Slashdot Mirror
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. "
I like the way industry analyst talked down the threats to Apple.
However the fact is, if you're using patents held by your ever-so-slightly-competition, you're sitting on a time bomb without a LCD display telling you when it will go off, and how much damage it is likely to cause.
While Microsoft might have a more friendly relationship with Apple, Creative is certainly aggressive in competing with iPod. Creative's CEO has been openly challenging iPod's domination and this seems to be a handy weapon.
Just hope they didn't patent the built-in virus too.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Why is an MP3 UI any different from any other computer program UI? I can sort any number of MP3 UIs by foo.
Yay, someone patented a sort function that displays the output on individual screens!
I'm glad that the Patent Office employs people to make sure that no one steals that idea.
Creative filed for this patent well before Apple even released the iPod. This is not "Apple's mistake".
The patent has arguable flaws, but Apple having "prior art" isn't one of them.
If I hadn't fallen victim to the siren song of the 20gig iPod in the store I would have gotten one of their nomad products instead (Which are cheaper). But there's something really attractive to the iPod that just made me want to have it.
Now I've got an iPod shuffle and I really like it. In some ways I feel locked in to apple products now, since I bought stuff off the iTunes store, and I've gotten so used to using gtkpod for everything. But that's not a problem because Apple's products are good and I am happy with them.
I do think it's interesting that Creative was able to get this patent on mp3 player user interfaces, and especially what their action will be. I hope they don't specifically target Apple, as that would make me mad at Creative. I would much rather they concentrate on making better players to get my business. If they were to come up with something more attractive than Apple's offerings, I'd just burn all my m4a's to CD and rerip them.
IMO they should really try to come up with a better design than their iPod mini imitations. Maybe there isn't a better design than the iPod but we'll never know if everyone goes around copying the iPod!
However, I'm not holding my breath. It seems corporations these days are much more focused on protecting their existing IP than creating new IP; which is very sad, especially from any consumer's point of view.
Software patents are terrible ideas for reasons that can sometimes be hard to explain to those not in the know. The more cases we have, though, where the ridiculousness becomes undeniable, the better chances we'll have for either a reforming of the system, or for the whole mess to collapse under it's own weight.
The opinion above is fiction. Any similarity to real opinions, including facts and logic, is purely coincidental.
Hopefully patents like this will start making the government realise just how flawed the system is. The fact that someone can be granted a patent for something as obvious as this just makes the system unusable. And it won't be until big corporations like apple start getting screwed over by these that they'll take notice.
I thought the intention of the patent system was to encourage innovation not stifle it, and that is what is happening with every company patenting anything they can in order to make money out of their rivals. Not necessarily inventing new and wonderful solutions but often just patenting existing ideas. Maybe if the patent office had more resources they would be able to reduce some of the obvious patents that are granted but then again maybe not.
And lets face it, the solution to browsing a music list by using multiple menus is a fairly obvious solution that shouldn't be protected by law. Computers are basically designed for ordering data and making it easier to access. This great "innovation" that they claim took so much hard work was really quite obvious.
I welcome all the blunders like this that expose the idiocy of current patent system. It can lead to something positive being done with this inefficient 19th century system which certainly can't cope with 21st century problems.
Actually, Apple's loss of the look-and-feel case was primarily due to an error in contract language, not a failure to protect.
From Wiki (emphasis mine):
"As it happened, the court's approach seemed to invalidate the copyrighting of a broad "look and feel" of a piece of software, though this was not decisively stated in the court's ruling. The fact that Apple and Microsoft had entered into the licensing agreement for Windows 1.0 made a large part of the case a mere contractual matter rather than a matter of copyright law -- much against Apple's preference -- so it was not necessary for the court to set a precedent in its ruling."
Apple's language in the contract was construed to mean a license to Windows 1.0 and all derivate versions. It was one bad sentence in a contract that screwed Apple, not a failure to protect.
Interestingly, the matter did appear to imply uncertainty in protection of user interfaces via copyright, and thus Design Patents (such as this one) became the preferred area of IP to seek protection.
It's been done before on PCs, but how about a CD-ripper built around an actual Walkman-style CD player, car CD player, or stereo-console CD player?
Heck, you could even incorporate DRM or fingerprinting to discourage the casual user from uploading his ripped songs.
I'd love a Walkman that ripped my CDs as I played them, then the next time I inserted the same disk, just played them from flash or hard disk.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
from the abstract of the patent:
"A method, performed by software executing on the processor of a portable music playback device, that automatically files tracks according to hierarchical structure of categories to organize tracks in a logical order. A user interface is utilized to change the hierarchy, view track names, and select tracks for playback or other operations."
from what i've gathered of the ipod, it files data into a random structure of directories (via hashing) and categorizes/accesses them via indexing.
(open the ipod in a mac with tinker tool used to show hidden/system files and take a look in the "ipod control" directory)
That is only remotely similar, and pretty far off from what was claimed on the patent.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Dragging and dropping was indeed invented by Apple. It wasn't present in the Xerox Alto/Star or any previous mouse-driven system; it appeared for the first time in the Apple Lisa.
The drag-and-drop gesture (yes, it was the first mouse gesture) allowed Apple to eliminate the "move" button on the mouse. The double-click behavior allowed it to eliminate the "activate" button, meaning Apple could use a single-button mouse to achieve all the functions of a three-button mouse (at the time.)
I doubt anyone would have called it obvious or intuitive in 1983. If it were, we might all be using single-button mice.
For that matter, I believe that sliders, and radio buttons as features of a GUI were introduced by Apple at one time or another. (Xerox had buttons, scroll bars and popup menus, and maybe some other thing's I've forgotten.) Whether any of these GUI controls were ever worthy of patent protection is debatable, of course.
A simple solution for Apple then: Stop calling the iPOD a mp3 or media player. Add a calender and clock to the interface and call it a portable computer. Heck call it a next gen Newton.