out the main weakness: Apple doesn't ask for technicalities, but design. Essentially.

Claim 26 is the most precise one: They ask for protection for an Interface Design Aspect that automagically changes the underlying interfaces along with the user interaction.

This is a clear sign of a patent system flawed over time, since the idea is not basically a technical one. Imagine your mail-client (or just look at it) and imagine you click on the sender of a mail and the interfaces changes to display all mails of that sender. You click on a subject and all mails of this subject come up. Not a bad one, no. I'd even agree that it may be discussed if the author should get royalties. But a patent ? Only over my dead body. (I quit the Patent Office to have a life !)

This is the typical kind of software patentry where you describe a rather vague idea, ask for a patent and sue the implementer.

I can only call on everyone - in US and EU - to put all efforts into stopping this madness.

Donald Knuth on patents

[sidles]

Since 1994, Donald Knuth has lobbied against algorithm patents. Perhaps we ought to ask whether interface patents are not just as destructive of freedom and human rights.

Do interface patents "take away [our] right to use fundamental building blocks" (in Knuth's words)?

Here is the text of Knuth's letter.

Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks
Box 4, Patent and Trademark Office
Washington, DC 20231

February 1994

Dear Commissioner:

Along with many other computer scientists, I would like to ask you to reconsider the current policy of giving patents for computational processes. I find a considerable anxiety throughout the community of practicing computer scientists that decisions by the patent courts and the Patent and Trademark Office are making life much more difficult for programmers.

In the period 1945-1980, it was generally believed that patent law did not pertain to software. However, it now appears that some people have received patents for algorithms of practical importance--e.g., Lempel-Ziv compression and RSA public key encryption--and are now legally preventing other programmers from using these algorithms.

This is a serious change from the previous policy under which the computer revolution became possible, and I fear this change will be harmful for society. It certainly would have had a profoundly negative effect on my own work: For example, I developed software called TeX that is now used to produce more than 90% of all books and journals in mathematics and physics and to produce hundreds of thousands of technical reports in all scientific disciplines. If software patents had been commonplace in 1980, I would not have been able to create such a system, nor would I probably have ever thought of doing it, nor can I imagine anyone else doing so.

I am told that the courts are trying to make a distinction between mathematical algorithms and nonmathematical algorithms. To a computer scientist, this makes no sense, because every algorithm is as mathematical as anything could be. An algorithm is an abstract concept unrelated to physical laws of the universe.

Nor is it possible to distinguish between "numerical" and "nonnumerical" algorithms, as if numbers were somehow different from other kinds of precise information. All data are numbers, and all numbers are data. Mathematicians work much more with symbolic entities than with numbers.

Therefore the idea of passing laws that say some kinds of algorithms belong to mathematics and some do not strikes me as absurd as the 19th century attempts of the Indiana legislature to pass a law that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is exactly 3, not approximately 3.1416. It's like the medieval church ruling that the sun revolves about the earth. Man-made laws can be significantly helpful but not when they contradict fundamental truths.

Congress wisely decided long ago that mathematical things cannot be patented. Surely nobody could apply mathematics if it were necessary to pay a license fee whenever the theorem of Pythagoras is employed. The basic algorithmic ideas that people are now rushing to patent are so fundamental, the result threatens to be like what would happen if we allowed authors to have patents on individual words and concepts. Novelists or journalists would be unable to write stories unless their publishers had permission from the owners of the words. Algorithms are exactly as basic to software as words are to writers, because they are the fundamental building blocks needed to make interesting products. What would happen if individual lawyers could patent their methods of defense, or if Supreme Court justices could patent their precedents?

I realize that the patent courts try their best to serve society when they formulate patent law. The Patent Office has fulfilled this mission admirably with respect to aspects of technology that

Simple things get patented all the time

[baxissimo]

I'm with you that this doesn't seem like a very patent-worthy innovation. But when you think about it, when you go to a fast food restaraunt or coffee joint, even the plastic lids on the cups are patented. They've been patenting things like that for as long as I can remember. And what's the difference from lid to lid? Basically just a little industrial design. If that's the standard, then yeh, I have to say the iPod is at least as innovative as the plastic lid I got on my last cup of coffee.

Re:Interesting

[NeoBeans]

In what days do you consider iPod to be a better implementation of preceding players?

For me... when I switched to iTunes (and Mac) completely about a year ago, it was about three things:

1. Searching through my MP3 collection was very fast, and easier.
2. I liked the rating system and ability to add album art. (Ratings didn't exist in WinAmp or MusicMatch at the time)
3. I could build playlists and export them to iDVD.

Re: iTunes and opinions

[King_TJ]

It's certainly part of the "Apple curse" that anything they build will get attacked by some members of the PC community, claiming it's only "liked because Apple fanatics praise everything the company does".

IMHO though, this just strikes me as jealousy. (Wow - someone actually has a business that's so well liked by their customers that they're excited whenever they release a new product?! That's just not right! We have to tear that down A.S.A.P.!)

The fact is, I *rarely* meet a non Apple user who doesn't at least say "Wow, that really is a nice app/feature/design!" if they really sit down and give the products and software a good look.

The Apple "iApps" are a prime example of this. The point isn't that you can't find flaws in them if you try hard enough. (The new iPhoto, for example, has a bug where photo previews often look blurry... Clicking away from one and back onto it again sometimes makes it snap into focus. Annoying!) But *overall*, they give users a usable, clean interface that's hard to describe as anything but "sensible".

Even if you don't personally like the way iTunes organizes your music library, the point is - it DOES organize it for you. Not every program does this, you know. It lets you create custom playlists based on all sorts of criteria, has the ability to cross-fade the end of one track into the start of the next (nice for playing MP3 songs ripped from "live" albums where normally, you hear a sharp cutoff when the audience is clapping at the end of a song), has easy, *built-in* ability to write to CD (as music or data format), and lots of other good stuff you want in a player. Plus, it's free.