DailyTech - Apple Sues Creative

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IT Apple Sues Creative
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - May 19, 2006 2:33 AM

31 comment(s) - last by Trisped.. on May 23 at 1:59 PM

Apple decides to step up and defend itself

DailyTech this week reported that Creative Labs, makers of the Nomad and Zen line of portable MP3 players, decided to sue its biggest MP3 competitor, Apple Computers. The suit that Creative filed claims that Apple infringed on patents over the interface that's used in Apple's iPods. Creative claims that it had designed the easy to use interface over 6 years ago. Many are asking why Creative waited so long if it had the patents 6 years ago.

Now, Apple has filed a suit against Creative, claiming that Creative infringed on patents that it owns over the iPod. According to Creative however, Apple never mentioned about these patents when Creative and Apple held discussions with each other.

No word was given from Apple about the suit, but many are saying that Apple has every right to continue to sell its MP3 players because Creative waited too long to sue. Apple currently holds nearly eight times the market share size that Creative has for portable MP3 players.

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I can't be the only one...

By RyanHirst on 5/19/2006 3:54:42 AM , Rating: 3

...who tried to use Creative's Media Organizer that shipped with Audigy 2 cards. Garbage. I have never, in my life, used a program designed to organize data that failed so miserably to peform simple organizational tasks. I didn't start using mp3s until this year, when I got iTunes.

So they can't be suing about the computer interface program, because Apple didn't copy that, they made a program that ISN'T like shoving your face over and over again through broken glass.

That leaves the interface ON the mp3 player, right? Ummmmm. What, exactly is Creative claiming copyright on? Heirarchical menus? Multiple search parameters? Selectalble text? Do they really think they invented these things?

[First, the idea of suing over these things is stupid. They're natural notions of organization. Anyone who thinks Apple "invented" visual display of heirarchical options needs to... hey, wait a minute......... :)
OK, so second, if we are going to stubbornly insist that these are copyrightable inventions... um... *cough*.... someone is suing APPLE over graphical heirarchical menus?.... *whistle*...]

...wait for it.... wAAAAIIIIIIITTTTT FOR ITTTTTTT...... BAAAAAAAAAAM!
This train's never late.

RE: I can't be the only one...

By Xavian on 5/19/2006 4:31:21 AM , Rating: 2

wait a second.... you think the software you got with your SOUND CARD is exactly the same as the software people recieve on their MP3 PLAYER?

The software bundled with the MP3 Players from Creative is nothing like the software bundled with the Audigy 2 (i know i have a Creative Zen Sleek and a Audigy 2), consistently i have found that Creative has much better sounding MP3 players (my friend has an Ipod) and better file format support then apple. The way i see it is apple got lucky and filled the MP3 player void when there was no major company in the market. Then using some good marketing they turned it into a phenomenon.

As long as Apple uses that crappy AAC proprietary format to tie people into iTunes i will never support anything they do with the iPod. But then again i hold no love for creative either, who's software updates are extremely slow for any product they sell.

Try using your brain to think instead of muttering apple rhetoric, then prehaps you might see beyond that apple logo and beyond the other side of the looking glass :)

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By AnnihilatorX on 5/19/2006 6:25:16 AM , Rating: 2

Yes. I agree. Creative has an edge in the hardware implementation in terms of audio quality and features

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By chickenselects on 5/19/2006 7:11:43 AM , Rating: 2

Yet they still have a crap load of issues with other hardware and their drivers are horrible( for any device they create)..

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Samus on 5/20/2006 4:01:25 AM , Rating: 2

drivers are what kill creative for me. i've just completely given up on their products after my flaky audigy 2, fuckin firewire port locking up the pc, fucking eax 4.0 causing erratic BSOD's, even winamp causing BSOD's until I spent 2 hours trying to download patches from creative's site, which is horrorish to navigate.

I replaced it with a chaintech envy24 card. software was a native windows-update detect, 2MB in size.

and the quality is phenomonal.

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By zirpl on 5/19/2006 7:26:32 AM , Rating: 2

AAC is neither crappy nor is it a proprietary format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding). The only thing what is propriatry at Apples AAC is the "FariPlay" DRM. Creatives players support MP3 as the only non-proprietary format. All other supported formats (WAV, WMA, Janus, etc.) are proprietary Microsoft formats. In contrast the iPod supports MP3, AAC, Protected AAC ("FairPlay"), WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless and Audible. Yes, some of them are proprietary, but when talking about non-propriatary standard formats the iPod is the clear winner.

What problem do you have with the iPod-iTunes integration? You can easely organize your Music with iTunes and leave your files on your harddisk where you want. If you plug in the music gets synchronized automatically but you can also easely configure this process. Do you think it is better to move your MP3 files to the player by hand?

