"Creative"? Give me a break.
BBC News reports: Apple faces iPod patent dispute.
In a nutshell, Creative are suing Apple over the software interface used on the iPod; specifically, the multi-level method by which a user browses through their music.
For those of you without iPods, this is how it works. On the iPod, you get a sequence of menus - for example, you click 'Music' on the main menu, click 'Artists' on the next, then click on the artist name, then on the name of an album by that artist, and then you can choose which song to play from the tracks on that album. There are other ways to select what to listen to as well - after click 'Music', there are other options including 'Playlists' and 'Genres', for example.
Creative, producers of such MP3 players as the Zen and the Nomad, are suing Apple because they own a patent that they say covers this style of interface on music players.
Hang on a second. This is a hierarchical menu. It's just successive lists of options, each of which narrows down until you reach the item you want. These things have been around for decades on computers, and you could even make a case that multi-level contents tables in books constitute a primitive example. Creative's sole claim to originality, the sole basis of their patent, and the sole basis of their suit against Apple, is that they were the first to put hierarchical menus on a music player.
Not only has this idea been around since long before MP3 players, whether Apple's or Creative's, but it's also mind-numbingly obvious, and should therefore be unpatentable. Exactly how else would you present the songs on an MP3 player, if not through a multi-screen hierarchical menu like this? There's no other usable way of doing it - you can't have a single list of 5000 songs and be expected to scroll through them. The very fact that there's no other way of doing it should have prevented this being patented in the first place.
It has been pointed out by some that if this concept is patentable and "innovative" (which is one of my most-hated words thanks to it's all-too-frequent and often dubious use) solely because it's been applied to an MP3 player, there's no reason why you couldn't patent a "rotary device for controlling volume on an MP3 player" and sue everyone who builds an MP3 player with a volume wheel or knob.
With such craziness as this, is it any wonder the general public has long since started to lose any respect for the concept of "intellectual property"?
I think Creative are [a] poorly named, and [b] very bitter about having been beaten so soundly by the iPod. Further evidence of both of these assertions can be found by looking at their latest MP3 product, the Zen Vision:M - it's hard not to take one glance at it and think "iPod clone".
Creative - you lost. Get over it, and stop bawling like a spoilt brat.
In a nutshell, Creative are suing Apple over the software interface used on the iPod; specifically, the multi-level method by which a user browses through their music.
For those of you without iPods, this is how it works. On the iPod, you get a sequence of menus - for example, you click 'Music' on the main menu, click 'Artists' on the next, then click on the artist name, then on the name of an album by that artist, and then you can choose which song to play from the tracks on that album. There are other ways to select what to listen to as well - after click 'Music', there are other options including 'Playlists' and 'Genres', for example.
Creative, producers of such MP3 players as the Zen and the Nomad, are suing Apple because they own a patent that they say covers this style of interface on music players.
Hang on a second. This is a hierarchical menu. It's just successive lists of options, each of which narrows down until you reach the item you want. These things have been around for decades on computers, and you could even make a case that multi-level contents tables in books constitute a primitive example. Creative's sole claim to originality, the sole basis of their patent, and the sole basis of their suit against Apple, is that they were the first to put hierarchical menus on a music player.
Not only has this idea been around since long before MP3 players, whether Apple's or Creative's, but it's also mind-numbingly obvious, and should therefore be unpatentable. Exactly how else would you present the songs on an MP3 player, if not through a multi-screen hierarchical menu like this? There's no other usable way of doing it - you can't have a single list of 5000 songs and be expected to scroll through them. The very fact that there's no other way of doing it should have prevented this being patented in the first place.
It has been pointed out by some that if this concept is patentable and "innovative" (which is one of my most-hated words thanks to it's all-too-frequent and often dubious use) solely because it's been applied to an MP3 player, there's no reason why you couldn't patent a "rotary device for controlling volume on an MP3 player" and sue everyone who builds an MP3 player with a volume wheel or knob.
With such craziness as this, is it any wonder the general public has long since started to lose any respect for the concept of "intellectual property"?
I think Creative are [a] poorly named, and [b] very bitter about having been beaten so soundly by the iPod. Further evidence of both of these assertions can be found by looking at their latest MP3 product, the Zen Vision:M - it's hard not to take one glance at it and think "iPod clone".
Creative - you lost. Get over it, and stop bawling like a spoilt brat.