Creative Sues Apple

E IS mC(Square) writes "Looks like Apple's legal problems are not yet over. ZDNet reports that Creative has sued Apple over their iPod interface. From the article: 'Creative Technology said Monday that it has filed two legal actions against Apple Computer, charging the popular iPod infringes on its patented technology. ... In both cases, Creative says that the iPod and iPod Nano infringe on a patent the company has for the interface in its Zen media player, a patent granted last August.'"

Comments

sweet

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

Finally the cruel injustice wrought on Creative will finally be rectified.

Re:sweet

[vought]

But Im all for Creative getting a little justice out of this. Apple is a computer company then they come along and act like they invented portable media.

Nice to see your idea of justice is based on...how a company "acts".

You know what? Apple did a better job of making stuff people want. Creative, for all their supposed groundbreaking innovation, didn't have the magic combination of marketing savvy, features, and product design that made the iPod popular.

The iPod wasn't a runaway hit because Apple stole Creative's heirarchically-organized system for obvious navigation or whatever - it's because Apple took all the pieces - jukebox software, .mp3 device, new legal music software source - then designed, packaged and marketed them all together successfully.

Apple helped create the market - it's not clear that the 80% of the .mp3 player market buying iPods would have bought any other kind of music player. Because of Apple's music platform, the unique and appealing iPod designs (not just small and/or light), and the healthy aftermarket of accessories, the .mp3 player scene is a lot healthier now than it would have been without the iPod. Millions of people who never would have bought a "Zen" DID buy iPods, and because of it will at least be aware that there are such devices as well as competition for the iPod.

Creative should be thankful Apple has grown the market for .mp3 players, but like most businesses in this workaholic's valley, they can't see past this contrived slight of their intellectual property to the larger advantages of a market Creative could never have built on it's own.

Re:sweet

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Creative should be thankful Apple has grown the market for .mp3 players, but like most businesses in this workaholic's valley, they can't see past this contrived slight of their intellectual property to the larger advantages of a market Creative could never have built on it's own.

Alot of people (including me) think that Creative's complaint is without merit, but we feel that Apple deserves.... a certain lack of sympathy for playing hardball in the intellectual property games themselves.

Re:sweet

[bperkins]

Wow you're right.

If the roles had been reversed Steve Jobs would have just been _so_ thankful that Creative "grown the market for .mp3 players." He'd be just _gushing_ about what a great bunch of guys they were.

He might even loan them his reality distortion field device.

The patent case may be without merit, but we certainly don't have to feel sorry for Apple, or even be particularly mad a Creative.

Re:sweet

[vought]

They do want to pay an extra 25% just to have the white headphones and look trendy.

I didn't know being trendy obviated any and all design or technical advantages the iPod has. Wow. Become cool and suddenly you're not allowed to be smart anymore. It's like reverse high school, which is where ideas like this belong.

Don't forget that before the iPod completely stole the market, reviewers lauded it for the ClickWheel, the simple interface, good jukebox software, and consistent product family design.

The iPod was not sold on it's technical merits.

Because people don't buy iPods based on the spec sheet. That's my point. iPods feel good; if you've used one iPod, another will feel and look almost the same. This consistency has allowed Apple to increase the rate of repeat sales and take advantage of trendiness - but it's ridiculous to discount the iPod's other advantages and write the success of Apple's products off as a 2-year-long mega-fad driven by clever marketing alone.

It's also worth mentioning again that iPods, for all their generational differences and features all look similar, in contrast to Creative's industrial designs, which might each be from a different manufacturer for all anyone can tell.

People buy iPods because Apple does a better job of designing and marketing them. The hardware is also pretty nice and has been lauded for it's sound quality, but as I said above, very few people buy consumer electronics of any kind based on the spec sheet. Understanding that is one reason Apple come to dominate this sector.

Re:sweet

[Guysmiley777]

The people don't want DRM, they don't want iTunes upgrades removing features.
Guess what? The Creative Zen series is now infested with DRM and has lost features as well. I know because I got f%$^ed buying a Zen Sleek. And on the box it says "Win98/ME/2K/XP compatible". Great, I'm running Win2k. Get home and try to install the required interface software (no UMD device here, oh no). The installer comes up with "Incorrect Operating System". I say WTF? Double check the box "Win98/ME/2K/XP compatible". WTF again. Go to the Creative site, download the software from there, same s$%&. Email Creative asking WTF. Get a response 2 days later saying "To properly support PlayForSure the Zen product you purchased is only supported by Media Player 10, which requires Windows XP".

