“U.S. law is designed to encourage the maximum inventiveness. And although there has been a cornucopia of independent inventors in the U.S., many important patents today are the property of large corporations capable of exploiting them,” Chris Noon reports for Forbes. “But not this one, and that could mean trouble for Steve Jobs’ Apple Computer. Singapore-based digital audio company Creative Technology has been awarded a U.S. patent for user-interface technology in its portable media players and those of its competitors. The patent apparently covers technology that enables users to navigate among the thousands of songs that can be stored on digital music players.”
“How will Creative enforce the patent? ‘We plan to be very vigorous in the defense of our intellectual property,’ Craig McHugh, president of Creative’s U.S. unit, was quoted as saying. ‘We are going to look at all the alternatives that the patent provides. We can look at legal remedies,’ he added,” Noon reports. “Pundits wonder if Creative’s controversy is a joint attempt by the company and Microsoft to shake Apple from its perch. For Creative’s claims follow hot on the heels of the rejection of Apple’s iPod-related patent application due to archrival Microsoft’s filing of a similar application five months earlier.”
Full article here.
Danit Lidor also reports for Forbes, “The ‘breaking news’ e-mail alert issued to reporters Tuesday morning by Creative Labs was bound to attract attention. It trumpeted news that the company had received a patent for an important interface used in portable media players. The alert named Apple Computer four times, noting that Creative Labs had applied for its patent well before Apple’s iPod hit the market. The implication, as subtle as a freight train, was that Creative planned to assert its patent against Apple.”
“Apple’s iPod has a commanding 80% of the U.S. portable music player market versus 9% for Creative. But McHugh said there was no connection between its trailing sales in that market and any possible legal action against Apple. Creative posted a $32 million loss in its fiscal fourth quarter ended in June, a reversal from a $6.6 million profit last year.”
Lidor explains how Creative used the patent press release to lure media to a conference call where “rather than discuss what was promised, Creative used the opportunity to shill for a new line of handheld digital entertainment products, which were barely mentioned in the patent news alert.”
Full article here.
Very vigorous defense? Like, as “vigorous” as one would be in a “war?” Yawn.
Related articles:
Creative explores new way to beat Apple iPod: patent litigation – August 30, 2005
Microsoft has not, repeat not, patented Apple’s iPod – August 17, 2005
Beleaguered Creative Technology’s ‘war’ on Apple iPod not faring well – August 15, 2005
Microsoft to allow Apple to license iPod patent? – August 15, 2005
The real story on Microsoft’s ‘Apple iPod’ playlist patent – August 12, 2005
Patent lawyer: Microsoft and Apple iPod patent saga is much ado about nothing – August 12, 2005
Microsoft beats Apple in iPod patent race? – August 11, 2005
Microsoft researcher involved in rejected Apple iPod patent – August 10, 2005
Apple’s patent application for Pod’s menu-based software interface rejected – August 09, 2005
Apple’s iPod shine dims beleaguered Creative Technology’s outlook – August 08, 2005
Microsoft not buying stake in Creative Technology – August 02, 2005
Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo adds fronts to war against Apple iPod – August 01, 2005
Analyst: Microsoft could buy Creative Technlogy in bid to compete with Apple iPod – July 14, 2005
Beleaguered Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo ‘optimistic’ the company will survive ‘MP3 war’ – July 01, 2005
Beleaguered Creative may have to write off unsold stock as losses loom – June 28, 2005
Creative Tech’s reduced outlook drags on Apple, PortalPlayer, SigmaTel – June 27, 2005
Creative Tech cuts sales outlook, drags Apple down in early trading – June 27, 2005
Apple passed 20 million iPods sold milestone in early June – June 24, 2005
Apple’s understanding of what really counts makes iPod+iTunes impossible to beat – June 22, 2005
Creative Technology shares slide to lowest mark in almost two years – May 18, 2005
Apple squeezes and Creative’s profit plunges 72-percent – April 23, 2005
Apple iPod pressure forces Creative to drop prices on music players – March 01, 2005
Creative’s self-declared ‘MP3 player war’ against Apple isn’t going very well – January 20, 2005
Creative CEO: Apple iPod shuffle ‘a big let-down, worse than the cheapest Chinese player’ – January 12, 2005
Creative declares ‘war’ on Apple iPod, shoots for 40% market share of MP3 players – December 21, 2004
Creative Technology declares ‘MP3 War’ against market-dominating Apple iPod – November 17, 2004
Mossberg: Dell, Rio, Creative ‘iPod mini killers’ lag badly behind Apple iPod mini – October 27, 2004
Creative pushes to become ‘Pepsi’ to Apple’s ‘Coke’ in digital music player market – August 07, 2004
Well of course they’re going to be vigorous. They’ve saved up all their vigor from NOT fighting the iPod by coming up with a better product.
hey so.. like.. is the company worth something now.. wow.. all thanks to Apple.. ? Cool..
George Bush Rocks!
Get ’em, Creative. Make ’em pay just like they strung up that college kid who shared Tiger with his buddies!
“Pundits wonder if Creative’s controversy is a joint attempt by the company and Microsoft to shake Apple from its perch.”
Pretty obvious, no?
Apple should sue Creative on the behalf of all the customers who got a virus from using a Zen.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/30/0118252&from=rss
Apple could always buy Creative in a hostile takeover, they are only worth $600 million, Apple has billions in cash.
Perhaps that’s what Creative wants, they know they lost and are going the way of Rio.
If Apple buys Creative they will get 3DLabs, which makes awesome video cards.
creative’s just a bunch of korean faggots with small penises
It’s like someone patenting a database search… wooo, look I can sort it by artist, genre, album etc.
