iPod Faces Patent Probe

twofish writes "The long running patent spat between Apple and the struggling Creative Technology took another turn today. Creative is claiming that the US International Trade Commission (ITC) has now launched a probe into the possibility that the iPod infringes on Creative's patents. Creative has asked the ITC to issue an order stopping Apple from marketing, selling or importing iPods into the US."

Comments

Patently Nonsense

[Wavicle]

A patent on a music player navigation menu?!

I guess it is completely non-obvious and innovative that a portable music player would need a menu to navigate through its songs.

I must be brilliant because that requirement seemed pretty obvious to me.

Re:Patently Nonsense

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

While I agree and hate patents, its worth mentioning that almost everytime anyone here on /. asks what makes the iPod any better than other players, they always rave about how easy and smooth the control interface is and because of that Apple is the one who "really gets it", etc, etc. If it turns out Creative had and patented this first, it is certainly at least of value. I still would think its a stupid patent, but most iPod fans I know when asked why always rave about the "innovative" control interface and how easy it make things. Of course, now those same people will say its simple and no big deal. Go figure.

Re:Patently Nonsense

[Builder]

If Creative have the patent on this, why does the management of music and navigation on their devices suck so hard? If they patented all this goodness, why didn't they implement it ?

Like comparing Oranges and...

[general scruff]

Wheat thins! One input device is round and one is square! The shape is totally different!

Facts...facts...who's got the facts?

[PFI_Optix]

From a related BBC article:

Creative said it had applied for the patent, dubbed the Zen Patent, on 5 January 2001 and was awarded it on 9 August. It applies to the way music tracks are organised and navigated on a player through a hierarchy using three or more successive screens. For example, this would be a sequence of screens that could display artists, then albums and then tracks. "The first portable media player based upon the user interface covered in our Zen Patent was our Nomad Jukebox MP3 player," said Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo. "The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the Nomad Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent."

This isn't a patent on MP3 players or buttons or anything or FUD-related nonsense, it's a patent on a specific organizational structure in the software. Of course, it happens to be very similar to how I organize directories at home, and seems like a rather intuitive concept that a lot of people would arrive at independently.

Re:Facts...facts...who's got the facts?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This isn't a patent on MP3 players or buttons or anything or FUD-related nonsense, it's a patent on a specific organizational structure in the software.

No, this is a patent on organizing music in a hierarchy, but on a portable, much like patents on a dutch auction, but on the internet, or patents on blue lights, but in a car. This patent was applied for 5 days before Apple released to the public iTunes and long after other music jukebox software did this same thing. Apple, and many other companies, sold laptops with speakers. In particular, look at a Linux laptop, with a speaker, running MPlayer. Creative's case hinges on proving that their patent issued years after people were doing just that, should prevent the selling of iPods (which run Linux and use it to organize and play music in the same way). It isn't even a matter of it being obvious, it is a matter of them filing for the patent years after people were already doing this by arguing that the iPod somehow differs fundamentally from other portable computing devices.

Re:I suspect an overturn of creatives patents soon

[plasmacutter]

Go ask anyone with 2 braincells and a concept of filebrowsing.

both the computer and the portable player have stored files to browse by category from a filesystem.

the patent attourney you asked might know his patent law, but he doesnt know squat about how a computer works, ill bet he thinks it's full of hampsters doing math on miniature abici

Re:I suspect an overturn of creatives patents soon

[mrchaotica]

I don't care what you're patent attourney said; these kinds of patents are utter bullshit anyway!

Non-obvious is non-obvious is non-obvious, and that doesn't change just because it's a slightly different kind of device! And the only assholes who think otherwise are -- guess what -- the attourneys, because they're the ones who profit from the whole thing!