Apple Is Accused of Violating Software Patent

outz writes "And it begins... Creative Technology, a maker of portable music players, has accused Apple Computer of violating a newly granted software patent covering the way users navigate music selections." From the NYT article: "Creative Technology, which is based in Singapore and has United States operations in Milpitas, Calif., said it would consider every option available to defend the patent, including possible legal action. Apple declined to comment on the patent. The patent, which the company calls the Zen Patent, covers Creative's interface for portable players, which allows users to select a song, album or track by navigating a succession of menus. The patent office awarded the patent on Aug. 9." We reported on the granting of the patent a few days ago.

Comments

Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[geomon]

I know, Creative had it first. You can pull all of the patent information from the last time we discussed this issue but the fact still remains that a patent application date does not establish when an idea was first formulated. The Patent Office can only issue based on what is available, so it will be up to Apple to prove, if it can, that its interface was documented and notarized before Creative. That will mitigate Creative's claim of uniqueness and would change their patent status.

But that whole discussion pales in comparison to the larger issue of patents granted for things that the entire industry knows has shitloads of prior art attached to it. These defensive patents are what will kill innovation in this country, not piracy as Microsoft and the RIAA will claim.

Write your representative and tell them you DEMAND patent reform.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[VaticDart]

so it will be up to Apple to prove, if it can, that its interface was documented and notarized before Creative. That will mitigate Creative's claim of uniqueness and would change their patent status.

Considering that Creative was granted a patent for a technology that describes the way just about every GUI, website, and digital media player on the planet uses, that shouldn't be too hard.

I have never seen the Patent Office's head so far up its own ass to grant something like this.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[geomon]

I have never seen the Patent Office's head so far up its own ass to grant something like this.

They will just claim, as they have in the past, that they are understaffed and overwhelmed by the number of patents that they have to deal with.

Well, tough shit. Get more people on board and raise the application fees. The number of rejected patents due to proof of prior art will make defensive patents disappear.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[ackthpt]

They will just claim, as they have in the past, that they are understaffed and overwhelmed by the number of patents that they have to deal with. Well, tough shit. Get more people on board and raise the application fees. The number of rejected patents due to proof of prior art will make defensive patents disappear.

The USPTO office has been recently identified as a department which desperately needs reorg and increase in staffing, the odds are it'll continue to get worse until the country, and then the world, are crushed beneath the weight of billions of stupid useless patents which prevent any innovation whatsoever -- exactly the sort of thing patents were meant to protect and encourage.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[FortranDragon]

Well, tough shit. Get more people on board and raise the application fees. The number of rejected patents due to proof of prior art will make defensive patents disappear.

So, you're going to write your Congresscritter and ask them to allocate a bigger budget to the USPTO? Perhaps ask them to increase your taxes to help out?

I didn't think so. ;-) Also, I'd point out that raising the application fees doesn't stop big companies from filing as many patents as they do today. It just hurts small inventors.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[geomon]

So, you're going to write your Congresscritter and ask them to allocate a bigger budget to the USPTO?

Nope.

Perhaps ask them to increase your taxes to help out?

Nope, I recommend application fees. They are a tax on the people who use the system.

I didn't think so. ;-) Also, I'd point out that raising the application fees doesn't stop big companies from filing as many patents as they do today. It just hurts small inventors.

Well, I agree that small inventors are hurt by an increase in application fees. But you are incorrect that the fees alone hurt small inventors. There are plenty of ways that a large corporation can screw a small inventor out of their patent: the one Apple might be able to use on Creative is a good one - litigate a claim of prior art.

So the fees are not the only thing that bury small inventors. And as for the increase in fees? If there are more aggressive and better trained patent examiners on staff at the USPTO, there will be fewer patents for trivial crap that are filed just so some corporation will have a set of defensive patents to unleash in court.

Will the fees affect large corporations? Hell yes. The company I work for files thousands of patent applications a year. Their whole business is intellectual property. They would shit bricks if the fees were to double.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[WillDraven]

So, you're going to write your Congresscritter and ask them to allocate a bigger budget to the USPTO? Perhaps ask them to increase your taxes to help out? how about we reduce our military budget instead?

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[allanc]

Raising application fees doesn't stop big companies from filing as many patents, but it does have the following effects:
1. It allows the USPTO to hire more staffers to determine validity of patents
2. It allows the USPTO to hire more qualified staffers to determine the validity of patents.

