Posted on 08/30/2005 8:11:10 AM PDT by Panerai
Creative Technology Ltd. on Tuesday announced that it has been awarded U.S. Patent 6,928,433, which it’s calling the “Zen Patent” for short. The Zen Patent describes how files on a digital music player are organized, and covers not only its own Zen and Nomad jukeboxes, but also Apple’s iPod and iPod mini, according to a statement release by the company.
The Zen Patent is summarized as “automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata.” Creative said the patent covers the ability for a digital music player to display music using artist, album and track menus — the way that not only Creative’s music players work, but also Apple’s.
Creative chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo, explained that Creative’s Nomad Jukebox was on store shelves in September 2000, 13 months before Apple’s ever saw the light of day, he said.
“Before this invention, there was no intuitive and efficient way to deal with the large number of tracks that could be stored on a high-capacity player,” Sim said.
I call bullsh$t.
I've been storing my digital music by genre/artist/album/song for years. Not only is it simple, it is logical, and obvious.
That does it, I'm giving my lawyer the go-ahead with my suit against Caterpillar for moving all my dirt.
This is another one of those narcissistic "legend in their own mind" companies. Digital music has been being stored for years in various formats. I even stored them in my digital camera, long before these MP3 players came along.
Their independent claim is shown below. I read it as a three-tiered dynamic menuing system adapted to select a track on a portable media player. Not sure if exact prior art exist, but one could probably find a "three-tiered dynamic menuing system" and make a strong arguement that it would be obvious to one skilled in the art to use it for such purpose.
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.
I've been storing my digital music by genre/artist/album/song for years. Not only is it simple, it is logical, and obvious.
I would think that simply storing music on a computer hard drive- or even a CD- would predate and thus negate the patent
I invented the '1' and the '0'. I own EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!
Software patents for obvious stuff like this are ridiculous. The only people that make any money off this are the lawyers.
"I've been storing my digital music by genre/artist/album/song for years. Not only is it simple, it is logical, and obvious."
LOL - reminds me of that commercial for some inventors service where the guy is kicking himself for not patenting the Clapper.
Not the method of writing the 1's and 0's adjacent in a sequence, a great improvement over the prior art of writing them on top of each other. And not the patented space between binary numbers... a means of distinguishing two binary numbers in a sequence
That's the tickler with patent law. I work in R&D and have been in situations where an invention was requested to be pateneted. One manager has said that invention is so obvious that is can't be pateneted. Another manager said to patent it right away to protect our companies intellectual property. The first manager one, but someone in a different department with a third manager heaard the idea and did patent it and got the company bonus for doing so. His answer to the first, now irate, manager was if it was so obvious then why hadn't anyone else patented it? The point is that just because it's obvious does not mean that it can't be patented. Did you think of patenting your music organization scheme, even though it was obvious. Most inventions are obvious with 20/20 hindsight.
I'm sure you have but we're you doing using metadata like the article specifically states?
The Zen Patent is summarized as "automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata." Creative said the patent covers the ability for a digital music player to display music using artist, album and track menus -- the way that not only Creative's music players work, but also Apple's.
I think I remember that.
Read the article. The organisation is automatic rather than manual.
I undertand that he did, but after a visit to the doctor, a wide spectrum antibiotic cleared it right up.
...chortle...
Software patents are cancer. Shame on the govt. for even permitting them.
Oh, yeah? Byte me!
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