Thursday, September 01, 2005

Less than a month after it was an awarded a software patent that covers the user interface Apple uses in its market-leading iPod portable MP3 players, Creative Technologies is accusing Apple of violating that patent. Apple released its first iPod in October 2001. But Creative was first to market with hard drive-based MP3 players over a year earlier, and the UI Apple uses is almost identical to that Creative pioneered.

"We are looking at all our alternatives right now," Craig McHugh, president of Creative's United States operations said, noting that while Apple was the only company it had identified as a patent violator so far, it was investigating others. "We're going to be very vigorous in bringing our new products to market and are going to be very diligent in protecting our intellectual property and our patent rights."

Despite obvious examples of prior art, Apple attempted to patent the iPod user interface in October 2002. But Creative had applied for its MP3 player UI patent in January 2001, before Apple's iPod was even a rumor. Apple's patent request was denied.