Which would you rather be, a highly paid programmer or a lowly-paid patent clerk? If they can raise the salary offerred to trained CS people, they could compete with software companies and maybe get a person who'll look at it and say "Um. You're trying to patent a menu. There have been menus since the invention of the video terminal. Denied."

If you want to do this while also helping the small inventors out, maybe add a "Frivolous patent deposit" to the cost of filing. Then if the patent examiner determines that someone's trying to patent something that any reasonably competent third year CS underground would be likely to whip up in a college project without even thinking about it, the USPTO gets to keep the money. But if it turns out that it's really something novel, the money's refunded.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[Doctor_Jest]

Which is why the entire system is broken. But that's not the greater issue here. Sure Apple's a big company and evil and all that... I agree. They are a grubbing entity that loves to suck money from people's pockets. I do NOT defend their actions anymore than I am defending Creative using the patent system to attempt to eliminate competition that has beaten them soundly in the market.

This is yet another example of what I consider a grave "abuse" of the system for their own personal gain. Creative's players suck. They haven't been able to beat Apple with a better product, so they're going to patent them to death to win. Add an FM tuner? Yeah! Ship a bunch with viruses. Have a player that you have to drop to "wake up" the reader arm on the hard drive? Possibly. ;)

Sounds like sour grapes to me. Make a better player, Creative. Stop this "if I can't win in the market, I'm going to litigate them out." I hate this when Apple does it. I hate this when Microsoft does it. I hate this when ANYONE does this. Just because this happens to be one giant company against another doesn't make it right. No matter what your feelings toward Apple, etc. are, you have to admit, this is just a court-induced market grab.

And I'm sorry, but it's just fucking lame. Creative lost the day the iPod became a best seller. And it peeves them to no end. Life's hard.... buy a helmet. Stop making shit players, and maybe you can beat Apple. I'm not shedding tears for Apple either, but this disgusts me to no end.

Keep the lawyers in the storm cellar where they belong... or run them the hell over. Either way, it'd make our lives a whole lot better.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[fshalor]

I like it... The review by peers part. I could juyst see corperations getting too bad. I mean, think about the whole domain name fiasco. But extend that to patents which *are* what people make their livelyhoods from.... yikes.

Peer review is the solution. ...

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[The Spoonman]

allow multiple competing patent granting companies.

What? You mean like the credit reporting houses? Yeah, that oughta work. They do such a wonderful job of keeping track of my credit. Consistently and fairly with no hassle at all if they make a mistake. I'm sure that would work just great for patents.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[falconwolf]

Well, tough shit. Get more people on board and raise the application fees. The number of rejected patents due to proof of prior art will make defensive patents disappear.

Yea, raise patent application fees so an individual can't afford to get a patent. Leave it to big business to get all patents.

Falcon

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[Dashing Leech]

"Au contraire, what you are seeing is the true raison d'être of IP law."

No. The intent of IP law is the publication and dissemination of innovations, not the protection of them. From the USPTO's own words: "Through the preservation, classification, and dissemination of patent information, the Office promotes the industrial and technological progress of the nation and strengthens the economy." Notice there's no mention of protection or helping the creators, it's about helping everyone else learn how things work and advance the ideas. The limited time protection is merely the means by which creators are given incentive to disseminate the information; it is not the intended purpose.

A world without IP laws is a world of secrets, which stiffles innovation. It is unfortunate that poor application and understanding of the principles behind IP -- both at the legislative and approval levels, and abuse by the industry for unintended purposes -- has lead us to the mess we have today that also stiffles innovation. Clearly reform is necessary.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[drsquare]

Will the fees affect large corporations? Hell yes. The company I work for files thousands of patent applications a year. Their whole business is intellectual property. They would shit bricks if the fees were to double.

As a small-time inventor, I'd shit bricks if fees were to double. Patents shouldn't be just for the rich. It should be a democratic system where all you need is ingenuity and hard work, not a giant bank account.

Increasing the fees just means that if you invent something and you're poor, you need to get a loan from a giant corporation (a bank), just to patent it. How does it help anyone by making indepedents and small companies rely on big corporations to get on the ladder?

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[FortranDragon]

No, I'd rather see patents go to a system where the inventor has to produce a working tangible model (at a minimum). Allowing patents of business processes, user interfaces, etc. just destroys the whole idea of inventors having exclusive right to their discoveries.

I'd also return copyright to the old 26 year copyright with the *author* being able to register a second 26 year copyright period. (Screw international treaties. ;-)) If someone can't make money on something in 52 years then it most likely isn't a money maker.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[Tony Hoyle]

Patents shouldn't be just for the rich.

