Apple Tries to Patent iPod User Interface 426
harlows_monkeys writes "Apple's
trying to patent several aspects of the iPod user interface. This one is particularly interesting because the claims are written in fairly clear and simple language, easy to understand by anyone. If this one is granted, it won't be because an overworked examineer was confused by deliberate obfuscation by the application (which is what I think happens for a lot of the ridiculous patents). About half the claims are for things that were implemented in prior players (e.g., Archos), and the other half are for things that are in many other common device interfaces (DVD players, PVRs) and the only novelty is that Apple put them on a portable music player."
That's a very neutral summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Question (Score:4, Insightful)
What does this mean, does Apple secure exclusive rights to the specific combination of all the features of the iPod or to the individual features?
If this patent is approved what would be the impact on the portable music player market?
Steve Jobs will own the patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
*grin*
Too far? (Score:5, Insightful)
M
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Good to see astroturfer same-ole same-old -- at least it's predictable.
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:4, Insightful)
A fair point, but I think we all agree here that a patent filer deserves to be flamed if their implementation of the patent is garbage (ie, MS WMP). iTunes/Apple has legitimately pioneered most of this new territory everyone else now has no problem ripping off. There was a post a few days ago by someone noting how Apple just doesn't get innovative software handed to them from a magical gnome cave--they spend a lot of money and hire the top talent.
Why is it a ridiculous patent? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too far? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, thats right (Score:1, Insightful)
So? It's their's. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:5, Insightful)
We're flaming Apple because they're patenting something semi-obvious (though most posts will return to the usual flaming of the totally broken US Intellectual Property system). That I have no problem with.
Um (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, thats right (Score:5, Insightful)
"There is nothing new under the sun." (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if I went searching through old articles, I would find someone posting that the Segway wasn't worthy of being patented, because it used gyroscopes, handlebars, wheels, and even a grip-throttle - all of which everyone knew had been around for ages in other devices.
Perhaps a flying car wouldn't be worthy because it used parts from cars and airplanes, both of which have been around in some form or another for a hundred years.
See where I'm going here?
If you take enough different ideas or things from enough different places, and put them together in a way that hasn't been seen before, and the result is something that significantly improves upon what had been seen before, to the extent that people look at it and say, "Wow, that's sure new and different," you've basically had an original idea. Sure, you've been standing on the shoulders of giants - but so has everyone else.
Hierarchical Menus and Playlists (Score:5, Insightful)
2) This patent seems to involve the graphical display of content and features of a MP3 player through a hierarchical menu structure and through playlists.
3) They are patenting a feature on a physical device, not a software method. They're not patenting the software. The technology they are patenting is embodied in a physical device.
4) A patent can be based on other work, even other patented work. If any previous art that Apple has built on is patented and that patent is owned by another company, Apple must still pay that other company. If a third party wants to license the technology, they must pay both Apple and the other company.
5) Patents mostly suck, unless Apple applies for them, because of 1).
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:5, Insightful)
We bitch and moan about Microsoft because of the behemoth it is. Apple has 'slashdot-cred' because they produce cool stuff (OS X, iPods, powerbooks... drool).
You must be new here... (obligatory!)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Haha (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
errr.. have you read the patent application.
Here is the summary:
That sounds an awful lot like a menu system to me.
I don't have an IPod. Could someone with some experience of them fill me in - is there anything especially clever and non-obvious about the design of the menu system that warrants patent protection?
Dan.
Re:Hierarchical Menus and Playlists (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed re: 1) and 5). I'm trying to find a way to say tactfully and nontrollfully that there's a bizarre element of doublethink going on here.
Slashdot posts about one "gee, that's a silly patent" story per week. There's usually a good mix (I read at +4, +3 for that brief time that the server was too slow to hand out enough mod points) of comments saying "the patent isn't so broad as the submitter made it out, and really this is perfectly legitimate" or "I know how to make money! I'll patent the use of cookies as incentives...in a porable media player!" or "This is another example of why the patent system is seriously messed up and needs to be reformed" or "I found prior art!" or "This patent is frivolous because algorithms are copyrightable speech, not patentable inventions" or "This patent is utter nonsense because it's common sense" or something else.
This time reading at +3/4 I see only vocal supporters of Apple. After reading the list of claims that seem pretty broad on something kind of intuitive - reading an MP3 file...on a portable media player! And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these claims cumulative rather than limiting? That's quite a lot to assert.
