December 9, 2005 9:14 AM PST
Creative wants to make Apple pay
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Sim Wong Hoo, chief executive of Creative, told the BBC that he intends to "pursue aggressively" his company's U.S. patent on the navigation of music on MP3 or other audio players.
He added that Creative, which makes Zen music players, already is in talks with parties over the patent, which was awarded this August.
"Hopefully this will be friendly, but people have to respect intellectual property," Sim said.
Creative is planning to grab royalty money from all music player manufacturers that use the same navigation system that it has patented, he added.
Apple, which has dominated the market for MP3 players, was hit by a number of patent problems this year.
A Hong Kong-based company, for example, claimed in March that it owns patents to the digital rights management software used on the iPod. Pat-rights sought 12 percent of Apple's iPod revenue.
Microsoft, meanwhile, managed to foil Apple's attempts to patent elements of its user interface.
Jo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.
132 comments
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Tip to Creative: if you really want a slice of Apple's pie, then create
something that is original and innovative yourself.
Let's not forget that you can't play iTunes music on any portable player besides the iPod.
Congratulations America, another stupid, ridiculous patent that
shouldn't have ever been issued.
As Molly (buzzreport) recently said, "Clues are going real cheap these days". Sounds like the morons at the patent office need to pony up for one.
it dissolves or gets reversed-engineered, then it doesn't mean
anything after that.
Creative can go ahead and attempt to sue Apple, but the end
result will be less innovation, not more. World history shows that
over and over again with humans.
I think Creative would stand to make more money if they were to
talk to Apple and ask to either combine resources or make a
gentlemen's agreement on the issue. Same goes for Real
Networks' complaint in the similar vein.
Also, the Zen burned many, many people in the early years. First
impressions count.
Some of you people are pathetic.
Have fun replacing your Batteries.
My Zen came with two bats and to cradles. Plus I can use any software Id like. But I must be stupid for making a purchase based on choices. Sorry I didnt hail to the almighty, all powerful extremely hyped "crApple"
IMHO, it shouldn't be possible to patent such a simple and generic concept.
since it goes back to Hypercard in 1984.
bite me. I will continue to promote the iPod to all my friends
and co-workers. I'm in Afghanistan, as I am an American and
former soldier I here and now vow never to purchase a Creative
product for the rest of my life. As far as I am concerned the
Hong Kong based company can suck it up. So what if Apple
products aren't sold in Hong Kong. What are they going to do?
If companies spent as much time on innovation as they did
trying to rip off people through frivolous lawsuits, they may
actually build/develop something worthwhile.
"You may hope for the best, but always prepare for the worst"
of late... notice how they didn't file this lawsuit years ago, when the
iPod first came out and was attracting much less market attention.
I've never owned a Creative product, but am a longtime Apple user
(20 years plus)... after reading about this frivolous lawsuit, I will
never purchase a Creative product.
If you have a clue, you can change a battery in the iPod. And you can use it on something other than Windows.
that your iPod battery can be replaced and (b) you didn't bother
to purchase an extended warranty?
It's entirely your choice whether or not to buy an Apple
product... but this lawsuit by Creative sounds totally frivolous to
me and the patent for a list is for something so basic to
computers that it probably shouldn't have been issued. Also,
notice how Creative waits until years after the iPod was released,
until it starts really making inroads into the buying public and
becomes profitable, and then decides it wants in on the action
with a frivolous lawsuit. Ridiculous! But not as ridiculous as Oleg
Simkin's ranting and retarded response. Oleg, wipe the foam
from your mouth, and step away from the computer!
Both Nike and Converse owe Creative one HELL of a lot of money.
:-)
debuted is as frivolous as the lawsuit they are now bringing in light
of the iPod's success.
Most iPod batteries work for years and years without issue, a new one is $20. So if you want to complain about your battery, go after SONY, not Apple, SONY made the battery, NOT Apple.
Zen will be bankrupt within a few years anyway, deal with it.
Perhaps, but the law would appear to be on Creatives side at the momment.
"The iPod is the best because it IS the best."
I believe that's called circular reasoning.