So I go back to the store I bought it and returned it, bought a NON-PlayForS$%t iRiver player instead. The funniest part was that the Zen Sleeks on the shelf when I went back had a sticker over the requirements on the back covering up the O/S section, it now says "Windows XP" only. Asses.

Re:sweet

[PFI_Optix]

You forgot the large black monolith.

Which brings me to wonder...did Apple infringe on the aliens' patent with their new shiny black toys?

Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad, but it's becoming a predictable reality that corporations prefer to litigate rather than innovate. It's especially true of companies who are circling the drain. (SCO, anyone?)

Re:Sad

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"It's sad, but it's becoming a predictable reality that corporations prefer to litigate rather than innovate."

It's also sad that corporations would rather imitate rather than innovate. Hard to say which is worse, really.

Re:Sad

[DeadPrez]

It depends on your definition of imitate. For example, I don't mind that all consumer cars have four wheels.

Re:Sad

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"It depends on your definition of imitate. For example, I don't mind that all consumer cars have four wheels."

No no, of course not. But we all shake our pitchforks when the debate about Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Xerox comes up.

Re:Sad

[localman]

Seems easy to say which is worse. Imitation is great... it means we get various refined versions of a new idea and people can choose. The public usually benefits. This is what progress is all about: incremental improvements building on the ideas of others.

Litigation on the other hand is just a way to squash competition without benefiting anyone but the litigant. It's a crap business tactic and a sign of a company who fears they can't add to the mix.

And FYI I'm no Apple fanboy... I think iTunes DRM sucks and they should drop it entirely or at the very least open it up so it's a standard.

Cheers.

Re:Sad

[Decker-Mage]

{Sigh} In this case, I'd rather see Creative given a collective wedgie. In case you didn't know, the patent involved here has to do with the playlist. The way the playlist is implemented in both players is the only obvious way I can see to do it and thus falls into the patent domain of an obvious technology which means the damn patent shouldn't have been implemented in the first place. BTW, under the Creative patent every player on the desktop is also in violation but they don't have deep pockets nor are they likely to cough up much to prevent an injunction. Frankly, if Creative were really interested in protecting their patent they should have gone after M$ and Real a looooong time ago for their violations. Creative was smart in that regard. M$ would have bought them out of petty cash and Real would have simply further broken their already horrible piece of crap software (which might not be a bad thing). I don't believe Apple has the cash laying around to just do a hostile takeover.

Re:Sad

[The Grassy Knoll]

>all consumer cars have four wheels

Not necessarily!

How about the Reliant Robin?

Last August?

[thecampbeln]

Ok, I know that patents can take a while to get thru the maze that is the US patent office, and I also know of submarine patents, but does Prior Art mean anything anymore?

Re:Last August?

[OverlordQ]

The key word there is granted, not submitted.

Re:Last August?

[thecampbeln]

I know, hence my mention of submarine mazes (or whatever I said, I can't remember ;)

But really, I must agree with another poster (AC or no): "...it's becoming a predictable reality that corporations prefer to litigate rather than innovate."

Re:Last August?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should read the case history here before assuming it lacks merit. Creative DID innovate and it was (rather blatantly) stolen.

Hell, Apple even stole the name "Nano" from Creative. They launched the Zen Nano 5-6 months before Apple even had a press release introducing their forthcoming Nano.

Given slashdot's general Apple lovefest, though, I doubt many will call this what it is: Microsoftian behavior.

Innovate or get the hell out of the way, but don't steal so damn blatantly.

Re:Last August?

[Tim C]

If they submitted the patent before Apple started using the disputed aspects of it, then how is it a submarine patent? A submarine patent is one that's submitted, granted, and then quietly sat on by the holder until the covered tech has gained widespread adoption - then and only then do they start enforcing it, knowing that

a) there are lots of targets
b) it'll be much more painful to remove/do without the patented tech than just pay-up

See for example the .gif patent.

Re:Last August?

[N Monkey]

IANAPL but...

If they submitted the patent before Apple started using the disputed aspects of it, then how is it a submarine patent? A submarine patent is one that's submitted, granted...

No, I believe you are incorrect. My understanding is that, before the US cleaned up their patent laws, a submarine patent was one that was filed but not granted. The old laws allowed a patent to be tweaked multiple times effectively delaying the grant pretty much indefinitely. An unscrupulous person/company could thus tune a patent to cause the most havoc when he/they effectively chose to get it granted.

Thankfully, the USPTO is a bit more like the rest of the world so this practice should now have stopped.

Mixed emotions abound

[dilvish_the_damned]

a patent granted last August.
I hate patents as much as the next guy who isnt recieving royalties. But I am guessing the patent in question might have been applied for years ago. How long does this process take?

