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Creative Has MP3 Player Interface Patent
indie1982 writes "BBC News online is reporting that Creative has been awarded the patent for the interface that many MP3 players use. The patent covers the way files are organised and navigated on a player using a using a hierarchy of menus, a system that Creative's own Nomad jukebox and Apple's iPod range use." Commentary also available at CNet. Reports trend towards an attempt to capitalize on Apple's mistake. From the BBC article: "Creative said the patent applied to its players, as well as some competing products such as the Apple's iPod and iPod mini. The patent covers how files on a music player are organised. Creative was one of the first companies to produce MP3 players but has lost out to Apple which dominates the market. The Creative announcement is the latest salvo in its self-declared war against Apple. "
The Nomad's design is an atrocity. It's so damn hard to navigate when you have 40 GB of MP3s on there....
Before everyone bitches about the US patent system or jumps at Creative, I suggest you RTFA.
It mentions that Creative filed the patent January 5th, 2001. That's a whole 9 months before the orignal iPod even came out.
Creative said it had applied for the patent, dubbed the Zen Patent, on 5 January 2001 and was awarded it on 9 August..."The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the Nomad Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent."
If you had RTFA you would know that creative applied for the patent *before* the ipod was even released, so no, creative did not rip off apples interface
wtfsig?!11
it depends on what market you are in. In the US i believe you have 1 year to file your patent application from the date that you show your product to the public. this can be something as small as a leaflet, or a speculative story on some technophile site. UK and EU i believe are zero day markets, so you better have everything patented before you release anything about your product. ianal...
me fail english? thats unpossible
To any prospective Pro-Mac flamers: I strongly suggest reading the entire article and patent before jumping on the "I hate Creative" bandwagon.
Creative was FIRST. Look at the dates.
Here's the patent 6,928,433
I read the f______ patent. It involves making a folder structure three levels deep (e.g. C:\a\b) and putting music files into subsubdirectories (e.g. C:\a\b\song.mp3). I could do that with Windows 95 and the included version of Media Player. It gets even more obvious with Winamp 2.x, which was available at least when I started college in July 1999, which was well over a year before the filing date of this patent. The following use cases corresponding to the relate to Windows 4.x and Winamp 2.x:
Claim 1: a portable digital media player whose interface is open folder, open folder, open audio file. Nothing in this claim defines "portable media player" to exclude a common laptop computer such as the Acer Travelmate 721TX distributed to all Rose-Hulman Class of 2003 students in 1999. All other claims build on this claim.
Claim 2: open folder, open folder, select all, open file. Winamp takes "a plurality of tracks" opened at the same time and constructs a playlist for them.
Claim 3: open folder, open folder, right click file, Add to Playlist.
Claims 4-6: similar to claim 1-3, involving symbolic links (called "shortcuts" by Windows 4.x and 5.x).
Claim 7: the "Up a folder" button.
Claim 8: storing files an additional folder deep.
Claim 9: root directory contains "by artist", "by album", and "by genre"; folders within "by genre" are named "rock", "classical", etc, and within e.g. the "rock" folder are items (such as symbolic links) that activate songs.
Claim 10: like Claim 9 except the "rock" folder contains symbolic links to rock albums.
Claim 11: root directory contains "by artist", "by album", and "by genre"; allowing navigation to "C:\by Artist\Beatles\White Album\Revolution 1.mp3".
Claim 12: filenames are song titles, and the default action of Winamp is "play this song".
Claim 13: the default action of Windows Explorer is "open this folder".
Claim 14: the root directory is displayed first.
Claim 15: inner directories are displayed after root directories.
Claim 16: root directory contains artist names; allowing navigation to "C:\Beatles\White Album\Revolution 1.mp3".
I've seen about a dozen posts claiming this to be a fact.
Where are the notes that were used in the patent filing? Are they notarized? Did anyone who supports Creative's claim look over Apple's notarized notes?
The process for a patent filing where I work:
1) Document the idea copiously.
2) Get the documentation notarized.
3) Send application (with $6K check) to USPTO
4) The send you a reply notifying you that the application is first for filing purposes.
If you only do steps 3 and 4, you run the risk of losing your patent in court. If someone else can show that they documented the idea first, then it can be argued that they were first with the idea. That may be enough to make a claim for prior art, especially if the product is already on the market.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The Dewey Decimal system is copyright and trademarked by OCLC and they have been known to threaten people with legal action. I kid you not...
This would be a better link
http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat6928433.pdf
-BB
Apple did not protect itself adequately before Microsoft created Windows. All of Apple's litigation regarding look and feel got tossed out of court, with MS able to continue without restraint. Apple's attorneys seem to be very good at reactive work, such as cease and desist orders, but not too good on the preventative side.
It really wasn't a timing issue with the Apple Lawsuit against Microsoft. Apple would have been unable to obtain patents on the things they were suing Microsoft over.
The UI concepts and specifically the GUI elements were something Apple themselves did not create or own, so they could only sue Microsoft on 'look and feel', not actually ideas or concepts.
If people actually follow this entire process, they will find that Xerox 'successfully' sued Apple for copying technology they DID NOT license for the Mac GUI. Additionally, other GUI competitive products were in the works before Lisa and the Mac, for example XWindows.
So all Apple had left was look and feel, and if Microsoft named the Trash Can 'Trash' or not, hence why it is called a Recycle Bin in Windows...
I find a lot of people that are mad at Microsoft because they somehow feel Windows stole the GUI from Apple. This is fairly far from the Truth, as Windows 1.0 was in development at the same time as the Apple GUI. Apple just found better hardware at the time and got it to market first. Secondly the GUI concept were not Apple's to steal in the first place.
