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News
Apple Tapped Media Player Inventor in Burst Case
Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 4:00 PM - by Jeff Gamet
When Apple settled a lawsuit with Burst over patents used in the iPhone it enlisted the help of Kane Kramer, a Brit that patented a portable media player concept nearly 30 years ago. While Mr. Kramer’s name isn’t well known, the products that eventually grew from his idea -- including the iPod -- are.
According to the Mail Online, Mr. Kramer patented his idea in 1979, but lost his patents in 1988 after the board for the company he formed split and failed to come up with the money needed to renew them. Once the patents lost their protection and technology caught up, several companies began producing portable media players.
Apple decided to contact Mr. Kramer to see if he would testify in the lawsuit Burst had filed over alleged patent infringements involving the iPod.
"I was up a ladder painting when I got the call from a lady with an American accent from Apple saying she was the head of legal affairs and that they wanted to acknowledge the work that I had done," he said.
He agreed, so Apple flew him to California where he underwent 10 hours of questioning by Burst’s legal team.
Apple was able to settle with Burst for US$10 million, and is now in talks with Mr. Kramer over payment for the copyright he holds on his original music player concept drawing.
"To be honest, I was just so pleased that finally something that I had done which has been a huge success and changed the music industry was being acknowledged," he said. "I was really quite emotional about it all."
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