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Did Microsoft Invent The iPod?
nate.oo writes "If you think Apple Computer's Steve Jobs invented the technology behind the Apple iPod, don't bet your 60GB, 15,000-song model on it. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, patent applications that cover much of the technology associated with the iPod were submitted by Microsoft."
Of course Microsoft invented the iPod....just like they 'invented' the GUI (Apple), Active Directory (Novell), and the TCP-IP stack (BSD).
You would be a fool and a communist to insinuate otherwise (apologies to Bill Hicks).
From TFA:Hey, if you can't beat 'em, litigate 'em to death, I guess...and people bitch and moan when I use the abbreviation M$...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Somehow seems appropriate. It's too bad the Patent Office doesn't see things the same way with these applications...
Throw the bums out!
And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.
nate.oo "writes" stuff that was just a rip of the top of the TechWeb article. Cute.
Contents of the article aside, such an assumption would be wrong, Steve Jobs didn't invent the iPod - Jeff Robin did.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
- George Orwell
They also invented the Google start page! I'm too lazy to add a link. To understand joke, see Slashback from 1-2 days ago.
Patenting != inventing.
Hell, Microsoft's just trying to get whatever loose patent they can get so they can selectively use it to pressure their competitors.
You can always tell if Microsoft is sweating because of you if they take out a patent on something you've built as soon as you issue the first press release.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
You know, if I listen closely I can hear the laughter of thousands upon thousands of Korean engineers, and I'm in Seattle.
Why would they file a patent for it, but then allow Apple to develop, create, and market the device?
Or am I misreading this? Did they file a patent for something that vaguely described a system of some sort used in the iPod? That wouldn't really surprise me, seeing how they've recently tried to patent a method for highlighting numerical data with a box.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I don't mean to troll here, but is any of this really that significant? It seems to me that all the 'who-did-it-first' business is all just loose speculation..
Homer: You can't like... own a potato... it's one of God's creatures.
Best regards, A.C.
The article mentions that Microsoft submitted a patent on a "portable, pocked-sized multimedia asset player" - i.e. a completely open-ended and substanceless junk patent. Or maybe the patent did have some merit, but who knows, since the article doesn't give more details. The one detail it does mention is in regards to a playlist feature that the iPod doesn't have.
On the brighter side, the not so subtle combination of Microsoft, Apple, vague patents and the iPod should make for a orgiastic troll feeding frenzy in the comments. And Techweb got some more traffic and hopefully some ad revenue. Hooray.
Did Al Gore invent the Internet?
... run their database on MS software? If so, why does Microsoft bother applying for patents? They could just get in through a back door and insert retroactive patents on anything they like.
(Yeah, my tinfoil hat just fell off.)
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
From the article:
So far, Microsoft hasn't been able to dent the Apple iPod dominance...
Exactly which devices would be doing the denting, or is this a reference to the music players that Microsoft has released in an alternate universe?
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
According to apple, the ipod was on store shelves before even M$ sumbitted the patent application.
I remember too. My friend bought the absolute first gen ipod.. a klunky 5 gig job... back in late 2001.
TFA can stick this FUD where it belongs, thank you very much.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Unless Microsoft somehow patented the idea of a well designed stylish mp3 player their patent is so laughably easy to dismiss with prior art it stands as just another example of how lazy, inept & stupidty-riddled the US Patent Office is.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
i think /. is slowly becoming less of 'stuff that matters' and more of a popularity contestant.
'i know! let's publish articles that bash microsoft and make apple look like a victim/saint...it can't fail!'
'yes! by jove, you got it!'
EVERYONE who isn't busy following paris hilton is busy getting patents for anything they can. I remember, as a college senior, doing my senior design project, one week we were made to look thru the US Patent Office website and find possible 'patent infringements' for our design (just as an exercise in real world product cycle development) - and we prob found about a hundred patents that "loosely" resemble every known product from a Tivo to a toaster....
every article now seems to be completely anti-microsoft and pro-apple. and if it has nothing to do with them, then the comments will always bring M$ into the fray.
