Apple Sues Creative

boarder8925 writes "Apple is counter-suing Creative, claiming it has infringed 'four patents in its handheld digital players.' The suit was filed the same day that Creative filed suit against Apple. 'Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions,' a spokesman for Creative said. 'At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit.'"

Comments

Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Quoting the summary:

'Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions,' a spokesman for Creative said. 'At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit.'

Waaah! Waaah! Waaaah!

What were creative thinking? That they'd get some sympathy? Play with patent fire & you're going to get burnt.

And frankly, I think Apple & Creative should be more worried about this patent then each other.

Mildly interesting to see what's happened to Apple and Creative's stock since the two announcements (looks like Apple's lost ~4% & Creative ~2.5%).

*Sighs* such a pity to see two companies that employ so many talented people wasting their time like this.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[idonthack]

The Microsoft patent article you linked to:

Creating a surprise twist in the portable music wars, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has denied Apple's application to patent its method of using hierarchical menus to navigate through the iPod's contents.

The basis for the denial: A similar method outlined in a Microsoft researcher's patent application, filed after the iPod was introduced but before Apple sought its own patent.

Prior art for the lose?

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[CrackedButter]

When I read that Apple didn't discuss the patents Creative is infringing on, I thought why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[crerwin]

Why is it over? Maybe I'm not up to date on Creative's financial situation, but for me their mp3 players are cheaper and as good or better than their Apple counterparts. I have a Zen Touch and am a little annoyed that it doesn't mount as a generic USB drive, but other Creative players do and that's my fault for not researching first.

I'd like to get a MuVo at some point. Mounts as a generic drive, FM receiver (and recorder, get 'em while the RIAA is unaware!), etc. I have no intention on buying an iPod anything. They're good products, but expensive, overhyped, and apparently "think different" means "buy an iPod like everyone else." Meh, whatever.

Sure, everyone loves Apple and will defend them vehemently when they get sued over a patent, yet we all like to forget when they've done the same. To me they're just another corporation trying to make a buck.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[lbrandy]

When I read that Apple didn't discuss the patents Creative is infringing on, I thought why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.

Close, but wrong. Apple was afraid.... One the patents that came up early in the discussion was Creative's patent on 'a method of meeting and talking openly about patents in an attempt to extort money'.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[God'sDuck]

Mildly interesting to see what's happened to Apple [google.com] and Creative's [google.com] stock since the two announcements (looks like Apple's lost ~4% & Creative ~2.5%)

coincidental, not necessarily causal...the entire Nasdaq/Dow, as well as Europe and Japan, have been plunging for the last week.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[mausmalone]

When I read that Apple didn't discuss the patents Creative is infringing on, I thought why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.

Because they could've resolved this before going to court, saving both companies a lot of time, money, and face. Instead, their stock is down 4%.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[Ender Ryan]

Re: Apple, I agree. To me, they're just another company. It saddens me when people vehemently defend Apple like they are friends with Steve Jobs himself...

Anyway, I'm pretty happy to see these ridiculous lawsuits. In fact, the more the better. Eventually we'll have to rethink WTF we're doing in this country, or we'll topple under our own weight.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[Prog_Burner]

I'm of the opposite opinion, the Creative Zen Micro I have has a broken headphone jack, due to bad design (Letting the headphone jack move enough to seperate from the board.) I later found out that in order to get warranty service I will have to pay labour and provide proof of purchase. This was a gift from my ex, so small chance I'll be able to get the reciept and smaller chance that the labour charged will be worth it in the long run (I want to be able to put the damn thing in my pocket, it's supposed to be portable!) Due to those two things (bad design, crappy service) I will be putting that "labour" cost towards an Ipod and I hope that Creative stops making shoddy MP3 players.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[IAmTheDave]

"It's incredibly embarrassing," said industry analyst Rob Enderle. "That just makes it look like someone at Apple wasn't on the ball in terms of filing the patent at the right time."

I know... God forbid they spent their time innovating instead of patenting. Don't they know how the world works now??

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[carlislematthew]

It's not about which player is better or which player has what feature. In the consumer's mind, it's simply about which ones they *want*. The marketing makes them *want* the iPod, so they buy it. As long as it isn't total shit, they'll continue to buy the coolest product that will make them look cool.

