Apple has
settled a lawsuit filed by a Vermont-based company called Contois Music Technology, which alleged that the iTunes user interface violated a 1996 patent for a "Computer Control System and User Interface for Media Playing Devices." Contois Music Technology claimed that Apple integrated elements from its patent into iTunes, and based its accusation on the fact that Apple employees were present at trade shows in the mid-90s where Contois Music Tech had demonstrated its software. Some of the functionality which the company claims was copied by Apple includes using a menu selection process to select music, the ability to search and sort music based on the genre, artist, and album, and transferring music from a library to a portable music player. As
we reported last year when the lawsuit was filed, several other software packages capable of similar functionality existed around the same time as when Contois Music Technology was showing off its patented software (e.g. WinAmp), but as patent-infringement cases are notoriously expensive to fight, we're not surprised that Apple decided to settle instead. As the exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed (read: how much Apple had to cough up), it'll be hard to draw parallels between this and
Apple's recent $100 Million settlement with Creative over the menu system for the iPod: unfortunately, that also means we'll have to wait until the next Apple lawsuit to hear more of that
oh-so-subtle smack talk from Jobs.
[Via
AppleInsider]
posted September 3rd 2006 9:00AM
BTW, the Apple HIG states that dialog buttons should not use Yes/No, OK/Cancel, but distinct words to answer the question. In this case, "Do not Settle" And "Settle". Also the negative button should have double spacing from the other button for safety. OTOH, iTunes doesn't follow any of these rules at all, so you're spot on! :3
I'm getting sick of these lawsuits.
Can I take a patent on breathing air?
Ridiculous, who's handing out these patents? They need to be slapped with a cod. Repeatedly.
What!? Who claims that *they* thought up the idea of menus and organizing by categories? Idiots.
Come the fuck on! I'm getting sick of these stupid lawsuits too. You mean you can organize things by album, genre, and artist? 1. It's just convenient (would you rather have to find single songs by scrolling through about 3,000 of em) and 2. EVERYBODY uses the same thing, so what makes them so fucking special? And it also says something about apple stealing the idea of transferring music from a library to a portable device. That doesn't even make sense. How elso do you want people to put the songs on their Ipods? Wrapping up, I'm just sick of second rate or no name companies coming out of the wood work to sew apple over shit that a monkey could create and that I'm sure they never came up with themselves.
Apple should fight for principles, not just to protect business, otherwise it will be the same pure greed of protecting stolen profits from stolen ideas.
Sick of these lawsuits? You're not even one of the principal parties being affected by it! Just stop reading about them.
They on the other hand have to live with Apple's continuing patent naivete or on the other side someone being able to make a buck off their previous research. If Apple uses someone's idea, they have to pay... at least until the law changes.
Protecting these ideas through patents helps small companies innovate. Otherwise they have no leverage at all against companies like Apple that supposedly do no evil.
Protecting these ideas through patents helps small companies innovate.
So you're saying that searching by genre, title, etc... are innovations? Sorry, this, like Adobe's suit against Macromedia for Flash 5's tabbed palette interface, which is essentially a simple extension of categorized folders in a file cabinet... these navigational and organizational devices are NOT innovations, and should never have been granted patents.
Sick of these lawsuits? You're not even one of the principal parties being affected by it! Just stop reading about them.
They on the other hand have to live with Apple's continuing patent naivete or on the other side someone being able to make a buck off their previous research. If Apple uses someone's idea, they have to pay... at least until the law changes.
Protecting these ideas through patents helps small companies innovate. Otherwise they have no leverage at all against companies like Apple that supposedly do no evil.
-----------
Yes it's all well and good protecting innovation, but there is absolutely nothing innovative about this patent.
This is stupid. I don't understand how some small company can sue apple for something as simple as the way itunes organizes music. If they were the ones coming up with this brilliant idea, how come everybody in the world doesn't use it? itunes has a huge user database, these companies should have marketed their products better and maybe they would have something to complain about.
As much as I despise Apple, this is just retarded. Our patent system needs an overhaul. Does anyone remember the guy who tried to patent the @ sign? Everyone called him crazy, but you know what? I bet he had a 50/50 shot at actually suceeding in doing so.
these companies should have marketed their products
I dont think these patents generally involved 'products' from the originating company, just 'ideas' or 'concepts'.
>>If Apple uses someone's idea, they have to pay... at least until the law changes.
This is not 'somebodies idea'. Hell - if all of these patent lawsuits represent people suing because of 'somebody's idea' - then the real owners of the intellectual property for all of this belongs to a bunch of guys from 1940 - 1975 because all of these B.S. patents are based on re-hashing the same ideas that OTHER people thought of decades ago. The patent office people should all be fired.