Really, can you HONESTLY say that /. and the internet and the computer me and you and everyone else is able to afford now was NOT a direct or indirect result of Microsoft and its products?
(I already know I'm going to be considered a troll or given a 1 rating, but it needs to be said)
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Winamp + 486 Is actually less powerful than an iPod. and I've been playing sounds on a computer for ages. Man I wonder what Mr. Nakamura (apologies if I spell it wrong) thinks of the idea of M$ thinking they are first with portable sound. Of course years before the iPod was released a product named the Diamond RIO was fighting for it's life against companies like M$ (under the guise of the BSA) for it's portable MP3 players. (bought mine in 98 or 99)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Microsoft invented the iPod.
Saddam had WMDs he was going to give to Bin Laden.
Big Brother Loves You.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Not only have they violated Microsoft's patents, but by copying from anyone at all they have violated /.'s patent on duplication of a pre-existing entity.
English is easier said than done.
"He may run the company, but he is hardly an engineer."
Are you crazy?!? Did you see the new fangled mouse he just invented? It has THREE buttons!
You ask good and difficult questions.
I am particularly interested in patent law, though I am nothing more than a computer programmer, much less a lawyer.
Groklaw is a very good place to get more of a handle on some of what software patents are about. I have yet to come across a good all-around resource regarding the state of software patents, so I end up perusing the patent office's site quite often.
To answer your main question, software patents are thought to be a "bad thing" because patents were designed to protect an implementation of an idea...Edison didn't patent "creating light with an electrical device", he patented the incandescent lightbulb. Software makes this otherwise simple model a mess, because there is no clear line between the *effect* of something, and it's *implementation* in software. Sure, there are a bunch of clean cut cases, but there are also a lot of muddy cases.
Worse, software patents are very easy to abuse. For example, companies have patented things like the "double click", scrollbars, and drop-down menus. These days, it becomes a veritable mine-field of patents to avoid when writing even the simplest of GUI applications.
In one of the most astonishing software patent debacles, a shadow-rendering trick presented by John Carmack thereafter known as "Carmack's Reverse" was patented by a company later bought by Creative (of Sound Blaster fame) and used a scant week before Doom 3's release date to strong-arm Carmack into coding EAX support into his Doom 3 engine to avoid litigation.
The idea that a company spends lots of money to develop algorithms, and that those algorithms should be protected is a good one. The problem is that the vast majority of software patents are not used in cases like that; they are used in cases where a company likes to lie in wait for their competitors, and only after a competitor becomes a serious threat to they negotiate with their patent portfolio. Because patents (unlike copyrights) cost so much to apply for (not just application fees, but technical writing and legal fees), the software patent system keeps companies like Microsoft in their monopolistic lifestyle to which they have become accustomed, often at the expense of their competitors and, ultimately, the consumer.
Free software in particular is a fundamentally generous act, and is capable of providing great benefits to areas of the world that would not otherwise be able to afford computing. Similarly, it frees those who choose to use it in first-world countries from the monopoly that Microsoft enjoys, allowing us to run operating systems that do not require re-registration when the hardware in the comuter is altered, or keeping track of registration keys. But Free Software's future is in jeopardy because of the patent system that benefits the large corporations. You would be hard pressed to find a piece of free software that doesn't violate someone else's software patent one way or another.
There are many approaches to correcting the system, but one of the most obvious would be to raise the bar for what qualifies as innovative enough to deserve a patent. The article earlier today about highlighting numbers is a perfect example: a concept so simple that it seems like a good excercise for a beginner's book on C or Java, not a patent for a multi-billion dollar corporation to be filing. The ease with which something can be programmed is not the sole measure by which we should judge a patent, but it is a starting point. Other factors might include things like the amount of resources it would take to develop such a design.