It seems like for whatever reason Apple gets the benefit of the doubt a lot more often than other companies; I'm not sure why. Every corporation seeks to maximize its profits.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
It's times like this that I wish the flash tag was still around...
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too far? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be demonstrable incompetence in their Intellectual Properties division if Apple was succesfully sued for patent infringement for the iPod by another company?
Now, if this technology cannot be Patented/is not patentable, then Apple is covered, because then Apple can't be sued for patent infringement.
Alternatively, if they are awared a patent on several of their claims, then it makes for good counter-ammunition when someone else trys to sue them.
99% of the time, Patent Portfolio's are built up as a defensive mechanism, kind of like mutually assured destruction.
Any company large enough to have a patent attorney will be doing this sort of thing.
Where is the outrage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why can't we have outrage over all the non-innovative cloners not taking innovative risks to make life better for end users? Why can't we have articles like "dell refuses to innovate" or "Gateway poo-poos idea that would make things easier for end users because it was deemed too risky"? Why can't we have these kinds of articles in addition to "Apple sues dell for copying their innovation" or "Apple threatens gateway for look-and-feel infringement"?
Why can't we be outraged over Creative Labs or Diamond Rio or anyone else not being the first to make an ergonomically excellent hard-disk based portable mp3 players with a superior UI? Why can there only be outrage over Apple preventing these people from copying the UI that they themselves weren't willing to make in the first place?
Why can't we have outrage over Open Source/Free Software projects caring little about things like interface design or not coming up with innovative UI's? Why can't we have articles like "linux distribution spends $700,000,000 on dot-com buyouts and $50 on usability research" or "$DESKTOP_PROJECT coordinator tells HCI person with legitimate UI complaint 'quit whining about what you get for free' while telling industry pundit 'quit spreading M$ FUD About Linux Being Hard To Use'"? Why can we only feel outrage over articles like "Apple threatens $DESKTOP_PROJECT over copying Expose" or "Apple Sues Linux Distribution For Copying Aqua Theme?"
We shouldn't be pissed about Apple trying to horde and brutally protect it's innovations, we should be pissed about them being the only ones creating innovations worth hording and brutally protecting.
Send info to the examiner! Send as much as you can (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on slashdotters! You can do this!
Re:Hierarchical Menus and Playlists (Score:2, Insightful)
This can be easily seen on the "Apple is not the Fastest" story earlier today.
On the Linux/MS stories you see a lot of "I agree" mods, but you don't see the attempts to mod down dissenters. I understand that Apple fans have been on the recieiving end of tons of Bad News and FUD over the years, but that's hardly an excuse for fascist moderation tactics in a free discussion forum.
(Someone should redo the 1984 commercial and put Apple logos on all the prols. That would pretty much describe apple.slashdot.org.)
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
form factor patent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:2, Insightful)
That's his point. The submission was very neutral. No bias towards or against Apple. Had it been Micro$oft, it wouldn't have been a neutral submission.
I agree with him, but I also think that MS is much more potentially dangerous to the rest of us than Apple is.
LK
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this mean, does Apple secure exclusive rights to the specific combination of all the features of the iPod or to the individual features?
If this patent is approved what would be the impact on the portable music player market?
Basically it'd be at best a major nuisance, and at worst force everyone else to have ungainly user interfaces. (At least accepting that iPod's UI is good and easy to use, my (admittedly limited) experience with it was one of great frustration personally.)
In any case since elements of the user interface have existed in other products prior to the iPod, prior art should invalidate the patent claim. The US Patent Office has issued many questionable patents where prior art existed, and the excuse so far has been the patent was written to obfuscate, or was confusing, so they didn't pick up on it. This time the patent is written clearly, so the interesting thing will be to see if the US Patent Office issues a patent in face of prior art when the patent isn't hard to understand. Many would consider their issuing this patent a sign that the whole patent process is broken beyond repair.
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple once again found the sweet spot with iTunes, but they didn't really break any new ground.
LK
Re:Hierarchical Menus and Playlists (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the main reason apple tends to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases is because most of the time they focus on and succeed in creating products that are technologically better than the competition. People on slashdot tend to notice good technology when they see it, and are appreciative of it. They get bonus points for using an open source kernel in their OS. They get bonus points for creating rendezvous and documenting it nicely so others can use it. They get bonus points for expose, which is a truly useful innovation. The list goes on...