When you look at the flexibility of the iPod (Windows and Mac OS Support, accessories, car integration, etc.) you will find no product which can beat this.

If you don't need this flexibility or you don't like the iPod or iTunes for what reason ever, don't buy it. There are some good alternative products out there, but try using your brain to think (and inform yourself) instead of muttering anti-Apple rhetoric!

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Xavian on 5/19/2006 9:58:21 AM , Rating: 2

actually, i believe you'll find players such as iRiver far far exceed the non-proprietary formats that iPod/Apple provides (also using 'unofficial' firmware creatives players can play formats far beyond that of the iPod).

however to the case in point, atleast WMA/Janus and the like is supported by every MP3 player out there except the iPod, where-as iPods "fairplay" format is only supported by iPods. This is what ties you into iTunes/iPod integration.

The reason i dont like iTunes is the fact that if i want an MP3 player i want the right to choose where i buy my music from, not be pushed into some iTunes deal. im sorry but im not happy about being pigeon-holed into such a system, no matter how good the system is.

oh if we are talking about crappy formats, WMA is a much better format then AAC (hell even WMV is better then MOV files for video's), they are better compressed and retain the same sound quality, possibly even more sound quality then AAC.

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Phynaz on 5/19/2006 10:40:46 AM , Rating: 4

quote:
also using 'unofficial' firmware creatives players can play formats far beyond that of the iPod

Same applies for the iPod.

quote:
oh if we are talking about crappy formats, WMA is a much better format then AAC

I call Bullshit.
Check out the blind listening tests at hydrogen audio, thay are not audibly different from each other. The quality of the encoder used has a much greater impact on quality than file format.

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Dev17 on 5/19/2006 11:30:32 AM , Rating: 2

I really don't like iTunes. For normal listening I use Winamp(Much more efficient as it uses less CPU and Memory resources). And with Media Player 11 just leaked and after using it its much better than iTunes it organises your music quickly and intelligently. As a windows user I have alot of .wma files. iTunes just won't play them even if I point a gun at it.As for Mp3 players I actually prefer Creatives the new ones look nicer and they are just as easy to use. Of course this is just my opinion buy I'm starting to think the iPod is getting old and I would like to see something new.

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By zirpl on 5/19/2006 11:21:10 AM , Rating: 2

You're right. When talking about non-propriatary formats (e.g. Ogg) the iRivers are beating all other MP3 players I know. But we where talking about Creative players and you called AAC a proprietary format. Here you where wrong. Furthermore if you compare a Creative player with "unofficial firmware" to an iPod, you should compare it to an iPod with "unofficial firmware" too (http://ipodlinux.org/).

Don't get me wrong. It's great that there are many manufacturers offering MP3 players. Competition is important and all of them have their pros and cons. But for me, like for many others, the iPod is the perfect package. I don't need a built in cardreader or FM radio. But if you make a comparsion, inform yourself and try to be honest and fair.

Freedom of choice is allways desirable. In conjunction with iTunes it is not a factor for me, because I've never baught music online. I still like to have something physical, so I buy CDs and rip them. Otherwise if I would buy music online, the iTunes music store would be my first choice. Not only because of its huge selection of music and its usability but also because it's DRM would give me more "freedom of choice" than others.

Since I am not a native english speaker, I am not quite sure what the term "pigeon-holed" means. But I think you get "pingeon-holed" by any DRM system. No matter if it is from Apple, Microsoft or somone else.

You are saying that WMA is way better than AAC? Do you have some links to impartial comparsions of those two formats to support your theory? I guess you don't have much knowledge about digital media formats, otherwise you would not compare WMV to MOV. WMV is a video codec from microsoft while MOV is a container format like AVI. Comparing WMV to MOV is nonsense. You can compare WMV to H.264 (MPEG-4/Part 10). It doesn't seem like WMV is the superior format of those two: http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/02/27/video.codec....

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Ardan on 5/19/2006 3:27:59 PM , Rating: 2

My thoughts exactly :).

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Ardan on 5/19/2006 3:20:03 PM , Rating: 2

AAC actually is a pretty decent format. I wouldn't call it a 'crappy' format at all. That aside, you are referring to their proprietary DRM, correct? I thought that, at first, you were referring to the format itself, which is very much not apple-specific, as we all know. Personally, I prefer itunes and the ipod. I think i'll go against the grain here on the net and respect peoples' preferences towards other services and applications. Seems like everyone's just crazy for having different preferences lately. Oh, and nobody can take that personally here either...I'm being general here, not specific to anyone.