At some point we need to admit to ourselves that our notions of intellectual property must change in an era where media can be so freely copied and exchanged. The nature of the economies that support industries resting on intellectual properties must shift, perhaps acknowledging that intellectual property should not be a luxury, but a commonplace product in most everyone's lives. This would allow more people to enjoy t
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think that line in the original post should read:
+------+ +--------+
don't bet your | 60GB |, | 15,000 |-song model on it.
+------+ +--------+
________________________________________________
suwain_2
"The documents describe a "portable, pocked-sized multimedia asset player" that can manipulate MP3 music files."
yes, it would be very nice if the iPod could manipulate MP3s, not just play them. Or at least fast forward/rewind within a song/track, now that would be very nice for longer songs, think those BBC Beethoven tracks, and ebooks when it suddenly gets lound on the train/bus/where ever and you miss something. I'm yet to see a portable device that can do that, but I've only used the iPod mini Zaurus5500 media player and the generic 128mb mp3 player I got for $10.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
On what basis did you arrive at this? Diamond Multimedia was the first to market such a device in the late 90s.
Also the patent that is cited is extremely vague in its actual implementation. For the most part the AutoDJ patent affects software like WinAmp, RealPlayer, and iTunes more. The patent seems to cover a process on how computer algorithms might select the next song to in a list based on what the user has listened to in the past. Nowhere does the patent mention or reference how the songs are played like a mp3 player, CD player, etc.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Did Microsoft Invent The iPod?
No. And here's proof. With each new release the iPod:
That's not Microsoft.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
They patented a "portable, pocked-sized multimedia asset player"...
Oh boy will they feel stupid when I patent an "portable, pocked-sized multimedia asset player via a computer network"!
bash$
from the register...
check and mate.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
have a theory that iTunes Party Shuffle uses computed Eigenvalues of your iTunes library to compare the end of one track to the beginnings of other tracks and find a good match so that songs flow together.
Does your theory involve actually knowing what eigenvalues are, or are you just making shit up?
At best I'm guessing you're trying to imply some sort of principal component analysis across properties of the tracks, which involves finding eigenvalues (and eigenvectors) of the covariance matrix. That doesn't really make sense though because most of the properties are categorical (artist, genre, title, album) so PCA is hardly going to be meaningful, let alone help songs "flow together".
Other alternatives include trying to do some level of correlation across the Fourier transform of the actual music (end of one track correlating with beginning of next), but aside from failing to account for volume and beat information, it also fails to have anything whatsoever to do with eigenvalues.
Finally you could take Fourier transforms, statistics on mean and variance of volume, beats per minute etc., and the user rating of the track, as one huge multidimensional space, throw it through PCA and select the closest track in the re(multidimensional)scaled space, which would actually give some semblance of "flow" and even use eigenvalues somewhere in the whole process... but that's an awfully large amount of heavy lifting to do compared to just picking a track at random which can do a surprisingly good job.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
"The physics involved" haven't changed, only what was practical has changed. LOW VOLTAGE DC requires large conductors to avoid high losses and there was no efficient way of converting it from one level to another a century ago. AC has the huge advantage in being easily transformed via.. er, transformers.
That's no longer exclusively true. And power loss is directly proportional to resistance but proportional to the square of the current, so doubling the voltage in a circuit cuts those losses much larger than half.
Meanwhile, low frequency AC transmission has all sorts of losses over long hauls due to reactive coupling to earth and to the atmosphere, and these losses vary even depending on the weather.
Rectifiers and inverters can be made very efficient these days, and long haul powerlines increasingly may carry 750KVDC or more on them... that's direct current, not alternating.
The higher voltage DC transport is more efficient, you see... but now we have the technology to exploit it.
A team of engineers at another company did and sold the finished product to Apple.
Guess again.
Tony Fadell brought the idea of a music player + a music store to Apple. He didn't bring a finished product. The design we know today was the result of a collaboration by Fadell, Jeff Robbin, Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, Jon Ive, and many other people. Steve didn't "just take the credit", he made it happen.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A lot of people, myself included, find considerable irony in all the posturing about innovation and accusations of copying ideas from these two, when the basic metaphor underlying their desktops is well known to originate elsewhere.