Re:form factor patent (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be an interesting comment if Apple were trying to patent their scroll wheel. However, this patent application has nothing to do with that. Go look at the claims--they are fairly clearly written and not hard to read.
Re:Good for them (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:APPLE PATENTS EVERYTHING (Score:1, Insightful)
I find this so very funny. In fact it gets funnier every time I read it.
Head on over to folklore.org and read the stories posted there by ex-Apple employees (which alone makes them semi-qualified in the topic) about the Jobs-Gates rivalry and dealings.
People like you like to paint Apple as a poor little garage-run company who had its candy taken away by the mean evil Corporation, who then laughed all the way to the bank.
If you read through those stories (which I repeat are written by the very people who were there) you'll see how this is just a pile of apologetic crap. "Boo-hoo, M$ is evil we're so nice and cool and we want justice"
Here's a company (Apple) that has developers who rewrite entire graphics subsystems a few weeks before "ROM freeze"; assembly gurus who can fit an entire OS into a little fucking chip, and yet is apparently petrified by the threat of Microsoft revoking the license to "SoftBASIC". A goddamn BASIC interpreter, for fuck sakes. Right.
This is a company who willingly and knowingly signed over so much shit to Microsoft for some unseen reason. A company with an army or lawyers facing another army of lawyers. Yet it's all portrayed as some slick under-the-cover last-minute backstabbing deal by the evil Mr. Gates. One morning Stevie woke up and Microsoft had (as you so succintly put it) made a second rate OS largely by stealing it from Apple and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Riiight.
Here is Steve Jobs swaggering around the Apple offices holding his crotch and chanting "here we come motherfuckers", a beacon of strength and go-get-em bravado suddenly turning into the equivalent of one of those scared blinking anime dolls, taking it in the ass every time someone from Microsoft walks in the building. Riiight.
Revisionist bullshit. Apple knew damn well what they were doing, and they did it anyway.
Oh I won't contest that Microsoft plays hardball with everyone, nope. But in the case of Apple it was mostly their own stupidity that did them in.
Other than that, I find your defense of this appaling. But then again, this is Apple, eh?
Re:Question (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a good reminder: Apple products are better than those of Microsoft but Apple is no less evil...
Interesting in the 'PIRATE' context.
Thanks for those who are vigilant.
Re:Where is the outrage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, software isn't innovative because developers are scared to death to implement any feature that could be patented?
The patent system is broken for software. Every time you pay to get a designer in for a new, innovative interface, not only do you risk producing something that puts off users because of its novelty, you also risk treading on the toes of Adobe, Microsoft, IBM, and now Apple (the list goes on). Every one of these companies is prepared to nuke small developers into oblivion if it will help their bottom line.
Software patents are inevitably overbroad, overly durable and unnecessary legal instruments. This is obvious. Developers are so afraid of submarine patents that it is understandable to avoid creating anything that is even remotely similar to a possibly-patented product. Apple and others are crushing innovation with their patent bullshit, and you post here claiming they're a force for good in software? Delicious.
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
How would it force everyone else to have "ungainly" UIs? If they can't directly copy the iPod interaction design then *GASP* they would instead have to innovate and come up with a new and perhaps better way of going about playing music on a portable device. Imagine that...
(At least accepting that iPod's UI is good and easy to use, my (admittedly limited) experience with it was one of great frustration personally.)
Well there you go...you even say that you find the iPod frustrating to use. It's quite entirely possible that someone could come up with something better, perhaps the design to rule them all even to suit your taste in device interactions.
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Tim
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and they should. And the market should come up with a user interface that is better, more intuitive than iPod's. And original. The keyword is be innovative. When it came out, the iPod UI doesn't look like anything on the market at that time. And I think Apple deserve credit for that. Now every player wants to look and feel like iPod.
Is it a Slashdot mindset that it is always bad if you can't copy anything at will? Why can't other player maker come up with better UI? Why can't we come up with something better and original? Why does every Linux Desktop UI has to look like Windows or Aqua?
Are we sure it's the iPod as we know it? (Score:2, Insightful)
I could be wrong, of course, but I have yet to see any evidence that this applies to the iPod as we know it. That seems to be mostly an assumption.