I went to CES a couple of years ago and saw all these Japanese/Chinese manufacturers with there cool new MP3 players. They have a billion buttons on them, names like "X Tech 2000". It was sad. They all thought that the cheapest and most feature-rich product would be the winner...

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[Basehart]

"It saddens me when people vehemently defend Apple like they are friends with Steve Jobs himself..."

You're just jealous.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[Mister Whirly]

"Creating a surprise twist in the portable music wars, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has denied Apple's application to patent its method of using hierarchical menus to navigate through the iPod's contents.

The basis for the denial: A similar method outlined in a Microsoft researcher's patent application, filed after the iPod was introduced but before Apple sought its own patent."

Apple - always showing up at the gunfight with a knife....Albeit a totally sweet knife with the greatest GUI ever seen, (and a leather case) but a knife nonetheless...

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[avronius]

When (if) they go to court, then yes, disclosure would be an issue. During a closed door negotiation that does not involve the courts, disclosure is at the discretion of the parties involved.

During their "discussions" yesterday, Creative may (or may not) have attempted to hamstring Apple. Being on the receiving end of an ultimatum is never pleasant, and I, too, would likely have refrained from giving my antagonist any ground.

But that's just me.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[why-is-it]

"It's incredibly embarrassing," said industry analyst Rob Enderle.

Enderle? The well-known microsoft and sco shill?

Embarassing indeed...

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[Thrudheim]

It seems to me that Apple, in contrast to the opinion of some, has priced the iPod very competitively. Creative is losing a ton of money by trying to maintain slightly cheaper prices for its competing lines. In some cases, actually, the iPod is priced just the same or slightly less. It is a losing battle for Creative because they do not have the economy of scale that Apple has with the iPod, so they lose money at these prices while Apple does well. In this case, Apple has a Dell-like supply chain.

This article, from over a year ago, says it all: "Creative Responds to iPod Price Drop." Apple took the offensive by cutting prices, and it has continued this strategy. As an analyst in the article says, "Apple has left little room for other music vendors to compete on price." Creative followed that strategy nevertheless, and the results are very clear: Creative cannot sustain a price battle with Apple and stay in business. Their third-quarter sales fell to $225.7 million compared to $333.8 million for the same quarter the previous year. Their net loss for the quarter was $74.7 million. For the past three quarters, it was $105.4 million.

Simply put, Creative is in serious financial trouble. The recent legal action against Apple smacks of a desperate strategy to use their trump card -- their GUI patent -- to shore up their finances. Their problem is that this patent is being challenged and there is a very good possibility that it will not stand. A hierachical system for organizing a music library is just too obvious to be the intellectual property of any one company. Apple has the legal team to drag out the process as long as possible. Their countersuit is just the first step in this process.

Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"

[mhbtr]

My friend had a Nomad for a couple of years. kept on upgrading his firmware. I checked it out at a point in time where I was onto my 30 GB iPod (from the 5 GB). His menuing system SUCKED. It did not yet honor ID3 tags - it sorted everything alphabetically by track name and album name. To go down menus, you had to choose what you wanted then do a select, tewice. This was more than 2 years after the iPod came out. Look, Creative did not "Invent" hierarchical navigation. They did not "invent" navigating music, and they SURE did not implement it right, or my friend would not have sold his Nomad and bought an iPod SOLELY on the merits of the navigation. This is sour grapes, pure and simple. They lost in the market place because their navigation sucked - how can they be suing Apple for stealing their navigation?

This is why patents suck

[idonthack]

Everybody who does anything is vulnerable to this kind of attack, and the only way they can realistically defend themselves is to have a large patent library of thier own to countersue. Patents are supposed to help small inventors make it big, but all they're doing is letting large companies fight while squashing smaller competitors.

Re:This is why patents suck

[jcr]

Patents are supposed to help small inventors make it big

Whatever gave you that idea?

A patent is supposed to be a deal between the inventor and the public: the inventor discloses his invention, in exchange for a limited period of exclusivity. Whether the inventor makes any money on it or not is beside the point.

-jcr

Re:This is why patents suck

[gid13]

I suppose I would slightly disagree with both of you. The purpose of patents, from the standpoint of the people who set up the whole patent system (the government) is to encourage innovation by allowing inventors a chance to make money exclusively for a short period. Basically to balance the rewards between the inventor and the public. It's a nice thought, but...

