Apple Gives In to Absurd Patent Claims

gottabeme writes Apple has settled with a small Oregon company that claimed patents on simple aspects of iTunes, such as sorting and searching tracks, copying tracks to media players, and just plain choosing a track to play." From the article: "In the 10-page suit, lawyers for Contois said that David Contois, the owner, conceived of and developed a computer interface for playing music on an internal or external computer-responsive music device, which he then exhibited at the 1995 COMDEX trade show and the 1996 NAMM music industry trade show. According to the suit, persons who were at the time employed by or later became employed by Apple were present at both trade shows and viewed Contois' software. The suit charged that Apple later 'copied' the invention and used the design ideas in the interface for iTunes."

Comments

Apple didn't orriginally create iTunes

[abhi_beckert]

Apple didn't even create iTunes, they bought it several versions ago. How many of these "breaches" were developed by the original software team?

what about winamp and xmms?

[OrangeTide]

Didn't those predate iTunes? You could sort and select stuff and burn things to CDs. not quite as fancy, but some aspects are there.

Re:what about winamp and xmms?

[WowTIP]

On the other hand there were lots of music/media players for the Amiga that had at least some of this functionality in the early 90's. No burning, though, probably because cd burners were too expensive.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Defensive move

[oohshiny]

Whenever a patent claim gets settled, then well, that same claim can't be made again by another company -- unless they take it up with the company that won the first claim.

Huh? Whatever gave you that idea? Unless the question is decided in a court of law (not just settled), these kinds of claims can be brought against Apple again and again.

But, then again, who cares? It's not like Apple is so well behaved themselves.

Correction

[ravenspear]

As another poster mentioned, Casaddy and Greene was the manufacturer of Soundjam, not Connectix. Sorry for the mistake.

Re:prior art on this one.

[MouseR]

That's the stupid reality of software patent.

But the idea of giving in is because, in the end, your lawyers may actually cost more than what the plaintiffs asks and the negative publicity this usually generates eventually gets to the ears of the high shareholders and they dont like it.

Just like the "exploding Dell laptop" thing. And more recently, the same "Bad Apples" news that keep cropping up.

It's really Sony's fault. You and I both know that. But Joe Schmoe reading Wall Street Journal might not.

Re:No legal precident

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple caves in before that happens, then there is no precedent.

There is a precedent; they're purposely setting a very high price for the technology they're stealing so none of the bottom feeders get it.

It may not be a "legal precedent", but it's still a precedent by definition ("an example that's used to justify similar occurances at a later time").

If you aren't a lawyer, it's a "legal" precedent too; because it's setting the price to legally use patented technology, which has been set by Apple by means of all that icky expensive lawyery stuff (using gobs of cash to set the price for Creative and this company's technology). Hence both "legal" in nature and a "precedent".

But I know what you mean, just like you knew what gp meant. :)