Newsflash.. they are. Deal with it.

The fees are a *tiny* fraction of the money needed to defend a patent. If you can't afford the legal fees to defend it, don't bother with the patent, because it's useless anyway. The first company with money that likes your idea will steal it, and probably sue you for violation of a few other patents in the process.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[Scudsucker]

The fees are a *tiny* fraction of the money needed to defend a patent. If you can't afford the legal fees to defend it, don't bother with the patent, because it's useless anyway. The first company with money that likes your idea will steal it, and probably sue you for violation of a few other patents in the process.

So? Patents are not trademarks, you don't lose them if you don't defend them. And if company X does rip you off and makes lots of money off your invention, then sooner or later some lawyers will be happy to take your case *for free* in return for a chunk of your very large settlement.

Re:Yet Another Bullshit Patent Dispute

[shmlco]

Press average citizens into patent juries? Oh, yes, I can see it now....

Addressing the jury, "Today, we're evaluating methods of fractional co-polymer extraction using a protein-based... Hey, guys! Wakeup! You can't go to sleep yet!"

Voice from the back row. "Aw, go ahead and approve it. The title sounds like they know what they're talking about.

Point being that average citizens have no knowledge of the subject, no background in the subject, no knowledge of prior art, and no knowledge of current techniques. Other than that they should do just fine.

And before you suggest that we instead empanel a jury of experts in the field, let me remind you that this puts us back where we started, as any experts in the cutting edge of the field (where patents exist) in all likelyhood have vested interests one way or another.

Prior Art?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Yet another demonstration of how the patent system is irretrievably broken.

Seriously, it shouldn't even be possible to patent a hierarchical menu system...prior art abounds. This reminds me of the amusing, although almost certainly apocryphal, story of the man who attempted to patent the wheelbarrow. Like the man in the story, Creative ought to be thrown out of court, preferably onto some tender portion of their collective corporate anatomy.

Re:Prior Art?

[tpgp]

This reminds me of the amusing, although almost certainly apocryphal, story of the corporation who attempted to gain all intellectual property rights over the desktop metaphor for computer interfaces using copyright.

Oh wait! Thats not an apocryphal story at all

Whilst I don't think software patents are a good idea generally and this particular patent is insane, I feel a certain....lack of sympathy toward apple for opening this entire can of worms in the first place.

Re:Prior Art?

[shotfeel]

I've been trying to figure out how long iTunes has been doing this. Does anyone remember if the first versions (on OS 9) did this? How about the jukebox apps that predated iTunes on Mac and Windows?

Re:Prior Art?

[rsborg]

Whilst I don't think software patents are a good idea generally and this particular patent is insane, I feel a certain....lack of sympathy toward apple for opening this entire can of worms in the first place.

Stop feeling any amount of sympathy for Apple, as in the end it will be the customers who lose when Apple and Creative sign cross-liscencing deals/etc.

It's not Apple who loses here, it's the customer, every time one of these bogus over-reaching patents gets brought up and cross-lisenced to raise the barrier to entry and exclude players who aren't already in the game.

Re:Prior Art?

[aristotle-dude]

The NeXT file browser is a perfect exactly of prior art. It looks visually similar to the iPod menu complete with arrows and a shifting of the display as you navigate further down the tree.

The iPod GUI could be described as a single pane Miller columns browser. Even iTunes uses a similar interface.

Remember when Patents were to create?

[WillAffleckUW]

I do. But now they seem to be used to fight legal wars and stop technological and engineering advances, instead of promoting them.

Sigh.

Maybe I should file a patent for delivering virus programs with a USB or other plug-in computer device ... then Creative would owe me money ...

Bad Patent...

[RUFFyamahaRYDER]

"which allows users to select a song, album or track by navigating a succession of menus."

How the hell did they actually patent that? It makes me sick... What other ways are you going to navigate your music library if not by artist, album, or genre?! There's not too many ways to impliment this.

Innovation

[ckliv]

Maybe someone can explain to me, how it's possible to patent even such an elementary idea?

Reform

[Anonymous Coward]

"patent, which the company calls the Zen Patent, covers Creative's interface for portable players, which allows users to select a song, album or track by navigating a succession of menus"

I have to navigate a succession of menus all the time in a great many programs. The Windows's start menu for one example. Patent Reform. Patent Reform. Patent Reform. Screem it to your local politician today (and don't forget the news media too).