Sorting by artist, category, album?????
Ummm - news flash for anybody who takes any of this modern injelectual property law seriously *at all*:
music is data. period. sorting data based on particular fields, is a database concept that is decades old. period. end of discussion (and in a remotely sane world - it would be end of the line before a patent is even issued).
But hey, due to the ignorance of a 'push button' public, which is taught NOT to think about things logically, but instead to have all concepts 'framed' for them by well-oiled PR machines - this is no surprise.
Just look at the millenium copyright act or the lobbiest scum financed by the recording industry: they all claim new laws are needed because there is this new thing called the 'internet'. Another News Flash: there is nothing new about 'data' and we have had perfectly good laws that apply the same to internet based information as they do to books; the same to Beta/VHX as they do to peer-to-peer downloadable music. Nothing is fundamentally different about the concept. Nothing. Any lawmaker that treats kazaa differently then Sona was treated when Sony won their case allowing them to sell VCRs, should be fired and asked to rebate the tax payer for all of the millions of dollars wasted by the court system.
Historically, Apple is one of the worst offenders of course (the 80's 'look-and-feel' lawsuits that Apple's scum legal team initiated, represent the real start of modern day tech crap lawsuits - and they blatently had stolen it all from Xerox!), but the real crime is that all of this stiffles commerce, increases the costs to consumer for these items, and steals tax-payers money to administrate this joke of a legal system and the U.S. patent office.
This lawsuit is as stupid as someone suing a company that makes a device that compiles data from vending machines simply because it's called Profit Pod. Only an iDiot would do that, right?
http://tinyurl.com/ndr7t
This has sent the message out to everyone... find something that apple is using and hasn't patented, and they will lay down without fighting it.
Wish they would fight one of these cases.
Well, there is only one way for patent law to change... VOTE! Many of you people who mention that you want change don't vote. If you do, great. Hopefully you voted for someone who believes in patent reform. If not, why didn't you? What stopped you?
One other thought...If you don't like the way patents protect small businesses against large corporations, either you haven't ever started your own business, or you never had an idea you thought was so unique that you wanted to start one. Patents are good for some and are absolute BS for others.
they blatently had stolen it all from Xerox!
cough
they blatently had bought it all from Xerox!
Lets remember some things here...
Many of you are right, organizing DATA by categories IS extremely old...
Many music programs do the same thing...
Xerox allowed Apple to have their "look and feel"...they didn't steal it...
Voting for people who believe the patent system needs to be reformed is all well and good, but voting just for that reason will never matter because politicians will never put patent reform high on their list of priorities even if they say they will - so it'll never happen...
And people, as a whole, need to get a life and not sue for every single little thing that doesn't go their way in life. Coffee is hot. Music can be loud enough to damage your hearing ability. Too much fast food can make you overweight. People - take some responsibility!! As much as so much of us hate the "corporate world" and the "big companies", they aren't always the ones ruining our lives! We do that to ourselves often enough!
Well i used to sort my cd's by artist.. when i got bored i sorted them by Album... and in my car they are sorted by Genre. I think i have Previous art (a picture) of that .
First, to all of you that keep saying patents protect small businesses from larger competing businesses, you're gravely mistaken.
The cost of filing a patent usually ends up around $25,000. This doesn't guarantee the patent will get approved either. A typical small business in the tech industry likely generates about $10,000 in revenue monthly. How do you expect them to raise the money to file for a patent and have the confidence that it will go through?
This lawsuit is absolutely scandalous. I wish Apple would have fought it. Maybe Apple will just sue the patent office for granting patents for a common electronic sorting mechanism.
"This lawsuit is as stupid as someone suing a company that makes a device that compiles data from vending machines simply because it's called Profit Pod. Only an iDiot would do that, right?"
Great point crescentdave. Apple fanboys need to look in the mirror and realize that their beloved company is just as "evil" as Microsoft. Both are corporate bullies that copy smaller companies ideas and claim them as their own. And if the smaller company cries foul, they bury them in legal paperwork.
Apple sues anyone who copies or uses anything "Pod." Why is it not fair if another smaller company has its ideas stolen by Apple to do the same. Only the cult of Steve Jobs would disagree.
agreed, dx. What goed around, comes around. Make silly patent claims, get screwed by the same. They should settle out of _principle_ since apparently they think the patent system works and is a good way to make revinue.