Re:Mixed emotions abound

[enitime]

"But I am guessing the patent in question might have been applied for years ago."

Patent No. 6,928,433 was filed in January 2001. Before the iPod was unveiled in October.

The site isn't available at the moment (Maximum number of users has been reached.) but it looked like a fairly typical old-method-but-for-new-technology patent. You know the type... "auction bidding... but on the Internet!".

Re:Mixed emotions abound

[FirienFirien]

Usually years, somewhere around 3-4 on average. Stick a random number between 5,500,000 and 7,000,000 (1996-2006, ish) into the USPTO numsearch page and compare the granted date (top right) to the date of filing (usually the last line in the third info-section) if you want to have a play.

It takes such a long time because they have to be reviewed by patent examiners, compared to prior art to make sure they're not infringing, which includes referring to patents not in the patent referral list (you'll see in a lot of patents that the inventor compares and contrasts his application with previous patents, to clarify the differences). It usually has to be sent back and corrected, sits in a waiting queue whenever it's in the patent office's hands, suffer any delays the submitter wants or has; the list goes on. It's a tedious process that I think we saw an article about last week, since the workload of patent reviewers is simply too high; it all contributes to major delays. Compare with older patents - the few around 4M I checked took between a year and two years.

Re:Mixed emotions abound

[podperson]

The patent was applied for Jan 5 2001, the iPod came out in October 2001, but iTunes (which has a substantially similar UI) came out Jan 9 2001. I'd be surprised if Apple didn't have internal iPod prototypes substantially earlier than the release date.

This all assumes it's a valid patent, isn't obvious, and is sufficiently similar to the iPod's UI (which I doubt). It's not like Creative's players were lauded for usability.

My lawyer always said..

[Sose5000]

If you can't beat them, sue them.. And give me 33%.

Wha...?

[mizhi]

I haven't followed MP3 player chronology very closely. Didn't the iPod come out before the Zen player?

And if this patent was granted last August, why wait until now to sue?

Seems to me that creative is just ticked they got trounced in a market they originally had been doing well in.

Re:Wha...?

[dilvish_the_damned]

'worked for SCO...

Re:Wha...?

[kegon]

Didn't the iPod come out before the Zen player?

OK, picture this: I have an idea for a music player and submit a patent application. A larger company launches a product based on a similar idea 4 months later. My company takes 6 months to get the product ready and launch. Maybe the large company filed their own patent just after mine but it's still in the patent application process waiting to be assessed like mine.

why wait until now to sue?

Who said they waited ? Sometimes these things take a long time: patent granted, gather evidence, decide whether you can find enough money to go to court and if you're going to risk losing, find a suitable lawyer who knows something about the technology, put together your arguments, etc.

Re:Wha...?

[greg1104]

Creative first released their Nomad Jukebox products in early 2000:
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2000/createjuke .html

The first iPod came out on October 23, 2001.

The Nomad Zen was a late 2002 product:
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/nomadzen.h tml

Posters here already have identified the Creative patent as being one they filed on January 5, 2001. That was probably early in the design cycle for the Zen players, but before they actually were released.

I for one am glad to see Creative finally prosecuting Apple for all the technology they stole. Clearly Apple has been taking ideas from the superior Nomad products for quite some time now, and that's the only way they've been able to build the obviously derivative user interface used on the iPod.

(Note to self: turn down sarcasm knob a notch)

Re:Wha...?

[calciphus]

No, the iPod did not come out before the Creative's "high capacity" units. Creative's large storage mp3 players were on the market for almost 18 months before the iPod was publically announced, and with an interface that was almost identical to the "revolutionary" iPod interface. At the time, Zens were available in 5 and 10GB - while the iPod was 10, 15, and later 20.

The iPod was slimer, used a li-poly battery (instead of lithium-ion, resulting in many upset users) and the "click-wheel" technology, rather than traditional buttons. Other than that, they were about the same.

And the patent for the "hierarchical" (and lets face it, really really obvious) way of organizing music on a mobile player is what they're settling on. The filing date is much earlier, though it was pushed back and re-examined many times. That whole "Artist->Album->Song" method? Creative "invented" it, and God help you if you try and use it yourself in a mobile player and subsequently gain market share over them. Nevermind that it's the fundamental way that files have been stored and sorted on computers since...well...since we left punch cards behind, slapping "mobile" on the patent makes it new! So does slapping "online" apparently...

They sued now because prior to this, they'd been in negotiations with Apple for an out-of-court settlement for patent infringement. Apple finally flat out refuesd (on the grounds that the patent was "bullshit"), and left Creative little other options for taking their slice of someone else's pie. They'll probably hope that after a bit of bad press and a seemingly losing battle, Apple will decide to settle just to get on with it. Hopefully Apple won't cave, because as much as I hate those stupid white headphones, I hate patent mongering more.