We don't negotiate with terrorists

[KidSock]

What companies need to do is establish a very verbose "never pay" policy. If you're going to pay money, pay an army of lawers to drag every claim through court by the suers toenails. Make them know that if they want to persue a claim, they're going to have to front a heluva lot of money for it.

Re:We don't negotiate with terrorists

[Red Flayer]

"Make them know that if they want to persue a claim, they're going to have to front a heluva lot of money for it.

So then the small organizations or individuals that have their ideas ripped off have no recompense?

The patent system is broken, but breaking it worse won't help.

Re:We don't negotiate with terrorists

[ultrabot]

So then the small organizations or individuals that have their ideas ripped off have no recompense?

Yes. Compete on execution, not the ideas, and if you have an idea you don't want to share, keep it secret. Just don't prevent everyone else from having, and implementing the said idea, which is the worst case scenario.

Re:We don't negotiate with terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

That has got to be the stupidest suggestion I've seen in this entire discussion. The entire point of the patent system is to entice people to invent useful things, not reward people for building useful things. The two are not the same and often divergent groups do the two different activities.

Re:We don't negotiate with terrorists

[Tim C]

Assuming you're talking about patents in general and not just software patents, that won't work. How do you keep an innovative mechanical or electrical design secret, whilst still marketing the product it's part of?

What goes around comes around

[Frankie70]

Apple sues Sorenson
http://slashdot.org/apple/02/05/01/2012217.shtml?t id=107

Apple sues to stop leaks
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/03/012024 0&mode=thread

Apple sues Think Secret
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/06/06 57245&tid=123&tid=3

Apple sues Future Power
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/july/990701/app lesuesfuturepower.html

Apple sues domain name owner
http://www.slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2004/12 /08/1126.aspx

Apple sues eMachine
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-230054.html?legacy=c net

Re:What goes around comes around

[XxtraLarGe]

Everybody's sue-happy, but what's at issue here isn't Apple's karma coming back to haunt them. It's the fact that the idiots at the Patent Office are giving out patents for obvious and/or non-useful non-innovations that are breeding a chilling environment that's stifling innovation, which is purportedly exactly the opposite of the purpose of patents.

Re:What goes around comes around

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was so obvious why didn't you come up with it? Fuck it, I say Apple is getting what they deserve.

Re:What goes around comes around

[DurendalMac]

You are an imbecile. Apple wasn't suing for patent infringement for some lameass patent on any of these cases. Futurepower and eMachines both created direct iMac knockoffs. Hell, Futurepower's was so close that you could almost consider it an iMac, although they gave utterly stupid excuses like "We use gemstones to name the colors instead of fruit! Floppy drive! Multibutton mouse!" The iMac had become a symbol and trademark for Apple, and the lazy assholes at both companies ripped it off so blatantly as to infringe on it. Both were sued and both of them lost. Serves them right. Apple sues leaks because of NDA violations, which, the last time I checked, was a perfectly legit reason. They went after Thinksecret because they knowingly posted NDA-violated material. The domain name is silly, though. I'll grant you that. The Sorenson suit was due to Sorenson trying to duck under the radar, and Apple caught them. It'd be nice to see the Sorenson Video 3 codec get around more, though. In any case, none of these suits are as retarded as this one from Creative. This is Creative being unable to offer a competitor for the iPod, so they're going to try and sue it away with an utterly fucking retarded software patent that was so broad it could cover almost any GUI. Pull your head from your ass.

The old GUI look-and-feel lawsuit

[fred fleenblat]

It seems like it was yesterday, or maybe 20 years ago, but I seem to recall that Apple tried to sue microsoft for stealing several aspects of its GUI, like the trash can, folders, and the assignment of operations to specific menus like File and Edit.

Apple lost that lawsuit when the Judge held that GUIs and their look and feel could not be patented or copyrighted, so it seems like that could be used as a precedent in their favor on this lawsuit.

Re:This is rediculous

[The Lynxpro]

"Suck it Creative. Suck it Creatively too."

To which Creative will claim to be sucking it in 24-bit but experts will prove it is only 16-bit suckage.

Seriously, this is madness on the Kim Jong Il level. Apple has, what, $6 billion in the bank? How much does Creative have in order to survive a war of attrition in the court rooms? How large a patent arsenal does Apple have in comparison to Creative? Yes, folks, this is the end of Creative...and fitting it will be considering how they were able to grab Aureal's patents so long ago in a similar manner.

Re:good patents?