I agree that patents suck, and yes, I agree that cases like this are part of why they suck. Society wastes time litigating that could be spent on productivity. Worse examples of why patents suck include the NTP vs RIM case (basically NTP doesn't do anything except sue, all 5 of their patents were issued temporary rejections, and due to the uncertainty of the patent status, RIM was essentially forced to settle because of the potential for almost limitless losses), Amazon's 1-Click Shopping patent (can we say "non-innovative"?), and the Eolas vs Microsoft case (this will fuck over all browsers from IE to Safari to Firefox to Konqueror while forcing Microsoft to seek defensive patents, and while giving Microsoft the excuse to use horrifying patent tricks like this themselves against OSS). As far as I'm concerned, the entire patent system (along with the copyright system, but that's another story) needs to be rethought or removed entirely. It is no longer benefiting the public, and as such the public should force their government to make a new set of rules.

Re:This is why patents suck

[BFaucet]

Either way it was intended to promote innovation, not stifle it.

I really don't see how having a hierarchial menu could easily be avoided. Hierarchies have probably been the most common organizational structure for centuries. To patent it on portable audio devices sounds about as sensical as patenting plugging headphones into portable mp3 players.

There should be a "No shit, dingbat." clause in the patent requirements.

So wait

[iknowcss]

If it was filed the same day, why are we finding out today? Is it more news-worthy that Apple is being sued or that Apple sues? My guess is the former.

Tiny violins

[Ravenscall]

So, Creative tried to play the patent bully game with Apple, and Apple turned the ship and broadsided them.

Serves them right. Get back to making products and selling them to make a profit.

Re:Tiny violins

[Ravenscall]

You obviously do not understand a term called "Corporate strategy".

Of course Creative is still making stuff. Only an idiot would assume they are not. They, however as a company, decided to sue apple to either 1) quash competition and make more money, or the more likely 2) have apple pay them a settlement and negotiate a juicy licensing deal.

This strategy has obviously backfired, as apple had aces in hand, and now will just cost both companies money instead of one profiting at the other's expense.

My comment was in the light of they should have just stuck to thier product as a profit source instead of this ill advised legal misadventure.

More, more, more

[Britz]

Please, let the patent cold war already erupt into a huge patent suing everyone vs. everyone. I know you wouldn't like to see the lawyers take a couple billions away on this, but that will be the necessary sacrifice to make everybody see how bad trivial/software patents really are.

As soon as Sun sues Microsoft, Microsoft sues IBM and IBM sues them all I will sit back and have some popcorn (btw. do lawyers companies have stock options?).

Re:More, more, more

[el cisne]

I say we take off, and litigate the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

In other news....

[Anonymous Coward]

...the patent lawyers win again...

HA

[schabot]

**SNAP!**

Well I never...

[adpsimpson]

Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions,' a spokesman for Creative said. 'At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit.'

Fact number 2: At no time during the discussions were Creative proactively suing Apple.

Re:Well I never...

[Ohreally_factor]

Translation of Creative's reaction:

We threatened them that we would hit them in the head with a 2 x 4 if they didn't give in to our demands, so we were forced to hit them with it. And then they hit us back with a 2 x 4!! Why didn't they have the decency to threaten us back during the threaten phase? Don't these people play by the rules?

Brain ..... Hurting....

[tinkerghost]

MS Patent
How do you pass the Novelty portion of a patent review when there is a product doing it on the market?
The inventors - Apple - gets denied a patent on their product because a competitor patented the process AFTER the product was on the market? What monkey do they have running the USPTO?

Re:Brain ..... Hurting....

[ajakk]

In the United States (and definately not Europe), there are several ways that the public use of a product can be prior art to a patent. First, if the prior art conceived of before you conceived of your invention, then you cannot get a patent on it (who came up with the idea first). Second, if the invention was publicly used more than one year prior to the date of your patent application, then you are barred from getting a patent (regardless of who invented it first). Thus, in the case of Microsoft, they could argue that they conceived of the invention before Apple did, and that they iPod was not in public use (or on sale) more than one year before they filed their patent application.

The law that describes what qualifies as prior art is 35 U.S.C. 102.

Tiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we just the Your Rights Online section to Who's suing who?

Bet you...

