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"

[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"

[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"

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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: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.

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.

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.

Where's the pun?

[Megane]

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

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.

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".

Re:Sick of Sue-Happiness

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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: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.