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Speculative Reporting Suggests Apple Could Pay Microsoft iPod Royalties [Update]

Monday, August 15th, 2005 at 3:05 PM - by Staff

Apple's inability to patent the iPod interface could result in the company paying royalties to Microsoft for every iPod it sells, according to some highly speculative reporting by the Independent.

Reporter Katherine Griffiths starts from the fact that Apple's patent application was rejected in part because of an earlier patent filed by a John Platt, who at that time worked for Synaptics, a key iPod supplier. Mr. Platt later went to work for Microsoft, which led Ms. Griffiths to the conclusion that Apple might be subject to paying Microsoft royalties.

AppleInsider originally broke the story, reporting it correctly, but the story has taken on a life of its own, as evidenced by the Independent's coverage, as well as coverage in other publications. Blog site Wizbang published a solid and detailed deconstruction of this post-AppleInsider coverage, as noted by Billy K in the comments below.

[Update: This story has been updated with additional information. - Editor]

8 comments from the community.

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Billy K said:

member since 06 May 2004 with 297 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Aug 15, 2005 3:16 pm

Thoroughly debunked trash journalism. Shame on you for spreading this garbage, TMO/TiO!

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/006750.php

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Engine Joe said:

member since 29 Jun 2004 with 413 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Aug 15, 2005 3:35 pm

I'm with Billy. This is speculation based on uninformed half-truths - an attempt at creating an attention-grabbing headline.

TMO is usually better than this.

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stuartea said:

member since 08 Aug 2005 with 327 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Aug 15, 2005 3:58 pm

never going to happen

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Ahnyer Keester said:

member since 25 Jun 2001 with 663 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:14 pm

Apple is planning an appeal. This is way stupid. And the Patent Office has done some really dumb stuff in the past.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:21 pm

This is the kind of garbage "journalism" that leads to page clicks. Everyone benefits, except the viewer.

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Bryan said:

member since 11 Jun 2001 with 7340 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:34 pm

Thanks for the comments, folks, and you are right. We should have covered the article differently, and we have edited it accordingly.

Also, thanks to Bill K for pointing us to the excellent deconstruction at Wizbang.

Bryan

Editor

iPO

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:36 pm

Much more thorough info on this story here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/10/microsoft_apple_patent/

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3547 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Aug 15, 2005 10:23 pm

I can think of three explanations for my current thoughts on all of what's been appearing in the media over the last week or two.

* the electrodes the secret service agents slipped into my char siu won-ton soup at lunchtime are making me think weird paranoid thoughts

* companies other than Apple really are influencing non-Apple-aware journalists

* there is a ground-swell amongst the non-media public that maybe Apple isn't the ne plus ultra amongst portable music playing providers.

I know, or think I know that the first one isn't true, and there may be other explanations, of course. But they're too banal.

This from NZ Herald, originally from Reuters: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10340914

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