Posted on 09/07/2008 7:51:26 PM PDT by martin_fierro
Apple Admits British Man Invented iPod in 1979, Uses Him to Win Patent Lawsuit
There you have it folks. The real inspiration for Apple's game-changing iPod, courtesy of the world's unluckiest Briton, Kane Kramer, 52 (not including the fifth Beatle). You see, in the dark technological days of 1979, Kramer saw a beacon of light in his IXI. Capable of playing a mind-busting 3.5 minutes of music, the IXI prototype was Kramer's ticket out of obscurity. Sadly, when he couldn't raise enough venture funding to renew the IXI patent in 1988, the device became the Zune of its time, and was largely forgotten. Fast forward to the present, when Apple, fresh from making year-over-year record profits with the iPod, needed Kramer something fierce to bail them out of a lawsuit jam with Burst.com.
Apple called Kramer so he could serve as a consultant for the trial, and so his patents and drawings could be used to settle the suit out of court.
"I was up a ladder painting when I got the call from a lady with an American accent from Apple saying she was the head of legal affairs and that they wanted to acknowledge the work that I had done," Kramer told Daily Mail. "I must admit that at first I thought it was a wind-up by friends. But we spoke for some time, with me still up this ladder slightly bewildered by it all, and she said Apple would like me to come to California to talk to them. Then I had to make a deposition in front of a court stenographer and videographer at a lawyers’ office. The questioning by the Burst legal counsel there was tough, ten hours of it. But I was happy to do it."
And now he'd be even happier collecting some of that multi-billion dollar iPod business, but so far all he received was compensation for his time at the trial. The struggling furniture salesman, fresh from another failed business, is now negotiating additional compensation, but says he was happy to help whatever the outcome. Well, as long as it isn't more iPods...
"I can’t even bring myself to buy an iPod for myself," he said. "Apple did give me one but it broke down after eight months." Hmm. Apple products seem to be doing that a lot these days.
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So we should sue him if there is a problem with our iPod? Why spread the misery around?
tsk tsk...what could’ve been. You can now group him alongside Gary Kildall, who SHOULD;VE been a billionaire by now, if he just said no to Bill Gates and Ballmer when he sold them the forefather of what is now called Windows OS.
I’ve had my iPod for 3 1/2 years and haven’t had one problem.
It gets fixed and works fine to this day!
They could have AT LEAST given the poor guy an iPod for his trouble!
They did, it broke.
“I’ve had my iPod for 3 1/2 years and haven’t had one problem.”
Mine is awesome. I run marathons and train alone. Before I had nothing but my own thoughts. Now I have books on tap to bang out twenty mile training runs too. Best invention ever for this runner.
Something doesn’t smell right here.
In 1979, the technology for an iPod didn’t exist, or was still in the laboratory stage. Memory chips, LCD screens and the iPod touch dial was still 10 years away.
An iPod is an iPod because of its small size. A (much larger) desktop ‘Apple II’ machine and video games of the time may have had the capability for rudementary MIDI files, but in 1979 a ‘Sound Card’ didn’t exist. And battery technology was nothing like today’s.
It's a "concept" patent. That means it's something like I describe a machine that teleports a human being to the Moon and back. I don't have any idea exactly how it would work, but I know it will have to have a transmitter and a receiver, scanning and ... So I write it up and send it to the Patent Office. They don't find anything in the literature or existing patents, so I get the patent. I don't have to build it, or even prove it will work. Patent model? That's so passé.
He took out a worldwide patent and set up a company to develop the idea.But in 1988, after a boardroom split, he was unable to raise the £60,000 needed to renew patents across 120 countries and the technology became public property.
So, 13 years before Apple released the iPod, Kramer's "invention," which he never built, did the engineering on, or even prove the viability of, passed into the public domain.
His "IXI" would only store 3.5 minutes of music... if it had been built. Concept wise, it was great. Practical? Not in 1979 or 1988. An invention that can't work should never have been granted a patent.
Am I the only one around here that remembers the Diamond Rio MP3 players?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(digital_audio_players)
Jeesh. How many billable hours could’ve been saved if Apple’s attorneys had a bit of domain memory?
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