[gowen]

... they settle out of court, sign mutual patent cross-licensing, and then carve up the media player market between themselves.

There's enough their for all to wet their beaks.

A Creative Lawsuit is as American as Apple Pie

[digitaldc]

Creative needs to be more innovative and come up with products that sell like Apple's, otherwise they will just try creative lawsuits to make a profit.
Apple apparently has very good lawyers, people that try to sue them for a piece of the pie usually lose.
No more half-baked ideas on how to sue Apple, just get back to your core products and innovate!

Re:Why hasn't the RIAA sued Creative?

[faloi]

What will happen when every company has sued every other company?

I'll start regretting not going to law school.

In Soviet Russia,

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple sues...

I mean,

Creative sues...

crap.

Mutually assured destruction

[MMC Monster]

There is a reason for defensive patents. Creative won't forget that again.

The WMDs of the tech world have been found

[picz]

Patents are used as WMDs by the big tech corporations. If you have them, you can keep the others from using theirs to sue you into bankrupcy. If you don't have them, you are sitting duck.

Sometimes the doctrine fails and it looks like a patent war between desperate Creative and Apple.

Let's see if this ends as a minor WMD accident and a quick settlement in court, or if we will see a fullblown patent war between two of the big ones. /picz

Re:The WMDs of the tech world have been found

[Jay Random the Other]

'Of course I've got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons: I've got em 'cause everyone else has. But as soon as you use them they **** everything up.'

-- Danny DeVito in Other People's Money

Re:Won't Matter

[goldaryn]

> The world is ready to dump their iPods in the garbage for this device:

But will it run Lin.. Windows Vista?

Lawyers

[simonjp]

Judging by the number of lawsuits cropping up recently, the only winners seem to be the lawyers who are lapping it up!

patent whining .....

[nblender]

The patent process is broken. But not the way I keep seeing described. A bunch of years ago I had an idea for a computer server add-on. It was a better way of solving a problem that Dell/HP/IBM weren't addressing at the time. We designed and built these things and over a couple of years, sold about 3000 of them. We even got slashdotted. We applied for a patent because we were afraid we'd be scooped. It took 4 years before the patent was approved and granted. By that time, Dell/HP/IBM and some smaller players all made their own version of our product and we went out of business. Now our technology features prominently on their web pages. We sent a few "you're violating our patent. Lets discuss licensing." letters, and received "oh yeah? We see your patent and raise you 1000 lawyers" responses and now we haven't got two nickles to rub together.

Now, with this new development, even if we did find a few nickles, since we're no longer an active business, we can't even go after these people because there's no rubber mallet to beat them with anymore ....

So don't bother innovating folks. You'll just get eaten alive.

Re:patent whining .....

[elysian1]

Have you tried talking to a law firm that works on contingency fee? If your patent is truly valid, and these guys are infringing, I can't imagine there isn't a lawyer out there that won't take your case for a percentage of whatever you win in court.

Re:Karma baby!

[bigtangringo]

I suppose I probably had that typo coming ;(

Re:Won't Matter

[TomHandy]

You know, no matter how many times I keep hearing people say that music-playing cellphones are the future and dedicated music players will become extinct, I just don't buy it. Personally, I'm not breathlessly waiting for some system where I can stream the music from my home computer; this would require that my cellphone is in an area where it gets service, and there are still places where that isn't the case, and it would require leaving my computer on all the time. Why exactly is this more convenient than having my music stored on my local music player? Battery life is also iffy enough as it is, what's it going to be like when streaming it over a wireless network connection?

I don't mean to be completely dismissive of it, as I'm sure that if someone did a really great device it might do most of what you say. But even if they do, which phone company is even going to want to offer this? They seem a lot more obsessed with charging $2-3 a song to download over the air.

Re:Won't Matter

[Mr. Underbridge]

iPod sales are plummeting.

Where the hell did you get that?

Sick of Sue-Happiness

[kstatefan40]

Is anyone else sick of all this crap?

The reason Creative is in trouble is because the Ipods sell TONS more, because kids see an Ipod, and they want an Ipod themselves. They don't want a 'cheaper' Creative model. Hell, my Palm does 10x more than an Ipod, and I still hear "Well, my Ipod is cooler!"

Kids do not care about functionality or price, they care about what is cool. Trust me on this - I see it every day.