More important question

[El Cubano]

... for the interface in its Zen media player, a patent granted last August.

I thought that patent protection had changed. Instead of 17 years from issuance, it is now 20 years from first application. I am pretty certain I read about that change taking place in order to stop people from milking the system by filing an application and then repeatedly ammending it, effectively lengethening the period of protection.

So the bigger question is, "When was the application filed?"

I want the patent clusterfuck to get worse

[popo]

I firmly believe the only way for us to be free of the insanities of the patent system
is going to be for things to get so unbearable for the big players ... that *they*
start clamoring for reform.

Re:I want the patent clusterfuck to get worse

[Penguinoflight]

because that worked oh so well for copyright.

Re:I want the patent clusterfuck to get worse

[Pendersempai]

Corporations are the ones with enough resources to attract legislators' attention when they start to suffer, and corporations almost never get sued for copyright infringement. Patent infringement, on the other hand...

Creative is an evil company

[PhrostyMcByte]

Not very surprising. Will probably be modded flamebait, but..

Creative is used to having a hold on their market and killing off competition (ie, SoundStorm) by buying out companies or technologies they depend on. The result is them making sub-quality products and incremental upgrades that are *just* good enough for people to bother, and selling them for top dollar. And then shafting the customer with bad support on all but their latest product line.

So I can see why they don't know how to play fair and compete. They don't know how to handle Apple any other way.

Re:Creative is an evil company

[rsmith-mac]

In more recent history, they patented (John) Carmack's Reverse rendering technique, and then used it against id to force them to include EAX functionality in the Doom3 engine.

Re:Creative is an evil company

[Shihar]

I can't speak for Creative's past as I know nothing of it. I can say that my Creative Zen Vision:M is one slick ass MP3 player that pounds my iPod into dust. A Creative Zen plus Rhapsody's all you can eat MP3 service is one kick ass combination. Personally, I think that this shows simply that competetion is good and can serve as a swift kick in the ass to get companies into gear and make decent products.

Re:Creative is an evil company

[S3D]

It says it was invented and patented by two guys in 1999, one year before Carmack reinvented it in 2000 for doom3.

I've read descriptoin of the stencil shadow algoritm before 1999. Reverse caps pretty much trivial after stencil shadow idea itself. Here is eaxample of the stencil shadows before 1999: OpenGL org article about stencil shadow 1998

Re:Creative is an evil company

[0rganicM0lecules]

Becauase there are a lot of John Carmack fanboys.

Re:Creative is an evil company

[Wolfbone]

"Lady, did you even read your own link?....Nothing all to dirty here, just business."

Did you even read it? Sam Dietrich relates describing the technique publicly at a Creative Labs developer conference, after which Creative went and patented it. Fraud and extortion not dirty? Just business?

Browsing data

[stivi]

The column view (browser view) has been in NeXTSTEP since 1989. Apple acquired NeXT in the mid-90s. I do not say that Apple holds patent on it nor invented it (Xerox Smalltalk class browser?). I just want to say, that the column has been here for a while and it was somehow related to Apple too.

Moreover! Filtering data using a column view is also quite old. It has been used in data-warehousing as way of drilling-down. In the music player it is nothing more, nothing less: it is drilling-down through your song database. Just ask Bill Inmon or Ralph Kimball :-) It is the same to drill-down by region, store and date or by genre, artist and album. They are just different terms.

Re:Browsing data

[zephc]

yup, and the column view even goes back to the Apple Lisa http://www.pegasus3d.com/apple_screens/Dec1980.gif

Re:Browsing data

[jcr]

the column view even goes back to the Apple Lisa

It's earlier than that. Mark Miller invented the Miller-column browser when he was working on the Xanadu project in the late 1970's.

-jcr

Advertising Thru the Court

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's telling the Creative Nomad navigation referred to has been renamed the 'Zen Patent' (their current line) by Creative. Along with going only after Apple at this point (other makers have similar navigation), it seems like sour grapes to me. Creative CEO Sim Wong has repeatedly shown he has no idea how to manage this space, publically bad mouthing Apple, while Creative sales slide and profits sink. Finally when Creative decides to do TV spots, this is what they come up with??? http://www.creative.com/tvc/

The Actual Patent

[Anonymous Coward]

After a little searching, I believe this is the patent.