"So if you want to complain about your battery, go after SONY, not Apple, SONY made the battery, NOT Apple."
Who choice was it use the battery?
"Zen will be bankrupt within a few years anyway, deal with it."
Creative is the company that owns the Zen player.
But Apple introduced the first iPod in October of 2001, almost 4
years prior!
I'm no lawyer, but to me it would not make sense for Creative to
have any claim against something Apple started producing years
prior to the awarding of Creative's patent.
If you want a valid timeline, find out when the patent was *applied* for, getting awarded a patent just means it's now possible to go after those who infringed on your patent before you were awarded it.
(Note: I'm ignoring the merits of the patent here because I think it's bad patent myself, but it's important to know how the system works or you make mistakes like Space Ghost did with his timeline).
If this patent that Creative owns isn't important, then why did Apple apply for it?
The navigation aspect that makes the iPod what it is would be the scroll wheel, not the hierarchical menus.
I have used Creative products for many years. Creative makes quality products that are affordable to the mass market. Apple makes better products that appeal to the high end consumer. Don't bash Apple becuase you have champagne taste on a beer budget.
partners....
I just want to point out that patents and intellectual property protection are critical to innovation. Of course, it is debatable whether the Creative patent is too obvious and should not have been granted. But given that the patent was granted by the US Patent Office, it is logical for Creative to enforce the patent and monetize it.
Imagine a world without intellectual property protection and Creative or Sony are allowed to sell exact replicas of the iPod ...
an iPod Photo (see the INTERFACE) and a color skinned iPOD Mini.
Accident...not a chance in hell.
The nerve. The Chinese tech companies don't innovate...they rip
other innovations apart, reverse engineer, repackage and mass
produce.
Why I am saying is that people want to bash Creative for applying for a patent so something so "vague and basic", yet Apple applied for the same thing.
***?
Oops wait. My XBOX just caught fire. I'll get back you in 5.
First, as someone pointed out, it does take years for a patent to be decided upon as to whether it gets awarded. Mine took about four and a half years from the date of submission, which was nearly a year after the initial work on the associated technology - the date of the first documented (preferably witnessed by an independent party) work on the design and/or implementation (one technique for accomplishing this is to send a notarized copy of the description of the invention to yourself via certified mail, double-wrapped and sealed, which you then retain, unopened, until it's in the presence of the judge presiding over the case). Note that the description doesn't need to be complete or even represent the final version, it just needs to describe what's unique about the invention.
The next step is to submit an application to the USPTO, which can easily take a year to complete, but if you've done the first step, there's no rush, as patent protection lasts 17 years from the date of issue, not the first description or even implementation (prototype) of the invention. An experienced patent attorney is invaluable in this, but is also expensive, typically around $50,000 for starters, if it's a patentable idea (so much for an even playing field for the individual inventor, huh?). If you have a patent attorney on staff or retainer, so much the better, but not exactly what most companies can afford (but Apple certainly can and does, but I'm not sure about Creative, given its financial situation). When completing the application, you start with your basic claim, in this case, from Creative's patent 6,928,433:
"1. A method of selecting at least one track from a plurality of tracks stored in a computer-readable medium of a portable media player configured to present sequentially a first, second, and third display screen on the display of the media player, the plurality of tracks accessed according to a hierarchy, the hierarchy having a plurality of categories, subcategories, and items respectively in a first, second, and third level of the hierarchy, the method comprising:
selecting a category in the first display screen of the portable media player;
displaying the subcategories belonging to the selected category in a listing presented in the second display screen;
selecting a subcategory in the second display screen;
displaying the items belonging to the selected subcategory in a listing presented in the third display screen; and
accessing at least one track based on a selection made in one of the display screens."
Whew! That's just the first claim - there are 15 MORE! Anyway, you build up your claims like the layers of an onion, starting with the narrowest (most defensible) claim, and working your way out to broader claims. The trick is to get as many claims accepted by the USPTO as possible, and it never hurts to claim too much - they just may not all be granted. I had 52 claims accepted, out of 102 that were claimed in my patent application!