Honestly, I'm just sick of companies wasting money suing each other. Maybe if they would waste the money in their business, we wouldn't have all the outsourcing we do today. Does that make sense? I think it does.

Re:Sick of Sue-Happiness

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all kids care about cool.
I'm a kid and I'm reading slashdot.

Re:Apple is acting like Microsoft

[10Ghz]

Creative is scum. they have played the lawsuit-game to crush smaller companies with better products (Aureal...). I for one would just LOVE to see Creative spanked in similar way.

What we have here is one company (Creative) that is unable to compete with their products against competitor, so they resort to lawsuits instead.

Re:Why hasn't the RIAA sued Creative?

[jimicus]

What will happen when every company has sued every other company?

There will be about 3 companies left, all cross-licensing everything with each other, and some extremely rich lawyers living on their own private island.

Unfortunately, there will be no further development of anything for fear of further litigation, so when a terrible disease starts to sweep through the population of lawyers, reasearch for a cure will be crippled, resulting in lawyers as a species dying out.

In millions of years, their skeletons will be found by a future generation to ponder over. Some will see it as evidence of Darwinian evolution; others will see it as evidence that even an omnipotent intelligent designer makes the odd mistake.

When history will be made

[oztiks]

The day a large corporation falls at the hands to a patent infringement case will be a day to remember.

At the moment its just like this big school yard fight and they give each others black eyes by hurling stones in the playground. Though, at the end of the day its the lawyers who are making the real money... the corporations just get the satisfaction of temporarily wounding a competitor.

The real loss is when companys get downsized as a result to these legal games and hardworking employees cop it in the ass.

Creative == SCO, hope they get crushed.

[guidryp]

This is the same Creative that used patent extortion against ID software. These guys are one step removed from SCO. I launched my personal boycott of creative products that day.
http://3dgpu.com/archives/2004/07/28/john-carmack- on-creative-patentn/

Anyone using dubious patents to extort as a buisness model deserves to get crushed. I wish ID had played hardball against these slimeballs.

Can one of your "web 2.0 geniuses".....

[Churla]

Can one of you Web 2.0 coding geniuses build an app which would give os a nive graphical representation of who is suing who? One where you can mouse over the arrow between the circles representing companies to see what the suit is over?

It would help make some sense of this, and we could look for patterns to bet on who would sue who next.

At this point I'm betting just in time for presedential elections in 2008 it will be bad enough that some candidate can use "I will reform patent law" as a campaign promise.

Re:Apple is acting like Microsoft

[falcon5768]

Um they DID. The iPod is doing so well Creative can't compete. First they tried to blackmail them into paying them royalties for a patent Apple knew Creative couldnt back up, then they fired at Apple to force Apple to pay them for something that in all honesty should not have been patentable BY Creative (there is prior art out the ass on it) Apple is simply firing back at them for it. The truth is all that would happen if Creative won would be Creative would leave the market all together and live off the money Apple paid them for royalties. The other outcome though would be Creative would lose and likely leave the market having exhausted all their money on suing Apple. With Apple doing this Creative will just likely settle realizing that Apple has them beat.

I'm confused

[Tim C]

Since when is it the patent holder's responsibility to warn others that they are infringing on their patents?

Re:I'm confused

[neonfrog]

Since when is it the patent holder's responsibility to warn others that they are infringing on their patents?

Um, all the time?

You need to actively defend your patents. No one more than you can tell if someone is infringing. Do you expect the overburdened patent office to review every new competing product for you -- you know, all those ones that AREN'T trying to compete on patents (they've filed for ZERO) but instead are beating you up on price using your patented methodology? Do I sound bitter from experience? Hmm ...

The first thing you do is notify them, usually through a lawyer. That is you and not the gub'mint doing the notifying. When they are non-responsive you up the ante legally. It is still you pushing the issue. Remember, a lawyer is your agent and their job is to THREATEN legal action initially. Lawyers don't actually enforce, you know. That's cops (or feds) and they need a pointy stick (big ticket obvious infringement in the million$) before they'll move on your behalf. Do I sound bitter from experience? Hmm ...

If you never noticed the infringement happening ... well, there is no USPTO infringement fairy that will bless you with +5 protections, send out the federal Mafia to "collect," and present you with a fat check all Ed-McMahon-ny. It's all you. You are the driving force. You decide how much you want to spend defending the patent, or you walk away and lose it. Walk away ONCE and you can never really go after anyone else for that patent ever again.