United States Patent 6,928,433
Goodman , et al. August 9, 2005
Automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata

Abstract

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.
Inventors: Goodman; Ron (Santa Cruz, CA); Egan; Howard N. (Capitola, CA)
Assignee: Creative Technology LTD (Singapore, SG)
Appl. No.: 755723
Filed: January 5, 2001

Re:The Actual Patent

[mveloso]

To see why this patent is invalid, do the following:

* substitute 'classes' for 'tracks'
* substitute 'methods' for 'names'
* substitute 'computer' for 'music playback device'

And suddenly you have the classic Smalltalk object browser. This patent will be whacked in court, just like the uncrustables patent was denied by the USPTO. The USPTO said that uncrustables were basically big breakfast ravioli. Unfortunately, the examiner wasn't well-versed enough in the computer field (ie: he probably doesn't even know how to spell Smalltalk), so granted this one.

Applying the same old cookie cutter to a new kind of dough isn't a valid patent, even if the examiner thinks it is.

Re:The Actual Patent

[sane?]

That is what I found, although mention is made of two patents. Maybe its just a followup patent that companies usually file to carve out a bigger segment of patentspace?

Face it, this is an obvious menu system based on obvious metadata. The problem here is it should never have been granted a patent in the first place. The patent office has become mired in money making scams in recent decades and the whole system has fallen into disrepute. It serves nobody well.

• The small inventor has no way of using a patent to protect them since costs are high and costs of protecting the patent are even higher. Any reasonably sized company can grind them into dust in the courts.
• Companies actually creating virtually anything find there is some spurious over-general patent somewhere that they infringe in putting one piece of plastic next to one piece of metal; so there is an orgy of cross licencing and costs associated. This all takes time and reduces the pace of innovation
• The public aren't served by ideas being freely available and built upon, because most of the ideas are obvious, the patent tries hard to make it impossible to understand, and if you ever use the information you get slapped with an injunction.

Oops, sorry, there is one group of people that do well, the lawyers. Strange that.

Face it. We need a year zero in IP, a fundamental reexamination of why we give any protection at all, and how much is the right amount. We need to accept that all IP to this date is on very shaky ground and that the simplest approach is to wipe the slate clean. Above all, we need to make it a criminal offence for a company to attempt to buy laws. How many of our problems can be traced back to corporate/politician corruption? Maybe the best solution is to extract a written guarantee from anyone standing in the midterms that they will ensure IP laws are scaled back? Make it an issue.

A jihad against lawyers wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Re:The Actual Patent

[Decker-Mage]

A jihad against lawyers wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Actually I came across that once in a Science-Fiction novel: "First Citizen". by some statistical quirk, a whole bunch of lawyers turned up dead in various ways on April 1 of that year. The notion took with the public and ever after April 1 was no longer April Fools day, it became Lawyers Day whereupon open season was declared on lawyers for that one day. Sounds like a good idea here!

Novel application

[Jaxoreth]

The column view (browser view) has been in NeXTSTEP since 1989.

Oh, sure, column view is old hat. But a column-view MP3 player? Now that's original thinking. I mean, that takes the same level of genius as wireless email.

Re:Novel application

[timotten]

Oh, sure, column view is old hat. But a column-view MP3 player? Now that's original thinking.

And it's genius, too. I was riding on the subway the other day, listening to some tunes, bopping my head -- I had my headphones on, and I was carrying my NeXTstation under my right arm. (The monitor goes in my backpack.) Perfectly normal, right? Well, everyone was staring at my NeXTstation. Those things are hot and heavy. Anyway, it felt awkward (though a little kinky) to have everyone staring at my NeXTstation. The genius of Creative's MP3 player is that it gives you that great column view, but it fits in your pocket, so you don't have to deal with the awkwardness of people jealously eying your NeXTstation.

Creative was originally going to make the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting AC because I don't want anyone to get into trouble. Anyways, this is the story I heard.

Jobs had the creative pres in his office. Apple was going to have creative make the original ipod. Conversation went something along these lines.

Jobs: We like the idea of the nomad jukebox, but it's really ugly.
Creative pres: Apples suck.
Creative apple lover: Boss you just told jobs apple sucked!

A few months later the peon got fired, then rehired to work the booths at fry's electronics. He had a really good position at creative before this, but supposidly inside creative it is a very PC (personal computer, not politically correct) enviroment. Basically anyone even breathing the word Apple gets the shaft.

True story, might have gotten some facts wrong but it pretty much sums it up.

Forget NeXTStep...empeg car

[n6mod]

Lots of people are referring to the column browser in NeXTstep (or the Lisa). That's all fine and good, but probably irrelavent.

What is much more relavent as prior art is the empeg car. That had hierarchical playlist menus in '99, which beats the priority date for this patent by a year.

