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Creative Sues Apple, Seeks Injunction

Couldn't the Newton play MP3's...?
No? Well it should've been able to play em. And I'm sure somebody wrote a program for it that had column views... and then Apple should countersue Creative for being non creative (and false advertising :p).
 
This is so incredibly stupid. “automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata.”
That shound't even be a patent, its so blindingly obvious.
Imagine if someone said you weren't allowed to organise your family photos by the date the camera gave it as this constituted 'metadata' and your camera company hadn't liscenced that organising system.
The only point in metadata is really to organise things, next someone will try and patent the concept of 'metadata' i bet.

Creative needs a broken nose for this...
 
Oh, and I laugh everytime I go to This page... look at how many different kinds of players they have and how confusing it is. hahaha. And naming one a "Nano Plus"??? wtf is up with that? :confused: :mad:
 
081440 said:
how do you patent a file tree????

Isn't that something that would by considered ovious or already invented/anybody could do that?
Click to expand...
Yes, the entire thing seems to describe pretty well the NSBrowser object, which is pretty much what is used on the iPod (and Finder), which NeXT invented well before Creative even existed, and which would now be owned by Apple. Whether NeXT or Apple ever patented it I don't know, but I'd be kind of surprised if they hadn't because Apple is constantly patenting all sorts of things, I think mostly to prevent bogus money-grab lawsuits just like this one.
 
i may be wrong

the guy who filed the patent did so AFTER the first iPod was released yes?

he patented a unix/nextstep file organization display already in use by Nextstep yes?

Creative is backed by Microsoft yes?

Dude now works for microsoft?


this is stupid... i hate lawyers of rich people.

so much money is wasted doing this. I hated apple's actions for suing the isp of that rumors site almost as much as this. Same as the Apple vs Apple... that was a wealthy label putting a stranglehold on Jobs because they had the finances to do it. They forced Jobs and Apple Computer into that non music business agreement.

unfortunately... this is how things are done. When it all comes down to it the only way to get a piece of the pie is to make sure there are no competitors. Because when someone is doing something successful... everyone else wants it to be themselves. So ... corporations all suck.
 
Creative is trying to make it so Apple cant sell ANY iPods in the US?

I will NEVER buy a creative product just on this greedy, cheesy cry baby act alone. just cause they suck they want to ruin it for the rest of us? *******s.
 
NeXT was certainly the basis for the navigation on OS X and iPod, but they did not have the first GUI column view. That honor goes to...

SmallTalk, circa 1974:
7-AltoST-small.jpg


Source: A History of the GUI:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.ars/
 
The Tariff Act? You've got to be kidding me... exactly which law do they think Apple broke anyway? "The Tariff Act" is about as generic as "didn't pay your taxes."
 
Trust the system, this will all be resolved. I'll go on record as saying there is no way Apple will have a C&D order entered prohibiting them from selling iPods in the US unless somehow there are narcotics smuggled inside of them.

It's unfortunate too, because I used to like Creative. They had kind of a cool way of operating from what I had read--for instance, instead of killing a 3d party app that helped organize and navigate files on their players they gave money to the small time programmers to improve the end user experience. I thought that was classy. I don't remember the name of the program off hand, I believe it was "red" something, anyone know?
 
Tell Creative How you Feel!

If they did get an injunction against Apple, that would make me LESS likely to buy a Creative player (if it were possible for me to be less likely to buy a non-Apple player)....
 
Ot

FoxyKaye said:
where were these folks when Bush stole the presidency back in 2000?
Click to expand...

They were there but they weren't allowed through your terrible parliamentary structure. At least you don't have to live with the fact that people seriously voted your leader in and support the removal of their rights.
 
Zeke said:
I think Apple may actually be in trouble here. Here's the patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...LL&s1=6928433.PN.&OS=PN/6928433&RS=PN/6928433

The important stuff:

What is claimed is:

1. 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, the method comprising: selecting a category in the first display screen of the portable media player; displaying the subcategories belonging to the selected category in a listing presented in the second display screen; selecting a subcategory in the second display screen; displaying the items belonging to the selected subcategory in a listing presented in the third display screen; and accessing at least one track based on a selection made in one of the display screens.

2. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing at least one track comprises selecting a subcategory in the second display screen and playing a plurality of tracks associated with the selected subcategory.

3. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing at least one track comprises selecting a subcategory and adding the tracks associated with the selected subcategory to a playlist.

4. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing at least one track comprises selecting an item in the third display screen and playing at least one track associated with the selected item.

5. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing at least one track comprises selecting an item in the third display screen and adding at least one track associated with the selected item to a playlist.

6. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing at least one track comprises one of playing or adding to a playlist at least one track associated with a selected one of the category, subcategory, and item.

7. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the accessing at least one track is made after the presentation of the third display screen by reverting back to one of the second and first display screens, the second display screen presented sequentially after the third display screen.

8. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 further comprising selecting one of the items displayed in the third display screen and presenting a listing of items associated with the selected item in a fourth sequentially presented display screen.

9. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the category genre is selected in the first display screen from available categories that include at least artist, album, and genre; and the subcategories listed in the second display screen comprise a listing of at least one genre type and one of the at least one genre type is selected.

10. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 9 further comprising displaying in the third display screen at least one album associated with the selected genre type and selecting one of the at least one albums displayed in the third display screen and presenting a listing of tracks associated with the selected album in a fourth sequentially presented display screen.

11. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the category artist is selected in the first display screen from available categories that include at least artist, album, and genre; the subcategories listed in the second display screen comprise a listing of names of artists and a first artist name is selected; and the items displayed in the third display screen comprises at least one album associated with the first artist name.

12. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the track is a music track, accessing at least one track comprises accessing a track title in the third display screen, and the track is played in response to the access.

13. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein receipt of the selection in the first display screen results in an automatic transition of the first display screen into the second display screen and receipt of the selection in the second display screen results in an automatic transition of the second display screen into the third display screen.

14. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the category selected in the first display screen is from a top level of the hierarchy.

15. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the category selected in the first display screen is a category from a level at least one level below the top level of the hierarchy.

16. The method of selecting a track as recited in claim 1 wherein the plurality of categories comprise a list of artist names, the plurality of subcategories comprise a list of album names and the plurality of items comprise a list of track names.

Such broad language is used that very clearly describes the method for organizing used in ipods (even mentions playlists which I thought the Zens didn't even have). Apple will probably have to try and state that what they did was so obvious that they didn't need a patent (like patenting breathing). Hopefully this is the case like this one:

Patent 6,618,857 Method and system for installing software on a computer system.
Click to expand...



Hardly do I feel that this idea is novel enough to deserve a patent. Come on Creative, spend your time and money on making a good product.
 
Bern said:
Assuming Creative do have a case, that would mean they should then sue every other mp3 player manufacturer. Come on people we're talking about a company from an area of the world notorious for copying other products. :rolleyes:
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Just like the Apple Corps with online music encoding and downloading. For some reason, i feel that Dr. Evil is behind this all.. all those ppl around the table belong to these half-ass companies that aren't worth anything anymore, and Dr. Evil is trying to get his One-Trillion dollars finally.
 
jamesi said:
haha, i guess if i was creative and tired of losing the mp3 war i would pull this crock too
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Well, they are mostly dead already, they may as well spend their last remaining dollars suing someone and going down in a blaze
;)
 
madamimadam said:
Well, they are mostly dead already, they may as well spend their last remaining dollars suing someone and going down in a blaze
;)
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going out in a blaze of glory is one thing, but a blaze of damned them and everyone that wants to buy and iPod rampage of stupidity? that would suck if thats what was at the core of my being.
 
madamimadam said:
Well, they are mostly dead already, they may as well spend their last remaining dollars suing someone and going down in a blaze
;)
Click to expand...


Thats right, isnt Creative naerly bankrupt or something? They should have just stuck with sounds cards, they were cool, but they even managed to screw that up! <reflects back on the days of the SoundBlaster 16>
 
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