B’jeez, I wish I was the judge in this case… Creative is not very creative are they?
Hey japan is neat, Creative isn’t even a korean company you jackass!!!!
Hierarchical File System Wikipedia
HFS DeveloperApple
Full NameHierarchical File System
Introduced1985 (System 2.0)
Hierarchical File syste (HFS), is a file system developed by Apple Computer for use on computers running Mac OS. Originally designed for use on floppy and hard disks, it can also be found on read-only media such as CD-ROMs.
HFS was introduced in September 1985 as a new file system for Macintosh computers. It superseded the Macintosh File syste (MFS) which was a flat file system, used only on the earliest Mac models. Because Macintosh computers use richer data than other commonly available file systems such as FAT used by DOS or the original Unix file system would allow, Apple developed a new more appropriate file system, rather than adopting an existing specification. For example, HFS permits filenames up to 31 characters in length, supports metadata and dual forked (separate data and resource forks per file) files.
While HFS like most other file systems may be seen as a proprietary format, because it was so well documented there are usually solutions available to access HFS formatted disks from most modern operating systems.
In 1998, Apple introduced HFS Plus to address inefficient allocation of disk space in HFS and to add other improvements. HFS is still supported by current versions of Mac OS, but starting with Mac OS X an HFS volume cannot be used for booting.
The UI is nothing more than a Nested Folder GUI structure for navigating the HFS.
Since Creative had this interface since late 2000, why didn’t they complain about the iPod’s interface in 2001 when it first came out? I know they only just got the patent, but they could have said something about iPod before now. To complain about something that has been in existence for almost four years sounds fishy to me.
Apple could litigate Creative into oblivion if Steve wanted.
He may just release the ninjas instead.
MaWo: ‘mind’. As in, Sim Wong Hoo must be out of his.
I am officialy boycotting the new creative soud cards.
I am in the retail hardware biz, and I will deter all my customers away from the creative brand.
Thats right I am a Mac user stuck selling PCs… and you wonder why I need theropy.
Okay, that’s it, no more MDN comment-reading for me. MacDude’s comment is relevant and interesting, but Andrew and “japan is neat” just took this place down one more notch into stupidity.
Why doesn’t Apple just open it’s wallet and buy Creative? That would settle everything real fast.
Creative is from Singapore and claim to be a a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products. However, it is well known they produce crappy products made in China.
I don’t think Creative has a chance in hell.
and Microsoft will never run out of cash.
Monopoly abuse here we come! Thanks, George.
Fredpp,
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
hi, i am a 15 year old kid in high school andi think this is terrible news.
my whole family has been mac users and apple lovers for as far back as i can remember. i know apple isn’t a perfect company but i love them to death, and i hate it when i hear bad news like this that can affect them.
can a legal expert give me some reassurance as to how apple can come out on top of this?
i see there are a lot of people that think this will end up not affecting apple in any bad way, but i’m a kid so i don’t know much.
hearing all of this news makes me want to become a politician so i can fire all of the people that work at the patent office. theyre a bunch of idiots if you ask me.
How can you be allowed to Patent “Logical” idea that anyone could have come up with… Of course, you would want your music sortable by Artist and Album. Oh my G.., Creative’s going to sue me for my 15 year old FileMaker Pro Database and my CDs are actually in wall rack alphabetically by artist (they might get me for that, also).
I hope there is a lot more to this Patent than what is being listed in the media articles.
“U.S. law is designed to encourage the maximum inventiveness.”
Is this a joke ? Patents destroy inventiveness…
What if Microsoft just BOUGHT creative? Then THEY would own the company and all of it’s IP.
Creative is in bad shape, theyre selling a decent amount of their players, but look at their recent quarterly loss and nobody in their right mind would choose a creative player over an ipod. At the rate they are going, Creative has a bleak outlook on the future.
I can see Gates orchestrating a Microsoft buyout of Creative at an overvalued rate to please Creative shareholders and winning their prized patent to gain leverage against the iPod.
There are three requirements for an invention to be patentable:
1) It must be useful (i.e. it must produce a desireable result, solve a problem, improve on or propose a new use for an existing development or show potential of doing so) — while it is doubtful whether Creative’s products meet this claim in actual use, they probably do satisfy the Patent Office requirements.
2) It must be novel (i.e., it must not already be patented or described in public literature, or be in public use for more than a year) — it is extremely doubtful whether Creative’s patent meets this test. This type of interface has been used in databases for quite some time, and there is also some question as to the length of time that similar products had been in use before they applied for the patent.
3) It must not be obvious (i.e., a person with experience or skill in the particular art of the patent would not be expected to achieve the same invention with a normal amount of effort) — Creative’s patent almost certainly fails this test; there are only a few possible logical designs for the interface for a mp3 player, given that it stores info about album, artist, playlist, etc. So most anyone in the field could (and did) reasonable invent the same thing.
Other disqualifiers:
* Substituting one material for another (i.e., plastic for metal.
* Merely changing the size of an already existing device.
* Making something more portable.
* Substituting an element for an equivalent element.
* Altering an item’s shape.
It would appear to me that Creative’s patent fails the second and third test here; since similar interfaces were already in use in software packages that ran on the computers; merely reducing the size and placing it on a more portable device are not sufficiently new to warrant a patent.
It seems to me that Apple should be able to win this one; however, the Patent Office is terribly short-handed, especially with regards to “experts” in relatively new fields, like software and interface design. And after a patent is awarded, it is more difficult to get it invalidated.
Aron S. Spencer, Ph.D.
(Patent information from Shilling, Melissa, “Management of Technological Innovation”, McGraw-Hill 2004, p. 169)