However, that IP is now held by SigmaTel, and their largest customers are Creative and Apple (no idea which order)

Prior art doesn't have to be held by the defendant in a patent suit...it just has to exist. This patent won't hold, and I'm a little surprised that Creative doesn't know better.

Ooh...

[Jaxoreth]

The genius of Creative's MP3 player is that it gives you that great column view, but it fits in your pocket, so you don't have to deal with the awkwardness of people jealously eying your NeXTstation.

So... can I have your NeXTstation once you get an MP3 player?

Re:What is the patent??

[dilvish_the_damned]

Oh I dunno, there have been recent patents granted for what amounts to symbolic links, user ID via cookies, one click purchasing, and some less obvious and more fantastic things like hyperdrives (or some such nonsense).
The patent office used to have time to use their heads and also verify minor details like facts. A patent granted used to cary a lot of weight due to this function the patent office performed.
Now it simply carries weight.And we allow it for no particular reason other than history.I would say in this case the hacking of the system has become the norm, and some people even call it 'good bussiness'.
All the while we look to find our own cache, I am working on my "middle click to purchase" patent right now. Its ingeneous, but far to complex to explain right here. I am up to 43 pages what with the diagrams.No one will see it comming. Certainly not the patent clerk who reviews it.
Anyhow, live long and all that. Be carefull where you use the middle button. I got dibs.

I hate Creative

[Polybius]

Reminds me of the time Creative sued Aureal for making A3D compatible with EAX. Aureal won the case but the cost of defending themselves ended up bankrupting the company. Next they bought Sensaura who provided nVidia, VIA, etc. with 3D support (soundstorm for nForce2) and killed the technology. They have done everything in their power to protect their precious EAX even though it is inferior to traditional home theatre suround sound.

Luckily Auzentech is growing and their technology is improving greatly. The Auzentech Xplosion 7.1 does Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect. This card sounds incredibly better than any Creative card I have ever heard.

Re:the SCO scheme

[Nefarious Wheel]

If you have a good case, pound on the law. If you have a weak case, pound on the witnesses. If you have no case, pound on the table.

Re:Bullshit

[The Bungi]

Right, so when can Apple sue Windows for making a GUI file system for their OS?

They did.

Creative wants iTunes/iTMS access

[daBass]

At least, that is my theory.

I really doubt this is a money-grab-patent-trolling attempt, rather it is more likely Creative wants access to iTunes as settlement. That means being able to use Creative's players in iTunes and also the players being able to play FairPlay protected content.

If that is what Creative is gunning for, then I hope they get what they want as it would be a good thing for all of us.

Re:Bullshit

[Haeleth]

Right, so when can Apple sue Windows for making a GUI file system for their OS?

In 1988, since you ask.

So, we know from that lawsuit that Apple believes that an interface can be legally owned, and that litigation is an appropriate way to resolve a situation where a more successful competitor is using a similar interface to your own.

How does the saying go again? "Live by the sword..."

Creative=Screwed

[tootired]

Forget about the obvious Apple patents on the same interface ideas. Forget about the fact that the creative interface has been in a state of flux for over five years.

Forget about the fact that the iPod's interface has remained constant (and nothing like the patent in question) since inception.

Just sit and laugh at the marketing retardation that is Creative. Right now they manufacture and sell TWENTY-FOUR mp3 player models. Each model has multiple sizes as well. Haven't they heard of brand dilution?

It's a business's duty to thrive by any means necessary, but i think they may have bit off more than they can chew with the Apple fight and with their overcrowded mp3 lineup.

Sorry for the spelling and grammar, been at work for 21 hours. Only 13 more to go :)

And in other news...

[EcoPark]

Apple has decided to scap it's entire product line and bring out new versions of the I-Pod shuffle in 30 and 60Gb versions. They might also bring out a new Nano without a screen. Company spokesperson said " We fixed the cracking screen issue on the Nano and we're not infringing on Creative's interface patent anymore" They then continued to launch a new portable transportation device called i-skates. Company spokesperson commented: " Hey, If we managed to create a brand new market for modern day walkmans, then surely we can do it for rollerskates as well!"

That's over-simplified

[Moraelin]

Creative innovated too. Show me who did they copy the original SoundBlaster from, for example. I also think technically they invented the HDD-based MP3 player, _before_ Apple.

And more importantly the tended to offer products that offer a good bang-per-buck balance. Yes, it's easy to do the "bah, but <insert pro card costing 500$> sounded better or had lower latency" sneer, but from a more pragmatic point of view, Creative did an outstanding job of bridging the gap between pro equipment and the utter crap everyone else was selling.