Scroll wheel (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Steve Jobs will own the patent? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sony Ericsson, Nokia et al won't be amused... (Score:3, Insightful)
My current gritty (and dog old) cell is a Siemens M30... it's a complete prior art: hierarchical, up/down/click to enter subsection thing... the only "design" attribute I give to the iPod is having a wheel adding a sexy circular motion to a very rigid UI. It's a kind of Zen thing I really like.
So, although typing on a TiBook I must laugh at Apple's claims.
Ciao
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Because user interfaces are supposed to be similar.
"Why can't other car makers come up with a better UI than pedals and a wheel? Why can't they come up with something better and original?"
"Why can't other telephone makers come up with a better UI than a 3x4 array of keys with numbers and letters? Why can't they come up with something better and original?"
"Why can't other CD player makers come up with a better UI than a Play/Pause, Stop, FF and Rewind buttons? Why can't they come up with something better and original?"
Maybe it's just a defense set up for Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
The wankers over in Redmond are about to release thier self-proclaimed "iPod killer" brick and since it's been proven time and time again that they aren't interested in innovating (just copying and/or smothering). So maybe it's a protective measure against Billy & Co. Apple has been Redmond's R&D lab for many years. Don't beleive me? Go here and read the part about "New graphics with the Desktop Composition Engine" [winsupersite.com]. It still goes on to this day.
I'd be a little worried if I were Apple. I mean, look at Microsoft's track record - they missed the boat on the GUI, office productivity apps, the internet and now the search engine. They missed the mark early on only to copy and then dominate those respective areas (don't you dare take Google away you bastards!). In typical fashion, Microsoft slowly looks at the digital music phenomena and says to itself "hmmm...there's something bright over here...let's exterminate it".
Apple may be setting themselves up to take MS to court if they end up having to. At least the EU has proven that they aren't blinded and seduced by corporate money like the current U.S. administration. Admittedly, I have no idea if a U.S. patent makes a rats ass bit of difference over in the EU.
Neutral my fanny (Score:1, Insightful)
No if this was Microsoft doing this we'd have gotten exactly what we got...
A short judgmental summery.
I realise the tin foil hats are in fassion for Slashdot it really is out of place when your defending Microsoft.
Simple things get patented all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody calm down (Score:4, Insightful)
So at this point Creative, Archos, and anyone else who thinks they invented the "invention" or publicly used/sold this "invention" prior to October 28, 2001 will be sending into the USPTO documentary evidence of that fact. That's what the publication of the application is for.
Re:Familiar names... (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried using itunes for windows a few weeks ago. My motivation was to try downloading the free songs I had won from my mass comsumption of pepsi products. After about a week of use I switched back to what I've been using for over four years, an open source project that used to be called freeamp, but because of a trademark issue is now called zinf (Zinf Is Not Freeamp). Zinf is open source and cross-platform, I use it in windows and in Linux.
Sure itunes looks nice, but I found the way it handled my music library annoying at best. I wouldn't use it even for the free music that I won. I really don't understand the fawning, sycophantic praise for anything apple generates.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
For me... when I switched to iTunes (and Mac) completely about a year ago, it was about three things:
Re:Familiar names... (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand that not everyone likes the iTunes interface and that for *some* people, it isn't the most intuitive. Every human is different and each views their experiences through a filter of their own subjectivity. Therefor, not everyone will like iTunes.
However, rather than assume the praise of the iTunes interface originates from a "fawning, sycophantic praise for anything apple generates," couldn't one just as easily surmise that the praise originates from the effectiveness of the design? For many people, the interface is *very* easy to use and the way iTunes organizes music is *very* intuitive. I think the overwhelmingly positive reviews are a testiment to this ease of use.
So maybe you could detail your troubles with the way iTunes organizes your library. or add something concrete and constructive to this conversation rather than blindly lashing at anything Apple.
constructive criticism: good
pointless complaints about a companies users: irrelevent
Taft
Just as bad as a software patent (Score:3, Insightful)
Any type of menu, XP Start Menu, Mozilla file menu etc.
They are also trying to patent the very playlists themselves IMHO Mp3's were the first format out that enabled playlists created from the tags in the songs.
I had expected to see a patent on the physical interface itself as I thought it was very unique and worthy of a patent. However the process of the playlists are hardly new and worthy of a patent at all.
Re:That's a very neutral summary (Score:4, Insightful)
I saw this article as being an example of a writing style I wish slashdot had more of, relativly neutral, factual articles. Let the rants come in the comments.
Re:Apple's patent == OneClick (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, sorry, totally different thing.