Every now and again we like to point this out. Does this make us Bad People?
but software patents are bad because they disallow the sharing of ideas?
Well, look at it this way. Apple developed the iPod. There were MP3 players before the iPod, but apple popularised them, they did the hard work to develop a market and today they deservedly dominate the field.
And Lo! Here comes Microsoft coveting the market that Apple so carefully built. What is their chosen weapon to assail Apple's dominant position? Software patents.
If MS win the patent appeal, they're going to want royalties from Apple. They'll get a lump sum, and a slice of all future sales. These are costs that Apple will have no choice but to pass on to the customer. Meanwhile, MS has its own competing product which can now undercut Apple considerably since not only are they not paying patent licences, but they can subsidise the price with royalties from Apple. Look ahead 10 years and we can imagine MS owning 90% of the market, with actual iPods being considered technically better but overpriced.
Classic Microsoft.
Now the proponents of swpats tell us that they reward an inventor's hard work. I could argue about that being their proper purpose, but let's go with that for now. So who did all the hard work here? Apple did the cool design, and the marketing. And Apple pulled off the near impossible feat of getting record studios to agree to them selling online music at a price people would be willing to pay. That task also appeared on Bill Gates' todo list; just underneath cutting off his own left foot with a chainsaw.
And what did MS do? Well effectively, they have a big buzzword generator. It takes a technical term from column A, another from column B and one from Column C, and emails them to the Legal Dept. with a note saying "wrap these in the appropriate legalses guys". Then they send the result to the USPTO.
So who has done the hard work here? Apple. Who looks to walk away with the fruits of that hard work? Microsoft.
Instead of allowing people to profit from their own hard work, swpats are a licence for the big players to steal the fruits other people's efforts.
And that's why software patents are "bad". One reason, anyway.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Don't be so sure.
They said they'd licence the patents. Depending on the terms, that licence would include a royalty payment, and they could well require backdated payments, which would come as a lump sum. I never said MS would try and block iPods - just push the price up far enough to make a competing MS product more attractive. They could probably even licence them on "reasonable terms". When you're dealing with iPod scale volumes, a small difference can have a huge impact on your margin.
From the same article:
But analysts said the situation could prove troublesome to Apple. The company would no doubt prefer to avoid paying royalties to its rival, especially in a field Apple popularized.
So apparently MS haven't ruled out requiring a royalty.
But even if Microsoft do choose to withhold their hand, we still have to ask why Apple should be dependant of their forbearance. Why MS should be afforded this unearned privilege?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Claiming software is patentable is like claiming man is center of teh universe, the earth is flat, the universe revolves around the earth, etc..
It wasn't until the early 1990s that the catholic church exonerated Galileo for his honesty about some such things. Showing how ignorant and dishonest some can be.
THIS IS IMPORTANT:
The exoneration came as a result of the church losing followers over this denial of honesty of reality. Important because it sets an example and solution direction for the software patents deception.
Software is NOT patentable. There is no comprimise here, only frauds. Those in denial of honesty about software trying to convince others of their dillusions.... pretty much most of the computer industry,
This is no differnt than the suppression of the hindu arabic decimal system and its, how can nothing have value, zero place holder, by the roman catholic church in its persistant elitism of the roman numeral system of accounting and math.
Today we know better, that there are btter ways to do math, simpler, easier, etc...
Software is no different, only the symbols used go beyond numerical assigned value...
What is not patentable, universally accepted, include physical phenomenon, natural law, abstract ideas. Software is composed of all of these, is created and works on the foundation of these. Even the idea of algorythims (something else really not patentable and has been on the list of "NOT PATENTABLES") is itself of these top primary things not patentable.
Copyright is appropriate, so software is not without some form of IP protection.
The fact of the matter is: As soon as we get past the roman numeral way of programming, programming will become as common place as the application of the hindu arabic decimal system is. Even being taught in primary school.