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By Trisped on 5/23/2006 1:59:31 PM , Rating: 2

Apple got lucky with iTunes when the music companies were killing Napster and suing downloaders. People wanted a legal and easy way to download music to their MP3 players. So what if you could only buy one brand that was sub par for the dollar. At least you could use it to listen to music.

PS Those who don't know why Creative didn't sue earlier, they tried. The patent was improperly processed, so they had to resubmit it to make sure it covered everything.

For those who don't think it is fair to be suing over something like this, I don't think the courts will rule in Creative's favor unless A) they prove that Apple stole the tech from them. B) they show that they issued a "Stop and Desist" and Apple ignored it.

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RE: I can't be the only one...

By patentman on 5/19/2006 7:28:02 AM , Rating: 2

The rights at issue are not grounded in copyright law, but rather patent law. This is an important distinction because the rights granted to a copyright holder are substantially different to those granted to a patent holder. And yes, the patent(s) is/are on the interface. And yes, lots of people have complained about software patenting already, particularly with respect to the Apple Ipod interface.

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Filed 6 years ago?

By Lonearchon on 5/19/2006 8:00:56 AM , Rating: 3

From the other new article link in the article the patent was filed 6 years but granted only in aug. of last year.

RE: Filed 6 years ago?

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 5/19/2006 9:10:10 AM , Rating: 2

Correct. Creative can justify the timing of the lawsuit since they only recently were granted the Patent, even though it was filed well before the iPod ever was announced. Only people to blame for the lateness of the suit is the pattent office.

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RE: Filed 6 years ago?

By michael2k on 5/19/2006 4:19:07 PM , Rating: 2

It strikes me as exceedingly arrogant for Creative to believe they can sue one of the companies who single handedly invented the modern GUI (with appropriate nods to Xerox and and the other computer companies of the time).

Apple, along with Microsoft, IBM, and a few other OS manufacturers, developed just about every user interface trick we now take for granted. This should be an amusing lawsuit.

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RE: Filed 6 years ago?

By Scabies on 5/19/2006 10:14:54 AM , Rating: 2

That sounds better. I read about the first strin of creative v apple suits, and I was thinking "I had a first gen MP3 player by creative (nomad IIc) back when the only people that cared about apple were elementary school computer labs. iPod didnt exist for another 1-3 yrs, after I had bought a gen 2 MP3 player (NOMAD Jukebox)"
Both the IIc and the Jukebox had the browse design as mentioned in this patent. The IIc was released in 99/00 if I remember correctly... By the way, there was a Creative Zen Nano before an iPod Nano. Who started working on what when is still debatable.
Now, the question is, what did apple have before that creative mimicked/stole? What would apple have unique claim over? Hence, why would apple be suing creative?

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RE: Filed 6 years ago?

By ElFenix on 5/19/2006 4:28:57 PM , Rating: 2

i wonder how many times creative had to refile and amend the patent before they suckers some bureaucrat into thinking they had something original going on?

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Adios Creative...

By Scorpion on 5/19/2006 12:13:47 PM , Rating: 2

HOPEFULLY, Apple will kick Creative's little @$$.

I've watched for years as Creative litigated their dominance in the audio market, despite their consistent lackluster offerings. (Aureal anyone?) The Audio market could have had a boost like the video market did years ago, but Creative continues to stiffle it with their market dominance and unethical business practices to maintain that dominance.

If Creative thinks they can take on the MP3 Juggernaut (I'm the Juggernaut B!tch!) then by all means try, because I'll enjoy watching you lose and get a taste of your own medicine. I really don't think Creative has much of a case. I live in the town where Creative's call center is, and through friends that have worked there I've seen nearly every iteration of their MP3 players, from their first, and I don't think they've really got a winnable case. And why wait 6 years? Do they think that by jumping on the "Let's sue Apple" bandwagon, they can sucker Apple into a settlement to ease their legal woes? I think not.

I'll be a happy dancing man the day I see Creatives go down in flames and open the audio market up to a whole new era.

RE: Adios Creative...

By swatX on 5/20/2006 12:12:21 AM , Rating: 2

.. and you want Apple to dominate the audio market with the POS ipods ?

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RE: Adios Creative...

By michael2k on 5/20/2006 11:39:38 AM , Rating: 2

Aren't they already? Have you not read the article on which AAC* is moving into a dominant position because of the iPod/iTunes effect?

*AAC is ISO MPEG4 Advanced Audio Codec, just as MP3 is ISO MPEG 1 Layer 3. In the intervening years since MP3 rose to ascension, the MPEG group has released ISO MPEG2 AAC, ISO MPEG4 AAC, and ISO MPEG4 AAC-HE.

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correction

By patentman on 5/19/2006 7:24:44 AM , Rating: 2

Not to be the grammer police, but one sentence in the story needs to be corrected. Specifically,

"Apple never mentioned about these patents when Creative and Apple held discussions with each other."

