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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."
I think between this and the Creative patent, Apple is purposely setting a legal precedent, so other media player makers who aren't as cash-flush will be forced out of business. They don't have the massive bankroll Apple does because they were already less successful than Apple. So in the future, it will become even more difficult to jump to the top. Scorched earth. Dangerous, but brilliant in a really evil way.
""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.""
Isn't this a similiar situation to what happened to Go computers?
Apple Gives In to Absurd Patent Claims
You're talking about the company that licensed "1-click" from Amazon. Why are you surprised?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I became a mac user around OS 8.5, and i remember iTunes coming out back in 2001. Why did it take Contois so long to file against Apple? Couldn't this have been brought up well before the current date? Or is there another reason behind this?
In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?
It seems that the point of contention in this lawsuit was the iTunes interface, which Apple did develop (although probably with the original team who they also acquired in the purchase). iTunes was originally Soundjam MP developed by Connectix. iTunes used the same base code but the interface is significantly different from Soundjam in many aspects.
That's an interesting legal theory, to say the least. Where did you say you went to law school?
"Those areas included ... sorting music tracks by their genre, artist and album attributes."
Hi. I've invented third normal form. Pay me.
Always remember, I'm the only one allowed to index and sort database records by individual field contents, without a royalty.
-- Terry
people claim "prior art" each and every time some other company than Apple goes to court - and here is an actaul case of prior art, and suddenly there is a whole bunch of folks running forward to defend apple?
Seriously - Prior art - its documented.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
A menu selection process to allow the user to select music to be played - its a music player! File>Open is a damned menu! Please for a second picture a music player that doesn't allow the user to select the music to be played via a menu. mpg123 is all that comes to mind.
The ability of the software to transfer music tracks to a portable music player - wait any OS can do this - its copying files for crissakes. Again trivially File>Save As
This sorting by genre>artist>title is something I've done for ages with tapes and then CDs. The Creative patent was stupid and this one is too - Indeed I'm stunned they don't sue each other.
All of these patents are obvious and entirely frivolous, and really ought not to exist. So much as I dislike Apple and support underdogs I've got to side with Cupertino because this is ridiculous.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Given Apple's litigious history, I don't think there's any reason to consider these claims absurd. Apple went as far as trying to claim rights to pretty much all graphical user interfaces without even having invented them.
This, in addition to another few patent claims involving Apple lately, have begun to make me a bit concerned.
In the short term, it might seem like it makes sense to "just settle" with a litigant with an absurd or overly broad patent, rather than fighting it. However, I'm not sure this is really a good idea in the long run -- it just invites more people to try the same trick over and over, damning you to a death by a thousand small wounds.
Compare the difference to IBM's staunch opposition of the SCO lawsuit. I realize that the cases are different, but philosophically they represent very different approaches. IBM seemed to realize, at the very beginning, that even if it cost more to fight SCO's claims than to settle with them, it would be a worthy expenditure, because to settle would be to roll out the Welcome mat to every other numbskull with an axe to grind. Apple seems to be only looking for the immediate cost: will it cost more to fight a particular case, or to settle it?
I think this might be because, while IBM realizes that it is a giant corporation with impossibly deep pockets, and thus a massive target, Apple has for so long been a relatively small player that it seems they haven't gotten their minds around the fact that a short term loss might be worthwhile, if it headed off similar future attacks.
I'm not a shareholder in Apple, just someone who's reasonably fond of their products. However, if I was, I'd be very concerned that in making the quick out-of-court settlement their M.O., they're painting a bulls-eye on themselves, which can only get more inviting the bigger and more profitable they get.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Amazing. People will sue for all kinds of crap these days, eh?
Call me stupid, but this sounds like a rerun. The same thing happened with automobiles...George Selden tried to sue Henry Ford because Selden held the patent to the first automobile, even though it was built after Ford's. Messed up American patent system. The supreme court ruled that Ford and anyone else with the crazy hair across their ass to do so could build a car without paying Selden royalties. Because, and I quote from wikipedia.org, "automobile technology had improved so significantly since the design of Selden's patent, that no one was building according to his early designs."
There's a saying: "Couldn't you see the elephant in the living room?" Meaning it's kinda...obvious. I cite this, because the basics for iTunes are pretty simple to think up by yourself, without having to steal it. It's not that hard to think up an idea that you would want to organize, move around, and play your music all in one program. It's a basic concept. Sure, this company may have came out with it first, but look at how iTunes has evolved with it, and added on so much more functionality, like the music store, and interfacing with an external device to create playlists.
So I guess you could say that Apple is painting the elephant in the living room a different color. And adding some piercings.
There's a lot of fucked up shit on the internet. And I've downloaded it all.
Yeah, I agree with the other responders who called bullshit on this.
If your claim were true, then the most obvious thing for any company to do with any new product would be to provide seed funding for a small company to sue it with a bogus patent claim, but settle it in order to remain bullet-proof against any future claims. Life is never that easy.
And... Meeting three, patent holders armed with Apple legitimacy, and posibly enjoined by Apple, meet with undisclosed Japanese company, and request additional licensing fees/taxes.
Soon after CDROM drives came out for mac, there were XCMD's that could you could use in director to play audio files from a CD, so it could have been easily done.
However, many 3rd party CDROM drives (like one I bought in 1993) came with their own audio CD player software that:
1. allow the user to select music to be played
2. search capabilities such as sorting music tracks by their genre, artist and album attributes.
3. the ability of the software to transfer music tracks to the local hard drive
Well, 2 out of 3 - Close enough!
"I forgot my mantra."
This is the same thing that happened with NPT and RIM/Blackberry. It's also how Amazon.com got to patent the 1-click shopping method (though it looks like they might not have that anymore). This has got to end. It's time for patent reform.
Makes no difference. The norm in buying out a company is to assume all assets as well as all liabilities.Otherwise any company in danger if being pushed out of existence would spring a new front company to assume the assets and leave behind the liabilities.