It's pretty telling that even though virtually any modern motherboard comes with some Realtec or some such sound solution, people still buy SoundBlasters. Because invariably those on-board solutions sound like crap. The signal-to-noise ratio is invariably crap, and often they tend to squeak too whenever anything happened on the bus. Pretty much they amplify any noise and EM interference in the system together with the signal. And having actually tried some, let me assure you that the sound boards based on those Realtek, Cirrus Logic and whatnot chips don't sound any better.

I even went and bought an USB soundcard/headphones combo from Plantronics in my misguided days of trying to boycott Creative, and, honestly, for all the hype about USB being better because of not picking up EM stuff inside the computer, it actually sounded the worst. It was more of a white noise generator than anything else. _And_ it offered _nothing_ except a DAC on the USB bus. There was no way to get any effects out of it, in games or otherwise. There was not even any way to hook it to anything else (e.g., to speakers). Looking back in retrospect, it was just a waste of money, as eventhe lowest end Creative cards cost a lot less and I already had better headphones too.

And a lot of those supposedly better-than-Creative sound cards were just a case of fanboyism and Amiga persecution syndrome. E.g., I've actually had an Aureal Vortex based card -- you know, _the_ one that got everyone up in arms along the lines of "waah!! Creative killed Aureal Vortex!! They're evil!!" -- and frankly it wasn't half as great as it sounded on paper. All that reflection processing and whatnot, sure, sounded like a major technical achievement. In practice most of the time it just made it impossible to tell where the sound is coming from, or WTH did they think it reflected on over there to sound actually louder from there than the original sound. I.e., from the perspective of a gamer who lived or died by hearing the enemy's footsteps or gunfire, it actually was a bigger disadvantage than those no-frills DAC-on-a-card cards.

And so on.

Yes, I know it's slashdot and it's good for your karma to sneer at any corporation -- as long as it's not Apple --, not to mention to rehash variants of the same "alas, the only way to get ahead is to be a monopolist" fatalism and defeatism. But I'll go ahead and say that they (A) innovated plenty, and (B) at least in the sound card market, actually offered good bang/buck.

Where they lost it in the MP3 player market was being utterly clueless about user interfaces and, again, they got beaten in the bang/buck arena. Where Apple got ahead wasn't being the only ones who innovated, but in having an all around good product and placed just right. There were plenty who had ideas before Apple, believe it or not, and there were plenty who had one extra gimmic or advantage over the iPod. Where they failed was invariably having more disadvantages to make up for that. Some were a LOT bigger than an iPod (I still remember some, e.g., Archos ones which were bigger than a 3" hard drive!), some were actually a lot more expensive in the name of some gimmick noone needed, some had a crap user interface, and so on.

Creative's players, for example, tended to be both bigger _and_ have a crap interface, and some had other faults too. It wasn't lack of innovation, it was simply a combination of a flawed perception of the market and flawed execution.

Basically let's st

Patents don't scale.

[babbling]

Patents don't scale. There is a limited number of viable solutions to most problems. When the population gets bigger, and bigger... the likelyhood of someone having patented all of the solutions to a problem increases. The end result is that some problems are impossible to solve for 20 years unless you pay someone a license fee, that is, if they're willing to license their patent.

The patent system will eventually make progress impossible and be removed, but it is going to impede progress for years and years before that happens.

Live by the sword, die by the sword

[nick.lowe]

Companies such as Apple and Creative all live by the sword when it comes to Intellectual Property, so they can die by it too.

Obviously, without the concept of and ability to protect IP, there would be little to no incentive to research and develop and thus it must exist.

I am not convinced, however, that the balance required - to realise maximum public utility - is realised under the current system.

I think that the current patenting system offers to much protection for broad, in many cases inherent, ideas for too long.

I suppose the fault is partially due to the fact that those who grant these patents cannot be an expert in all fields and cannot therefore easily come to fully considered judgements when it comes to awarding rights.

Re:Live by the sword, die by the sword

[XxtraLarGe]

Obviously, without the concept of and ability to protect IP, there would be little to no incentive to research and develop and thus it must exist.

I'm not so sure of the validity of this statement. People innovate, research and develop all the time. There's freeware & open source software, Creative Commons, Grateful Dead, Fish & many other bands that allow(ed) you to record their music and trade it freely. The fact that some people may not innovate does not mean that many others won't.

Re:Im gonna get killed for saying this...

[rjstanford]

Im sorry, as much as apple have done good things in the world of software, they're beginning to get a bit too much, for too less. i.e I'm outraged that the Nano (in the UK - dont know about other countries) doesn't come with a DC adapter, and you have to fork out over 10 pounds for one.