Is this the ultimate correct legal path? I don't know. Is it the way things usually work? Yup. It is cheaper and faster to negotiate outside of a real legal battle. Why go expensive and nuclear if you can get licensing first? The whole point of the patent is to make money off it, and not lose all your ability to do business by defending it, after all.

Where's the pun?

[Megane]

How could you pass up the obvious pun, "Cry me an iRiver"? Shame on you.

Re:Apple is acting like Microsoft

[pastafazou]

No, Apple saw Creative one lawsuit, and raised them three more. It's called IP/patent poker, and it's all the rage right now. It's set to take over Texas Hold 'em as the most popular form of poker.

oh my lord...

[revlayle]

I like creative's players....

....*BUT* after working in their north american web development/eCommerce team for almost 2 years, I can tell you this: management is a mess, pay is bad, and they will try anything to sway competitors and market share.

ever since sound cards have become commodity, Creative has slipped in revenues (for the most part). their products are decent enough (IMO) and affordable, but I think their whole legal and marketing team needs to be axed.

the counter suit from apple? i am certainly NO apple fanboy, but if you play with fire (creative), expect to get burned.

Re:Creative is cheaper? Huh?

[drhamad]

I don't know exactly what player you're referencing, but for example, the Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB and the Apple iPod 30GB are both $299 (ignoring Apple edu & corporate discounts, even). And that's not even getting into the software side of the equation.

does apple have no shame?

[bitt3n]

apple is shameless. first they sue apple computer on some groundless concern over confusing names, and NOW they sue CREATIVE when Apple doesn't even MAKE mp3 players?? They should take advice from the Beatles and "Let it Be".

Hey Creative! It's the marketing stupid!

[sean000]

Winning a patent won't help Creative corner the mp3 player market, but I suppose it might get them a nice settlement and a share of Apple's profits. Apple owns the mp3 player market because of excellent design and marketing. Me? I'm actually a Creative user. I still use the Jukebox III I bought several years back. At the time it was much cheaper than the iPod, had more storage than the iPod, two battery bays, easily replaceable batteries, and better sound quality. Of course it was bulkier, heavier, and... it's kind of frumpy looking since it appears that Creative simply took the chassis from one of their portable CD players and installed a hard drive and some mp3 player innards. The desktop software also kind of sucked. I invested another 30 or 40 bucks for the NotMad Explorer, but my overall investment was still much less than the iPod of the day. I've been quite happy with it. I don't mind the bulk since it sits in my shoulder bag. Battery life is great. It's rugged as all get out (it has been dropped). It sounds great too. Meanwhile Apple cornered the market with a much more attractive design, easier controls, better software, and kick-ass marketing. Apple's cult status among creative folks has also helped. I know many poor artists and actors who could have purchased a much cheaper mp3 player, but they shelled out more for the iPod because it is sexier. And there is nothing wrong with that... every iPod has been a fantastic looking device. And if you use something every day, why not use something that looks and feels good? My fiancee also has a Creative Zen Xtra, which she loves. It's definitely more stylish than my old Jukebox 3, but it was the start of Creative moving towards an iPod rip-off sort of look. If Creative wants to hold on, or even slightly increase, their piddly market share: They need to invest in some hotshot designers and better marketing. The technology and actual user interface are secondary. It just has to play music, sound good, look good; and it has to be marketed well. Then again, perhaps that boat has already sailed. The iPod may suffer slightly from a "gee, everyone's got one" backlash, but it was also an instant classic.

Turnabout is "Fairplay"

[Warlock7]

Nice to see a response from Apple. What did Creative expect when they sued one of the most notoriously litigious companies in the US?

From a talk by the USPTO comissioner

[SuperKendall]

I was just at a talk given by the USPTO comissioner - a lot of the talk was given to how they are addressing the problem you describe.

Basically a big problem was that for quite a few years, the USPTO funds were being partially diverted to other programs (like social security). So they were not really able to do a lot during that time to address a growing backlog of patent applications.

Now they are fully funded and hiring around 1000 patent examiners a year, with a new program to help train them that's a little like a patent university. This will not shrink the backlog this year, but it will stop the rate of growth the backlog is seeing to some extent and eventually allow them to catch up.

