Support Our Site
Get Better Gear!
- Kensington Windshield/Vent Car Mount with Sound Amplified Cradle for iPhone from Kensington, $39.99
- SigFx Energy iPhone Case Contains Smart Battery from SigFx Energy, US$69.95
- NAVIGON AG - True GPS Software for the iPhone from NAVIGON Inc., 89.99
- Tweetie 2 from atebits, $2.99
- Snood: Flawed Casual Play from Electronic Arts, US$3.99
Premier Sponsors
Top 5 Free Apps
iTunes New Music Releases
Top 5 Paid Apps
Discover New Music
Bowie at Beeb: Best of BBC Radio 68-72
- David Bowie
The companion CD to a BBC television concert, BBC Radio Theatre has some of the best renditions of many of Bowie's best songs throughout his career. "I'm Afraid of Americans" is substantial
An Evening with George Shearing & Mel Torm�
- Mel Torm� & George Shearing
- Of the three men who taught me how to sing, the last was Mel Torme. Apparently, Mel Torme is a joke to anyone more than a decade older than me, a living parody of a Vegas crooner. But I stumbled on th
Live at the Magic Bag, Ferndale, MI
- Supersuckers
- Man, there's nothing like good, old fashioned, rock and roll... add a bit of industry resentment to that with a double-shot of cynicism, and you get one of the best "new" rock bands going. This album
- Congo Norvell
Very few albums manage to capture snapshots of a quality of life in the manner that Congo Norvell's sophomore record, "Abnormals Anonymous," does.
Comparisons to the Velvet Underground are
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More, with Feeling
- Various Artists
Most musical episodes of TV shows frankly stink. They are usually little more than ill-conceived vehicles intended to let the stars show off what musical talent they have. Once More, With Feeling,
Reader Specials
Visit Deals On The Web for the best deals on all consumer electronics, iPods, and more!
News
Creative’s ‘Zen Patent’ Heats Up the MP3 Player Patent Wars
Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 3:00 PM - by Brad Cook
Creative Technology Ltd. on Tuesday announced that on Aug. 9 it won what the company calls the "Zen Patent," which covers the user interface for its Zen and Nomad MP3 players. In a statement, Creative added that the patented interface is also "found in some competing players, such as the Apple iPod and iPod mini."
Creative CEO and chairman Sim Wong Hoo, who earlier this year declared "war" on Apple, said in the statement: "The first portable media player based upon the user interface covered in our Zen Patent was our NOMAD Jukebox MP3 player. We shipped the NOMAD Jukebox to U.S. retail customers in September of 2000. The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the NOMAD Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent."
Mr. Sim went on to say: "Before this invention, there was no intuitive and efficient way to deal with the large number of tracks that could be stored on a high-capacity player."
The patent, which Creative applied for on Jan. 5, 2001, specifically covers "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."
On Aug. 9, AppleInsider broke the news that an inventor who now works at Microsoft filed a patent in May 2002 for "a hierarchically ordered user interface." That patent caused Apple's original and amended patents for the iPod user interface to be denied, leading to some speculative media reports claiming that Apple would have to pay royalties to Microsoft for each iPod it sold.
How today's events will affect Apple remains to be seen. Creative seems to be establishing prior art, which in patent law refers to the fact that an invention which is available for sale first wins out over an invention whose patent is filed first. Prior art led many who understand patent law to dismiss the Microsoft patent, but it's unknown if Creative could, for example, force Apple to pay royalties to them for each iPod and iPod mini sold.
Recent Headlines
- Apple TV 3.0.1 Update Fixes Missing Content Bug
- Taiwan Leak Shows Verizon UTMS/CDMA iPhone for Q3 2010
- iPhone Moves Into RadioShack
- Dictionary, Dictionary, Dictionary, And More
- The Latest App Store Games: Gravity Sling, RocketBird, Ground Effect, Checkers!
- iPhone Game Developer Sued for Collecting User’s Cell Numbers
- Apple May Be Bringing RFID to the iPhone
Post Your Comments