Why? Sorry, but most people that I know (including my own household) always charge from the computer. Why should the rest of us have to pay extra, and Apple have to manufacture more items (at both a financial and an enviromental cost) that will simply take up space both in homes and eventually in landfills, so that a few people can have an extra piece included "for free"?

4 wheels are highly over-rated

[patiodragon]

http://www.bfi.org/node/809

Re:Pick your poison....

[e4g4]

Itunes is basically an alarmingly poor piece of code that runs essentially like a virus or spyware.

Care to elaborate? I mean, I'll give you that iTunes is bloated and slow - but a virus or spyware? You can't make a claim like that without backing it up. So, let me help you out: iTunes has a feature (which you can disable) that provides links to the music store for songs in your library. It also has a mini-store browser (which you can also disable) that presents you with songs similar to those in your library. So - given that you can disable the "spyware" features of iTunes without running AdAware et al, I don't see how iTunes is "alarmingly" poor, or even remotely resembles viruses or spyware.

In the interest of full disclosure - I've been a Mac fan since I was six years old (1989), but I still think the best music player out there is Winamp 5 - no other program has even approached the things you can do with the winamp visualization system (as far as media players go - I'm not talking about performance quality MIDI visualizers).

prior art from 1999

[mlilback]

Why does everyone seem to forget the PJB? I paid something like $700 to have the first hard-drive based mp3 player, which *surprise* had the same interface as claimed by this patent. How else are you going to navigate a music player with that much music?

iTunes DRM

[jdbartlett]

I don't want to start a flamewar over this, but why does the iTunes DRM especially 'suck'? As a consumer, I agree that DRM is generally a bad thing, but as DRMs go, FairPlay is pretty friendly:

You can play your track on up to five computers (and as many iPods as you like) at any one time.

You can cancel computers individually or reset your DRM account if you hit the 5 computer mark and are unable to play your music on a new computer. (Handy if you didn't get the chance to deauthorize your computer due to system failure).

You can burn CDs of the music you buy.

The underlying format, AAC, sounds good even at 128kbps. Not OGG good, I'll admit, but good enough for personal use.

Also, how can a DRM be open? An open DRM would be unprotectable, which sort of defeats the point! It'd be nice if the Big Boys were that dumb. Maybe you mean licensed, so other media players could play FairPlay protected files? Right now, the only system I have that can't play iTunes purchases (without circumventing the DRM) is Linux.

New Supreme Court Decision reduces Apple's risk

[lergnom]

The Supreme Court just rebuked the lower courts for mechanically granting an injunction in a patent infringement case without weighing the equities. In simple english, it is no longer possible for a company to claim they have a valid patent and have a court grant an injunction prohibiting use without essentially having a real trial. This means the plaintiff - Creative, here - has lost a huge amount of leverage because the courts would have to consider the effect of an injunction on Apple's business, its suppliers, its customers. The threat of injunction was a huge club to extort higher cash settlements. Apple can now likely fight this out for many years without seeing any noticeable effect on its business. They will likely consider the cost of defense versus the cost of settlement, but that is now much easier to figure with the threat of imposed shutdown so reduced. Apple may think Creative's suit is garbage and they may want to protect their image of innovation and now they can value the costs of pursuing those goals versus the costs of the lawsuit. Bottom line to Creative: this lawsuit became much harder and much more expensive, with a much lower settlement value.

it is very zen

[EccentricAnomaly]

it is very zen that creative has patented the 'zen user interface'. and are now suing apple (which seems to have a good understanding of zen) for violating their 'zen patent'. such a thing is so very un-zen, that it becomes zen again. We are now watching a koan-wreck unfold before our eyes.

Re:ZEN iPOD

[Thrudheim]

If you like the Zen better and hate iTunes, fine. The nice thing about consumer preferences is that everyone can be right.

To assert, however, that buying a Zen means you don't have to put up with "DRM issues" is just plain silly. As long as you rip from CDs (or get illegal downloads) *nobody* has to deal with DRM on any player. If you really think that using an iPod requires you to use DRM, then you are not anywhere near as familiar with iPod and iTunes as you claim.

As for my own opinion, I don't see that drag and drop via the desktop is any great advantage. Plug in an iPod and iTunes opens automatically. The iPod syncs. Done. If you prefer to drag and drop, then dragging and dropping from an iTunes library to the iPod is no different inside iTunes, except that you have the addition of easy filtering of the music library by keywords. I manage my iPod shuffle through drag and drop. Big deal.

It's called iTunes

[willy_me]

iTunes was out before the Nomad and does exactly what Creative's patent describes. In fact, the iPod's interface is simply an extension of the interface found in iTunes. The reasons for this are obvious.

The question here is: Is a specialized portable computer any different from a personal computer with respect to the patent in question?

Willy