Another big problem is that right now you can re-file a patent as many times as you like, with no changes at all... currently (and these figures are from the talk) 30% of the backlog is refiled patents with no new claims! So they are going to try and institute a system whereby you get one refile after the first one, but after that if you want to refile again you have to show a panel that the patent has been changed enough to be worthy of refiling.

There were a number of independant inventors in the audience and one asked what the USPTO could do to help defend little guys from bigger companies stomping them with lawyers as you experienced. The answer was that he realised the problem but that the USPTO was not a legislative arm of the government and the only way they could help was to make sure a patent was as strong as it could be so it would hold up in court. He did say they would like to see programs to help smaller inventors so someday perhaps we might see a government program for that (though personally I am not sure about another goverment program for anything, but perhaps this is a case where it is wrranted for the health of our patent system and IP space).

Re:I disagree

[Moofie]

"Plus I enjoy being the only person at work who doesn't have a trendy ipod"

Because doing what other people AREN'T doing is way, WAY cooler than doing what they ARE doing.

Your behavior is still dictated by the herd if you insist on always walking in exactly the opposite direction from the herd.

Re:Won't Matter

[mstone]

Dude.. everyone knows that the consumer electronics market shows seasonal variations. That's why analysts use year-over-year statistics rather than quarter-over-quarter.

The fact that the iPod has shown consistent Q/Q growth showed that the market was still in the process of discovering the product. The only 'saturation point' we've reached is in mindshare: there's nobody left who hasn't heard of an 'iPod' by now.

This does not signify the end of the iPod market. It marks the fact that the iPod market now, officially, exists. Now it's time to pay attention to Apple's Y/Y iPod sales growth, which, BTW, is phenomenal.

Re:Pffft...that's why I bought an iRiver.

[plazman30]

The price of both the iPod line and the creatve line are almost identical. The big reason to choose Apple is longevityof the company, available third party add-ons, and the UI. Apple wins on all three.

Re:Creative Online Store

[2nd Post!]

Want to know irony?

Creative announced the Micro Zen after Apple released the iPod mini, by about 10 months:
iPod mini in January of 2004
Zen Micro in October of 2004

They also released their first "small" DAP after the iPod:
"full sized" Nomad Jukebox in 2000
iPod in October of 2001
Zen in 2002

Everything good about the Zens and Nomads exist because Apple did it first :)

Re:Patents should be abolished.

[PopBus]

If you are really innovating, your only reward should be to have the advantage to reach a market first. Once your thing is out in the open the game is on and anybody should be able to copy it.

If the contraption is really innovative, then replication should be non trivial, thus permitting the inventor to benefit for longer or to literally sell the invention.

If the contraption is a piece of crap (Amazon: I am looking at your one-click nonsense) then everybody and his dog will copy it because it would be too obvious.

Probe me wrong, why do we need patents?

Oh wait, to give jobs to the bureaucracy that leeches from the system. My bad....

Many inventions which are vital to the world are often trivial to reproduce but cost millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time to actually invent (drug technology falls in this arena).. The alternative to the granting of patent protection is that such inventions would never exist in the first place because nobody in their right minds would invest money in such development.. In your world, I hope you never get cancer, because there wouldn't be 10% of the available treatment or research done that has been done because drug companies are protected by patents..

The purpose of Patents is to make sure that innovation actually happens and innovative products actually become available to the public domain.. They do this by making an avenue where inventors can publish the details of their inventions, get 20 years to control their inventions and profit from their hard work, and then have the details become public domain.. In a time when there was no patent law, inventors had no way to safely share or even produce their work, because they would be undercut by people who didn't need to pile all the time and money in the act of actuall inventing it.

As much as patents are designed to place a disadvantage to consumers, in reality consumers would be worse off if inventions couldn't be patented.. 20 years of catering to those who actually do the work to invent something is a good trade-off against the thought of such things not ever being invented in the first place.

While the resulting litigation is a pain to those who do a lot of R&D, it is their ultimate responsibility to ensure that what they are working on is not already protected - details of patents are publicly available.. If you don't take time to look and act accordingly, you deserve to get your ass handed to you in a lawsuit.

Oblig South Park

[initialE]

Don't you kids know anything? If you've been served, and you dance back at them, then it's on!