Should be

"Apple never mentioned these patents during discussions with Creative." or something like that. The current sentence is in passive voice and "mentioned about" is improper english.

RE: correction

By ksuWildcat on 5/19/2006 8:07:28 AM , Rating: 2

Grammer should be grammar.

As for the article, these lawsuits are going to get thrown out. Neither company invented the organizational patterns or menus.

And about the supported file types, my wife's mp3 player supports more formats than an iPod. I can't remember the brand, but it can play mp3, OGG, WAV, AU, and several other less oft-used file-types. iPods are far too expensive for the number of features. There are better sounding players with greater features for half the price.

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ha!

By Xenoterranos on 5/19/2006 11:17:37 AM , Rating: 4

I first read the title as "Apple sues creativity" and was thnking Oh NO! The RDF has reached critical mass!

Give 'em the gloves

By INeedCache on 5/19/2006 1:25:21 PM , Rating: 4

Two of my favorite companies (yea, right). I hope they knock each othe silly with these lawsuits. I'd love to see a lose-lose scenario with these two.

Patent office buffoons

By dgingeri on 5/19/2006 4:46:43 PM , Rating: 2

The biggest problem here is that the patent office buffoons actually granted these patents. If I decide to patent the way I say hello to people, they'd grant it and I'd be able to sue whoever had a close way of saying hello. These patents from Creative are simply not viable, when actually looked at. The menu system that Creative patented has been in use for ages, long before they applied for that patent in many other uses on computers, printers, fax machines, etc. The fact that it was granted shows just how stupid the patent office people are.

RE: Patent office buffoons

By WizzBall on 5/20/2006 10:04:16 AM , Rating: 2

I don't think they are any different than the general population. They are just as stupid as anyone else, trying to single them out would be a mistake. And stop boasting about how stupid other people are, just so you know no one escapes from stupidity so if I were you, I'd cool down my rethoric.

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Another day another lawsuit.

By George Powell on 5/19/2006 3:03:25 AM , Rating: 2

But that aside I can easily see why apple has eight times the market share of creative, having used both I will allways lean towards apple now.

dog eat dog!

By coxosclassic on 5/19/2006 10:54:06 AM , Rating: 2

who the hell cares about who got the designs first?? I bet there is a lot of money going on on this "design layout war"... its sad to know about this sueing non-sense going on between two major companies... Both designs are great for users, and I, as a user dont care about design patents things. why they just dont use the money to invest more on technology? come on! blaaaah!

The real patent...

By ChristopherO on 5/20/2006 12:59:40 PM , Rating: 2

There is a lot of misinformation about the Creative patent. People seem to assume it is about a UI, but that's not really true.

The Creative patent is for a portable music device that allows searching indexed content. The content is indexed by genre, artist, album, and track. This provides a searchable, intuitive, cross-referenced database via the UI.

That is nothing like the "Apple Finder" or anything else. It is basically a relational database patent for a music player. That was never done in any way, shape, or form prior to the Nomads. Relational databases existed, but not on a portable music device with the express intent of doing library organization.

Previous players offered a mirror image of a computer hard disk. If the folders on your computer were filed by album, that's the same way they would end up on your MP3 player.

Creative developed this system in the late 90s, it was commercially available in 2000 on the Nomad Jukebox, and has been in use ever since. The patent application was filed at that time but was only granted last year.

Speaking as someone who has been in the process, a multi-year patent application is completely normal. This is the government we are talking about...

Legally you can't sue until you have the patent. There was nothing they could have done in 2001 except sit on their hands and watch their market share get eroded by their own ideas being used against them.

Nonetheless, almost all these high-profile suits settle out of court before trial and Creative will probably license the technology to Apple. That's just speculation, but neither company really wants to go to court and deal with appeals unless they can't come to an agreement.

Apple also *asked* to license the Creative UI/database technology and Creative denied the request. Back in 2001 Creative was *the* dominant player, and it would make no sense to share. The ultimate question... Would Apple be significantly less popular if the iPod music library was equal to a PC hard disk without any music-tag cross-reference? That's for the courts to decide.

ARTICLE PROBLEM!!!: "Creative claims that it had designed the easy to use interface over 6 years ago. Many are asking why Creative waited so long if it had the patents 6 years ago."

That sentence is plainly misleading and does a disservice to readers. Rather than be emotionally-loaded it should be informative and say, "The patent process takes multiple years, and it is not possible for a company to sue for infringement until the process is complete. As a result, suing in 2006 for an application filed in 2001 is completely normal, and in some respects unavoidable." (the current wording does a disservice to Creative)