Software is the automation of complexity so as to make that complexity usable and reusable to the users of that complexity through a simplified interface, like how a calculator automates mathmatics, simplifying and providing accurate calculation, as opposed to doing it in a non-automated manner, manually..
Software creation is also recursive in this. Rarely does any programmer not use the automations of another before them, in their creation of some program.
Automation via abstraction is a natural product of conscious beings, as it take conscious ability to comprehend abstractions of such a level to enable automation.
In other words, its not only our natural human right, but duty, to make use of abstractions that allow us to advance our understanding of reality and control over it.
Yes the economy, the incentive behind the deception of the fraudlent promotion of "software patents" needs to change to remove the incentive to try to, or continue to, deceive the public.
World economy, along with other related factors, is reaching a level of well being that its getting to be time to step off the current stepping stone of incentives to advance and onto the next one. I believe Free Open Source Software is mans first recognition of that next stepping stone.
Software patents are bad because the very essence of them is dishonest and anti-productive of man and his contribution to human advancement.
It really is that simple.
Software patents in the US came about thru small courtroom squablings of who the best lier/fraud was. Who was best able to use "Abstractions" to mislead others.
In Europe, not only was the european public allowed in on the decission process, but the world. OPEN, again OPEN, to the intelligence of the population.
If it affects the population, then the population only rightfully has a say. Otherwise its not being honest about human ability and intelligence as a whole.
The US is way out of line and being frauduelent.
And your point is?
immune from fair enforcement of those patents?
I don't recall suggesting anyone be immune to the fair enforcement of anything. The question I raised is whether it is fair that software patents be awarded in the first place since they do not supply the benefits claimed by their supporters, and since they make possible a whole range of new tactics for unfair competition.
innovative marketing has nothing at all to do with technical innovation.
Yes, and what has Microsoft technically innovated here? Nothing.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
The quote is (I'm typing as I listen):
"...during my service in the United States (uh) Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet..."
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Read the Forbes story (they know a thing or two about patents) or the story in The Register. This is not true. It's a pleasing fantasy, for some reason. "This Just In: GM bought patents to car that runs on water, killed inventor!' The patent that Apple lost (round one -- they'll refile) has to do with a round contoller wheel. The patent that MS has, which has already been rejected twice, is a way to make a playlist automatically. Not a "playlist" folder, not a "smart playlist," but an "automatic playlist." The iPod doesn't use this patent, and it has other patents on various parts of the iPod. Now, the talk about whether patents do any good, or if the patent office is properly run, this is very debatable public policy. The fact that this "story" is popping up all over the place just means that this particular fiction is telling people something they want/don't want to believe.
Guys, if you check out the facts for this crazy story, then this is what you will find:
1. Apple applied for some iPod related patents. They don't need these patents to build the iPod, they just want these patents to prevent others from copying parts of the iPod.
2. The patent examiner found that one of the claims in Apple's patent application is covered by a Microsoft patent. Therefore Apple can't get its patent.
3. The Microsoft patent has nothing to do whatsoever with the iPod. Only one claim in their patent is the same as one claim in a patent that Apple tries to get. All that Apple needs to do is remove that claim, reapply, get the patent.
4. There is no reason to assume that the iPod itself relies on this one specific claims and therefore would be covered by the Microsoft patent. In any case, the iPod was built _before_ Microsoft made its invention, so even if it was covered by the patent, Microsoft would have some problem. (Patent examiner: So where is the prior art? Apple: We built and sold one million of them. Is that enough prior art? )
5. There is a patent exchange agreement between Microsoft and Apple that was still running when Microsoft got their patent.
"The idea that a company spends lots of money to develop algorithms, and that those algorithms should be protected is a good one"
Use copyright.
There are even, believe it or not, companies which don't release the source code for their commercial software, and this appears to be completely legal!
"At some point we need to admit to ourselves that our notions of intellectual property must change in an era where media can be so freely copied and exchanged."