[KitesWorld]

Yup. The development costs that go into things such as new pharmacuticals take a long time to get back. If not for patents, the big drugs companies simply wouldn't bother doing research - because they'd be spending all that money only to get ripped off by a competitor. Patents are not a bad thing in themselves. The problem is that, particularly in the software world, they tend to get granted for obvious re-applications of existing technology. The intent behind patents is to protect innovators and give them time to recoup their costs. But the implementation is broken in that the people who pass these patents often lack the technical knowledge to be able to tell wether something is 'obvious' or not. On top of that, Lawyers often re-word the submissions to obsfucate what is actually bieng submitted to the point of making even simple ideas appear much more complicated than they actually are. Basically, the system just needs an almighty overhaul. I doubt that many people would (reasonably) argue that patents themselves are bad - even software patents have legitimate uses. It's just the implementation thats at fault.

Re:Good. Apple needs a slap in the face.

[BackInIraq]

Apple restricts back-up copies

Strange, I've found it very easy to burn the music to CD's, and thus "back it up." Also, one can archive the files quite easily, requiring only that they be activated when used on a new computer (though this can get complicated, if you've maxed out your authorized computers...but there are ways to fix this as well). The point: one can fairly easily back up one's iTMS purchased music.

Oh, and it is of course trivial to back up the non-DRM'd portion of one's music library, which for most people is probably damn near all of it.

They restrict converting to other formats

If by "restrict" you mean "make it a two-step process," then yeah. Burn to CD. Re-rip. Done. And you say that as if any other online music store (other than certain Russian stores of questionable legality) that sells RIAA-label music makes this any easier. To the best of my knowledge, they do not.

They only work with Apple brand DRM

Yep, and I don't freakin' care. Besides, the first two seem to establish that you don't like DRM in general anyway...so you like Microsoft's *better* or something? This is just stupid. Next!

They restrict compatiblity with other players.

Yeah, because MP3 is such a proprietary format. Or are you still taking about DRM'd songs? There has never been a need for iPod users to use AAC, except if they want to buy from iTMS. For those of us that just rip CD's, we have the option of doing it in MP3, which is pretty much universal...we can even use a different application to do it.

If you're just mad because you can't buy music on iTMS and put it on your Zen or whatever, I don't care. From the sound of the rest of this, you are probably also one of the people who complains about the prices in the iTMS, and the DRM, and probably wouldn't buy music from there to put on a different player anyway...so you're just arguing to argue.

No editing of the songs.

You mean, like from within iTunes? Because you can certainly burn them to CD and then re-rip them as .AIFF/.WAV if you want, and edit away. Or am I missing something. Or are you just really pissed at this whole two-step process? (or just unaware of it, perhaps?)



Oh, and let's not forget that all of these DRM restrictions were largely decided upon by the RIAA, rather than Apple. I think I should stop replying to AC's, but at the same time when I see something stupid written, I have to tear it apart like a junkyard dog with a piece of meat.

Unconstitutional

[Doc Ruby]

The Constitution directs Congress to establish patents and copyrights to promote progress in the useful arts and sciences. We recognize that protecting investment in invention is necessary, because the freedom to copy someone's invention without other investment prohibits inventions being worth producing by people without the other protections of big organizations. Which big organizations aren't often enough the source of inventions necessary to keep our society coping with changes in the world, let alone lead in the invention work. And even when they are the source (as they often are), they can't always produce their invention when a tiny part is restricted by some other patent holder, who can demand any compensation for a license from their monopoly.

But we don't need the current system. When an inventor of a device has to consider that someone might have a patent on a hierarchical menu used innovatively on their own device, they won't be able to produce the actually innovative part. Or even just marginally improve the invention, incrementally keeping up with a changing world. The current patent system is a major impediment to progress in the useful arts and sciences. It is unconstutional, and must be replaced with something that actually works.

"Apple declined to comment on the patent."

[bogie]

What Apple is really thinking.

"dam, why didn't we patent that first?"

Apple just as bad as the rest. You reap what you sow I guess. Too bad its not just Apple and Creative but every fucking company in the world paticipating in an "arms" race with regard to patents.

Think some day it will get so bad that they will HAVE to reform our system? Don't make me laugh. And always the consumers will be the ones picking up the tabs for the "cost of doing business".

Re:Question....

[mrgreen4242]

The first iPod shipped October 23, 2001. I can't believe that Apple managed to design, prototype, test, mass produce, market and ship the iPod in 9 months.

There is also no way that they don't have dated mockups, drawings, documents with interface specs, etc. from Dec 2000 and before.