I'm sick of all this patent infringement stuff from companies whose sole purpose is to hold patents and make money off from them. Look at NTP. The only reason they are around is to be a pain in RIM's side. They have no products, only patents, and they realized they could make money off from RIM, so they decided to sue. Also, the patent office is to blame for allowing such generic patents. They never should have allowed it. I think I should patent "Using tongs to pick up an ice cube" and charge people astronomical royalties to use my patent, or sue them. The world of patents has become a sad state of affairs these days.
agreed dx
It amuses me to no end, that Apple fanatics constantly post their rantings here on Engadget of how evil Bill Gates and Microsoft are. On how they steal ideas and act like an evil corporation. And yet they refuse to see this same evil in their own beloved Apple.
It is becoming abundantly clear (with all these settled lawsuits) that Apple shopped around while creating the iPod. They had meetings and found several innovative ideas from smaller companies. Instead of licensing these ideas, they took them as their own.
If Apple truly had a legal standing in all this, don't you think they would have fought it? They have in the past. As it stands now, they will only have to pay pennies to these smaller companies now.... far less than licensing them.
'Think different' you say?! Bah... Apple thinks just like Microsoft.
What if the predecessors search was exactly the relatively new paradigm that iTunes brought to the table? That is, keyword search for any word or or word fragment in the entire database? All Songs with Love, or by Love. Or all songs by John.
Which is pretty darn useful if you do not remember the entire name of the song, correctly. There are a ton of databases out there that are more exclusive than they are inclusive, that will bat zero if you typo, or are too particular and wrong.
This was different, and useful enough, that Apple has since applied it to their entire Finder.
If that was the case, it was worth the effort. In ANY case, Apple has to defend the suits, and it is likely that the one suing, for restitution rightly, or not rightly due to them, might actually lose. A settlement does not mean one party or the other necessarily wins, just that they settle, and stop griping.
It is totally ridiculous what the US patent office is allowing to be patented these days. There are so many basic ideas that are allowed to be given exclusive rights to.. it is really a drain on the advancement of society when the patents are granted...
...Apple sues anyone who copies or uses anything "Pod." Why is it not fair if another smaller company has its ideas stolen by Apple to do the same. Only the cult of Steve Jobs would disagree....
thats trademark, not patent. Its completly different, but I agree with the point.
Apple gets reamed again. All too funny. Their proclivity to pay out rather than challenge some of these absurdly vague patents may only invite more lawsuits, though.
I'll have a better perspective if I take patent law next year.
i think i'll patent the idea of someone suing others for 'infringing' their patents, and charge a royalty fee of $5 billion everytime someone wants to sue. i will then let 2 companies sue, and use that $10 billion to buyout the patent office and fire everyone in there. oh please let me do that...
I hate to hear about how people hate everyone who is associated with a product, that is a form of ignorance/prejudice. In college we are tought to have facts, not blanket statements that would be abusive to others (dx, "Only the cult of Steve Jobs would disagree."
"Pod" is a trademark, not a patent as Mathew points out...
And Dave Lehmer is correct and his stament is short and exact.
Vote???? Since when did Patent Reform become a Political Platform for a politician?
response to #3
Dear Matthew,
Unfortunately I own the patent for the action of swinging any type of water bound animal with the intention of striking a person or their person with said animal. This includes all combinations in number of hits, timing and rythmn. Not excluding all random combinations with regards to number of hits, timing and rythmn.
This is a cease and decist to you in your request of quote:"They need to be slapped with a cod. Repeatedly.". If you do not stop suggesting to people to infringe on my patent then I will be forced to bring legal action against you and the people you incite. I take this matter very seriously and so do the lawyers I have hired.
If you breach this order I will be forced to take you to court where we can settle out of court which would cost you far less than going to court and fighting it, you may as well give me $1000 straight off and be done with it.
Regards,
Harpy McFlubber
Woops I should have spell checked, it's rhythm you idiot.
"Xerox allowed Apple to have their "look and feel"...they didn't steal it..."
besides that they actually bought it off Xerox, the Apple UI bears little resemblance to Xerox's original. Apple used Xerox's research to create their own UI, whereas MS pretty much ripped Apple's. But thats another discussion entirely.
You guys get real. If Apple were the one suing another company you would be backing them. This 'Apple can do no evil' thing is ridiculous.
The patient system should really require a product, or at least product development, in order for a patent to be kept. If this company filed for the patent, they should have been given two years to use the patent (or, at very least, be able show a signifigant progress towards using the patent, and then they have an additional 3 years to have something on the market) in order to keep it. The patient also needs to be spicific and not general.
I realize this would put Apple in trouble as well, but if said company's patent expires without a product, then it is opened up to anybody who wants to use it. We now have laws against "cybersquatting", so why not do the same thing here? It makes sense.