The next step is kind of surprising, in that, after your application is assigned to a patent examiner (typically a kid fresh out of law school, who may or may not have taken any courses in patent law - the government pays so little that they'll hire anyone, pretty much) he/she is required to assist you in the preparation of your patent, including the claims! Yep, as an individual paying the $75 fee (or whatever it may be now, given Congress' largesse in the waistline), you get the same level of support as a corporation paying thousands of bucks for the same submission. However, you gets what you pays fer, and as I indicated, you're usually getting a pretty green lawyer who almost certainly has no background in technology, much less patent law on technology. The name of the game here is Punch-Your-Ticket, where you spend a couple of years processing patent applications, and once you've done your time in Purgatory, then you can go and sell yourself to the highest bidder in Palo Alto (where all of the Silicon Valley's best patent law firms are) or the equivalent for other industries. This is a critical point - the examiners may not be experts in patent law, much less technology, and they tend to side with the patent applicant more often than not. Only in cases where the applicant has shown that none of the prior art (work done on similar inventions) overlaps with the claimed invention, should the patent be granted, but that's like trying to prove a negative - you can't get there from here in terms of pure logic.
OK, so let's say the USPTO has finally granted you a shiny new seven-digit patent number. You've won the lottery and can print money now, right? WRONG! You're only about one percent of the way down the long and ugly path through dismal legal swamps, if you're lucky - it often gets worse. Now, you have to get people to accept your claims and license your invention, sue anyone who even _appears_ to infringe on your shiny new numbered document, and/or get sued by others who dispute your claims. So, getting awarded a patent, although a lot of work, is absolutely no guarantee that it will be licensed or upheld in court (and licensees often will wait to see what happens when, usually not if, someone gets sued, or sues the patent awardee). You can bet your sweet bippy that Apple's legal team is working overtime to build their evidence pile to refute Creative's patent award. So, it's Lawyers in Love for upwards of decades from this point (it took the inventor of the windshield wiper delay circuit about 40 years to win his case against all of the auto makers world-wide, and he was awarded about $30 million, which he wistfully admitted would only be enjoyed by his grandchildren, as he was in his 70s or 80s by then).
So, eventually, the case goes to court, and the judges (since these are almost always appealed) make their "informed" decisions, which sometimes fly in the face of reality and logical reasoning (the reason we have some really bad patent decsions in precedent, and one of the reasons it takes forever to get a decision, good or bad, from a purely logical perspective). It really all comes down to (a) how persuasive a case your high-priced patent attorneys can make (and you'll be paying through the nose for lots of them) and (2) how intelligent the judges are who decide these cases. I forget whether juries are involved in these cases, but if they are, Lord help you, as now your fate rests in the hands of people who have nothing better to do than sit in a courtroom who couldn't even get into the audience of Court TV!
In any case, we won't know the outcome of this case for years, if not decades, in which time Creative and/or Apple could dry up and blow away (you can probably guess who I'd put my money on). In something like 90% of the cases, depending on how things look, one or both parties may eventually seek to settle out of court, and they negotiate to see who will pay whose lawyers' bills, mostly, with any licensing agreement being icing on the cake. The bottom line is, getting awarded a patent is the easy part - successfully defending one or getting a substantial licensing settlement - PRICELESS! (well, actually, there is a price, but at least you don't have to deal with lawyers any more).
All the Best,
Joe Blow
extension of the Column View found in Mac OS X.
And that Column View is the direct descendant of the Workspace
Manager in NextStep. In fact, it was the principle way of
graphically browsing the files on a volume in the OS.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www120.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/intro.htmld/" target="_newWindow">http://www120.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/intro.htmld/</a>
Workspace.html
The Mac OS X version scrolls the column to the right when
necessary (as does the iPod with each selection). (I haven't used
the Workspace Manager.)
What Creative added was the specification that it use metadata
from music files to populate the lists.
Apple was arguably using their own intellectual property when
creating the menu system.
So there is little to no merit to argument that Apple "stole" an
idea from Creative. Creative just beat them to the punch after
the iPod was released.