Re:Patent proxy wars

[matt4077]

. If they lose they will basically have destroyed their player business - no-one is going to buy a product from a bunch of losers.

A rather ridiculous conspiracy theory. What consumer will ever even hear about this lawsuit? What consumer will care? You know how many lawsuits any large company has going on at any given time? It's probably in the hundreds, and they are bound to lose some of those. Nobody cares.

But who has a stake in this you ask. Creative, of course. They see themselves as a leading company in everything music/computer-related, and they can't stand Apple's success on their home turf. Microsoft isn't really afraid of Apple. They are not even competing in that market.

iPod fanboys

[mc900ftjesus]

Anyone on here who bashes Creative for this is about as stupid as the USPTO. Apple tried to panent the exact same thing, Creative had their application in first (before the iPod was ever heard of). Yet you blame Creative for following the rules (however defunct) and trying to keep the MP3 monopoly from getting more out of hand.

It's called poor sportsmanship. Creative beat your favorite team and now you cry that Creative isn't playing fair. It's not their fault. If they didn't even try the patent I would have said the CEO of Creative should be fired. It is every company's job to patent everything in sight or lose the whole game. Unfortunately we all lose in this game except for 1% of the richest people, but they're the most important, right?

Re:Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a clue Apple fanboy, seriously.

If you're going to boycott Creative for (ab)using the patent system with this patent, take a look at Apple first. For God's sake no company embodies GUI "look and feel" patents more than Apple, it's only poetic justice that they're now targeted themselves by this nonsense. Hopefully it'll lead to change eventually.

The system is broken, Creative uses it to their advantage, Microsoft does the same, and so does Apple and every other company that wants to survive out there.

The entire system needs to change, until then Apple is no better than Creative in this regard.

Of course this entire post has no chance of making it above score 0 because of the well-known inherent pro-Apple bias on /., for such Apple fanboys reading this, if you could think of this post as a criticism of the entire patent system and not Apple in particular maybe you could find it in your heart to mod it up...No?
Thought so.

Creative is doing it wrong

[Barlo_Mung_42]

They should have started with a small company like Neuros that couldn't efford to defend them selves. With a precedent setting case under their belt they would stand a better chance against Apple.

Re:Patent proxy wars

[Tim C]

If they lose they will basically have destroyed their player business - no-one is going to buy a product from a bunch of losers.

Most people won't even know of the suit, or will very quickly forget if they do hear of it.

If they win, they will still have a problem - people like Apply and attacking them like this just looks evil.

Again, I think you over-estimate things here. Most people don't give two hoots about Apple, or Microsoft, or anything like that. They want a computer to do stuff with, and don't particularly know or care about it beyond that. Apple? They make those Mac things don't they? Something to do with graphics or something...

On the other hand, if Creative win, they get damages and a percentage of every iPod sale. That's likely to be a whole ton of cash right there, even ignoring that they then get to go after iRiver and everyone else making similar stuff.

Someone who has been fighting hard to get software patents enabled in Europe

I know who you mean, but do not forget that all of the big software producers have software patents, including Apple. Hell, IBM is the world's most prolific patenter. No, they'll not all for software, but some of them are.

Sure, MS is lobbying for software patents in Europe - and in my considered opinion, they can take their lobbying, shove it up their collective arse and fuck off while they're doing it - but they are by no means alone in that. With Apple branching into music downloads and related hardware, MS is by no means their only competitor anymore.

granting patents

[falconwolf]

The easiest solution to this mess is to move to a registration system, where patent applications arent examined, and just allow everyone to fight it out in court (which is what happens anyway, but this would be without the presumption that patents are valid).

And what of the individual person who invents something yet doesn't have the deep pockets of a big corporation?

Falcon

Creative is already better bargain

[xtermin8]

I think Creative does have a better product- certainly a better range of mp3 players that deliver more value per MB. The difference is iTunes- Apple has the Music store and the "PC" interface. Creative is unlikely to provide a competitive service or an iTunes quality application. To be anything but bemused about this shows how naive you have been about how the "free market" actually works in the real world. Buy your own helmet and put your bitter disillusionment violin away. Wanna improve your life? Study law yourself instead of whining

Such generic things shouldn't be under patent....

[GrayFox777]

No one should be allowed to patent such a generic thing. That's sort of like trying to patent the order of the icons in your frickin' start menu! And if Creative is going to sue Apple, what about all the other companies that make MP3 players? Will they sue them too? I'm sure they will!
Sometimes I just think corporations act like a bunch of little kids. Except, instead of running to the teacher, they run to judges and lawyers.