The problem most people here have with OneClick is that it is an incredibly obvious and simple idea that doesn't appear to have required any real work on the part of anyone at Amazon.
What Apple is trying to do with this design patent is protect the work of those that conceived of the iPod's unique UI. To suggest that imagining the thing in the first place isn't "work" shows an ignorance of industrial design and of aesthetics in general.
Frankly, I don't think that UI elements should be patentable. It's already extremely difficult to write software without infringing on a patent. I can't even imagine how hard it would be to design user interfaces without infringing on any mechanisms.
They aren't patenting particular elements of the UI like "menu" and "scroll wheel" (granted, the iPod's scroll whell is patented separately) -- but the combination in form and function that characterizes the iPod. You won't infringe upon this patent unless you're intentionally ripping off the iPod.
As one of the few companies with dedication to design, and one of fewer that gets it right consistently, Apple gets copied all the time. Why should they not try to protect their work?
Re:Simple things get patented all the time (Score:3, Insightful)
Instaed of a flat lid you had to tear a corner out of, someone created one you could actually drink out of.
That's a rather poor, straw-man analogy. (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, patents aren't the devil. Poorly awarded patents are stupid, but that doesn't make the process inherently something to mindlessly oppose.
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Abstractions such as 'scroll wheels', 'menus', and hierachical elements far preceeded Apple's ipod--that why they were good to use. Patenting the use of such elements on media players forces other players into different--and thus counterintuitive--interface widgets.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:2, Insightful)
I haven't done the search, but I am willing to bet that dashboard layouts, instrument clusters and other elements of a car's overall UI are patented. A car has not just been a Steering wheel and pedals on a box since the Model-T
"Why can't other telephone makers come up with a better UI than a 3x4 array of keys with numbers and letters? Why can't they come up with something better and original?"
If you look at many of the latest Nokia phones, they are attempting to come up with differnt layouts for the numbers on their phones. The problem here seems to be that many people find it unfamiliar, so there fore, "clunky" but, it is being attempted. Again, I bet those atempts are patented.
"Why can't other CD player makers come up with a better UI than a Play/Pause, Stop, FF and Rewind buttons? Why can't they come up with something better and original?" Yet again, like a car, there are certain functions that are inherent in a cd (or for that matter a mp3 player). What does get pattented is the layout of the buttons, the overall look and feel of that specific player.
So, yes user interfaces are supposed to be similar, but, this only means that they have to have certain elements in relatively familiar locations. How that is implemented, in whatever product you are discussing, is the UI, not the required elements themselves. --
Re: iTunes and opinions (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO though, this just strikes me as jealousy. (Wow - someone actually has a business that's so well liked by their customers that they're excited whenever they release a new product?! That's just not right! We have to tear that down A.S.A.P.!)
The fact is, I *rarely* meet a non Apple user who doesn't at least say "Wow, that really is a nice app/feature/design!" if they really sit down and give the products and software a good look.
The Apple "iApps" are a prime example of this. The point isn't that you can't find flaws in them if you try hard enough. (The new iPhoto, for example, has a bug where photo previews often look blurry... Clicking away from one and back onto it again sometimes makes it snap into focus. Annoying!) But *overall*, they give users a usable, clean interface that's hard to describe as anything but "sensible".
Even if you don't personally like the way iTunes organizes your music library, the point is - it DOES organize it for you. Not every program does this, you know. It lets you create custom playlists based on all sorts of criteria, has the ability to cross-fade the end of one track into the start of the next (nice for playing MP3 songs ripped from "live" albums where normally, you hear a sharp cutoff when the audience is clapping at the end of a song), has easy, *built-in* ability to write to CD (as music or data format), and lots of other good stuff you want in a player. Plus, it's free.
A tricky situation indeed: two sides (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that Apple will create things and Microsoft copies them enough to fool casual consumers means that most people have more frustrating experiences with computers than they need to. As a result, Apple makes less money for making genuinely good products. If Dell and Microsoft can knock off anything Apple makes to the point that consumers don't see any reason to buy from Apple, Apple can't make money and the good ideas dry up. The industry as a whole takes the hit.
On the other hand, the concepts in the iPod (which actually incorporate some ideas from NeXT) will eventually become commonplace, so it would be silly to have them protected forever. Some ideas in the iPod are logical conclusions, but some are creative and quite unique.
This takes a very gentle touch.
- Scott