The President of Creative explicitly stated in a later press conference that they do not intend to focus on going after Apple. Creative will focus on competing with products. However, Creative certainly will keep the patent option open and they refuse to comment on whether they have involved Apple in private discussions on the matter.
Source
I'm pretty sure my Rio Volt mp3 player had the same basic UI.
It was a CD-based player that could play normal audio CDs as well as read MP3s from an ISO9660 CD-R. The interface allowed you to navigate the directory tree of the CD in a hirearchical view.
See Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org for the stories about how MS got the license to the Mac UI and copied the UI.
Remember that was 20 years ago and it was John Sculley's fault.
I find a lot of people that are mad at Microsoft because they somehow feel Windows stole the GUI from Apple. This is fairly far from the Truth, as Windows 1.0 was in development at the same time as the Apple GUI
Your timeline is a bit messed up. Yes, Windows 1.0 was in development at the same time, but Microsoft licensed from Apple the rights to use the "visual displays" in their in-development Word and Excel for the Mac, for use in Windows 1.0. So, in fact, Apple had no problem with Windows 1.0 because they had licensed the tech to them. Windows 1.0 has nothing to do with the "stealing" you're talking about.
Per Andy Hertzfeld's folklore write-up:
"Microsoft didn't manage to ship a version of Windows until almost two years later, releasing Windows 1.0 in the fall of 1985. It was pretty crude, just as Steve had predicted, with little of the Mac's thoughtful elegance. It didn't even have overlapping windows, preferring a simpler technique called "tiling". When its utter rejection became apparent a few months later, Bill Gates fired the implementation team and started a new version from scratch, led by none other than Neil Konzen. "
So, only after Windows 2.0 was released, which was based on an entirely new codebase, and contained many features similar to the Macintosh did Apple believe their ideas were stolen. Why? Because Apple thought the license was only for Windows 1.0, and not for future versions.
Thus the "look-and-feel" lawsuit was filed in 1988.
And Apple lost, not because the court found Apple didn't "own" the look-and-feel, but rather because the language in the contract did state that Microsoft had a license for future versions of Windows.
Do you have linkage to support the recaptacle redesign weakness theory? I ask, because its the first that I've heard of it (and google is no help so far) - I've only ever heard of the story through third party websites (most of which are usually reputable).
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Software patents have no requirement for a hardware component in the US.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
"Apple didn't blunder, but in all likelihood took the correct position that a displayed representation of a heirarchical filesystem was unpatentable."
That doesn't sound like typical Apple behavior -- they can and will use the legal system to their advantage.
Apple owns hundreds of patents for ideas and processes which would seem intuitive to the average Slashdotter. To wit:
Perhaps I am over-simplifying some of these, but this is par for the course whenever Slashdotters discuss particular patents.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Absolutely. However, other forms of correspondence are also very, very important. A politician's office ranks correspondence according to the vehicle in which it is delivered. The rarer, and more time-intensive, the correspondence, the more it is valued.
/.ers, but one handwritten letter means more than five typed letters.
The best way to get your Congressperson to take notice of you, other than face-to-face contact, is a handwritten letter. I know this may be tough for us
A telephone call to their office is also ranked highly.
Postcards are counted, but are weighted less than letters. Ditto for faxes. Emails are also counted, but are worth almost nothing.
If you really want patent law to change, have a letter-writing interlude at your next LAN party, or other get-together. Buy the stamps and envelopes ahead of time, sit down with paper and pen, and write it out. It sometimes helps if the best writer in the group writes a sample letter.
It works for the pro-censorship folks, for environmental groups, and for other interest groups -- it will help with patent laws if enough people do it.
Here's a useful database of phone, fax, email, and physical addresses of Congresspeople: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"Apple targeted a lot of smaller companies for the same thing, many of whom where unable to pay for the litigation and went out of business."
I can't think of one, got any sources?
"I forgot my mantra."
Hmph. I can't find anything to back it up, in fact I found a different, more recent story about a woman and some hot tea whose cup disintegrated so maybe I am conflating the two stories in my mind. The accounts I have read seem to say she sloshed it on herself when pulling off the lid, and this was found to make her 20% responsible for her injury, reducing her award by that amount. Anyways, the point that the coffee was above industry standard temperature holds. The coffee was so hot (85C!) that it was undrinkable without suffering serious injury.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The only thing creative did different is put the word "music" in the patent. Interfaces on hardware devices have been using this same type of gui for 20 years or more. Anyone who has used any type of midi instrument with a 2-line LCD has seen it. So creatve gets all "innovative" by coopting somthing this obvious for their music player. Please.
Although, I'd couldn't say apple wouldn't have done the same thing if they could.
Sucks, though how long it took to approve while allowing Apple to "infringe" therefore racking up the retroactive licensing fees.
"I forgot my mantra."
Apple sued Digital Research over the appearance of the GEM desktop, forcing DRI to castrate the Desktop, effectively killing GEM. GEM preceeded usable windows by many years, and was licensed to other companies (most notably to Atari for their ST computers in the 80's). GEM was also available on the PC platform.
There's one! =PActually yes they have. In fact they patented it SOO long ago, and in the context of a mouse design, that people thought it would eventually have made it into such a mouse. That stupid mightymouse could have really used it...
According to wikipedia, this didn't drive DRI out of business and it was the only lawsuit of it's kind that apple won.
"I forgot my mantra."
"Only lawsuit of its kind that apple won" means nothing. The quote you wanted validated was, "Apple targeted a lot of smaller companies for the same thing, many of whom where unable to pay for the litigation and went out of business." This doesn't imply that the litigation was sucessful it just implies that the people getting sued couldn't afford to defend themselves and instead just settled with Apple. Many small companies got sued like this over the GUI; I don't have any examples off-hand I'm just making sure you realize that the answer to your question doesn't depend on any court outcomes and additionally a lot of settlements aren't even public.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?