Why?
"This would allow more people to enjoy the fruits of the labor of the few, while maintaining the authors in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed."
Greedy shit. The authors should live the lifestyle they deserve based on the amount of skill, training, experience and hard work they apply.
Yes, I am one of those authors. No-one owes me a living.
Gore stating "I took the initiative in creating the Internet." is a pretty straight forward lie. Not at all out of context.
r e_internet_inventor.mp3
http://www.geocities.com/omnipyre/multimedia/algo
All of Gore's "misstatements" seen in the context of his history, makes it clear he was a compulsive liar.
http://www.hench.net/2002/z070202a.htm
I think this is a more detailed one;
_ apple_patent/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/10/microsoft
Although the posted one is so vague, it might be talking about something else.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
They just claim to have invented everything. Spoons, toasters, web commerce, you name it, they have filed or have tried to file a patent for it, blatantly months, years, or decades after the same idea has already been brought to market and would take a non-braindead patent clerk 2 minutes to find prior art on.
Just look at all the slashdot articles. We see one about every 2 weeks for MS trying (succceeding?) to patent things there's blindingly obvious prior art for. Nothing new here. Tomorrow they'll try to patent the computer case, using about 850 words to describe "a metal box you put a computer in" in such complex verbage that the patent clerk will think "I have no idea what he's talking about and have never heard ANYTHING like that before so it MUST be original". *STAMP* ("Approved")
Not that it counts for much, but I will at least say they don't spend all their time chasing down "patent infringers" for their thousands of silly patents. I think they do it more for defense than offense, unlike some we've seen here recently.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
A lot of people, myself included, find considerable irony in all the posturing about innovation and accusations of copying ideas from these two, when the basic metaphor underlying their desktops is well known to originate elsewhere.
..."
Alan Kay, the head of the PARC research group in question, seems to agree with you. Here's what he said in the first sentences of his "Early History of Smalltalk" paper:
"Most ideas come from previous ideas. The sixties, particularly in the ARPA community, gave rise to a host of notions about "human-computer symbiosis" through interactive time-shared computers, graphics screens and pointing devices.
Kay does not claim to have invented all this stuff; his contribution was recognizing good things when he saw them and combining them into a working system.
Software patents reject the obvious truth of "Most ideas come from previous ideas" and prevent inovators from doing what Xerox PARC did.
For me, not exactly. The Creative QC is terrible. I wouldn't consider one at half the price over a competing Apple player. I have a shuffle, and even if the Muvo is the quintessential "best" player Creative's got, that's not saying much. I'd rather pay a little more for something that works than something that "might" work.
Creative's never going to gain any market share trying to add 340 features to a device. They are going to lose it by putting out shoddy merchandise. You can't compete solely on price when what you pay for from Creative isn't worth the price with which they're undercutting Apple.
No sale for me.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
I don't know who "invented" MP3 players. They were around a LONG time before the ipod and before itunes, yet somehow because they happen to make the most popular mp3 player on the market this somehow entitles them to all the patents?
I don't recall anyone saying that Apple deserves patents on MP3 player technology, but just that Microsoft sure doesn't.
Or makes them immune from fair enforcement of those patents?
If those patents are filed after the product is already on the market, not to mention the numerous other products that came before it, then yes. The patent itself shouldn't even exist at all. You can't have fair enforcement of an unfair patent.
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
Ghastly term, but it's a proper pain typing "software patents" eighty two times in a discussion like this.
Perhaps you be interested in cross licencing against my "Method and Apparatus for Denoting Excerpted Content Using Italics and Elipses" :)
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Oi! We have now had TWO completely wrong-assed stories about this same event in slashdot. #1 was some bumf about "Apple failing to get patents to the iPod" because of some vaguely related patent by some Microsoft spod. Now that's turned into Microsoft invented the iPod?
Render unto us a grand holy rotating break, Taco. At least read your own damn articles before accepting a new one. Or at least apply some damn common sense when you get funky spin like these.