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Apple Settles With Creative For $100 Million
- Thread starter chibianh
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I agree as it is the only common sense system, but the argument is negated by the patent. That was for a portable music device with Hierarchal menu display/navigation system, (HFS is a file system Apple has used and not used in Creative's players).Cameront9 said:
The courts could have said prior art, case dismissed or patent stands, Apple owes Creative $10 for every iPod sold since day 1. Apple didn't want to take any risks and settled. Good all round as far as I can see, even if I do agree it is a stupid patent award.
jaxstate said:
The iPod UI - as in the categorical listing of Artists, Songs, Playlists, etc. and the submenus thereafter...
Licensing!!
This is not the first time Apple has licensed someone else's technology. When the online Apple Store opened, they were the first to license Amazon's One-Click technology. May be Apple just wanted this headache over. May be Apple also figured if they settle now, may be Creative could use this precedence to sue Microsoft and other competitors over their UI and make them pay for licenses too.
This is not the first time Apple has licensed someone else's technology. When the online Apple Store opened, they were the first to license Amazon's One-Click technology. May be Apple just wanted this headache over. May be Apple also figured if they settle now, may be Creative could use this precedence to sue Microsoft and other competitors over their UI and make them pay for licenses too.
Sabenth said:Another spin on all of this is the fact they just get 100 million from apple and now they decided to spend mega bucks on it over here in the uk up untill reacently we hardly sore a advert for ipods or apple computers saw a lot of adds for creative zen but bugger all for ipods which is better i wonder ie market leader who dosnt push the advertising or the people who advertise a lot and still dont have a large market share ....
To put it politely theres to many fingers in this pie and end of the day i know which system i prefer i aint saying its apple and its ipod either
Putting 4 periods after a paragraph doesn't make up for no periods in the paragraph itself.
This settlement may well be the final 'installment' in the Creative Story, who have been losing money like it's going out of fashion. Since they cannot sue Apple again over the menu system, they need to start making money the 'old-fashioned way' by selling products. But of course, in the near future Creative's major rival will not be the iPod, but Microsoft's Zune and Sandisk players...
Then again, disregard all of the above since they'll probably try suing Microsoft instead, to keep afloat for another year!
Then again, disregard all of the above since they'll probably try suing Microsoft instead, to keep afloat for another year!
That's quite a sum of money! A bit more than my Power Mac cost me, even with that extra RAM.
It's seems to me that it's unlikely that the cost of litigation could have exceeded the cost of a settlement, so does that show that Apple expected to be found liable for patent infringement as charged?
It's seems to me that it's unlikely that the cost of litigation could have exceeded the cost of a settlement, so does that show that Apple expected to be found liable for patent infringement as charged?
Doctor Q said:
I don't know...with five lawsuits between the companies, I wouldn't be surprised if the litigation would have cost at least $100 million. But I do think Apple wasn't terribly confident...
Edit: The estimates I've seen say that a typical patent infringement case costs up to $5 million per side. This would probably be higher than a typical case, with $100 million in total not out of the question.
edcrosay said:
I hope not. We've been down that...well, it wasn't even a road...it was a road construction project.
Creative created a Fourpoint card, priced it like the DD5.1 card, and didn't work on the drivers past the initial release at a time when Mac OS X was becoming important, so it was never Mac OS X-compatible or reasonably good.
As far as the patent debates went, the filing system and visual access were patents that seemed all too generic.
I know the bills add up quickly, but just how much does an active case cost? That's a lot of zeroes!Cameront9 said:
Cameront9 said:
Not really. Creative was going broke. This was the best possible outcome for them.
To Apple it could have made all the sense of a business deal.
Imagine the lawyers:
"Ride it out and you may win or you may lose and it'll cost you $200-250 million.
Pay up now, get Creative on board, don't appear to be the bad guy and close any issues with patents - now and in the future - for $100 million."
And thats getting off easy. This amount of money is nothing compared to the profits Apple have made off using 'Creative's technology'. And it bodes well for Apple cos they can continue using itIJ Reilly said:$100 million? Yikes.
I hope this means that Creative would port its Soundblaster X-Fi to Macs. I'm sure this would help bring game developers, too.
Seems to me that for just a mere $100 million (mere to Apple anyway seeing as how they have over $8 billion in cash currently), Apple has just bought Creative out of the mp3 player market. Not to mention that Apple will now be receiving royalties from Creative via the Made for iPod licensing. This is yet another brilliant move by Steve Jobs and is absolutely a win/win for both Apple and Creative.
What for?
Because... then you will have to beef-up the reclycling program to get rid of Creative's garbage products... the clean up process will cost more than the big bucks that Apple is paying now.Trench said: