16-08-2005 21:08									#1
	Apple to pay MS $10 per iPod? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/...3411878,00.html

quote: APPLE'S IPOD PATENT GAFFE Computer firm Apple may have to pay Microsoft £6 for each iPod it sells after a huge licensing lapse. Lawyers at Bill Gates' firm filed a patent for technology behind the hugely successful digital music player two months before Apple. The US Patent Office has ruled that Microsoft has the right to charge competitors a licence fee for each iPod sold. Furious, Apple has said it will appeal the decision but at the moment it looks as though the firm will be paying a high price for the success of its product. The iPod was launched in November 2001 but Apple waited until July 2002 to file for a patent; Microsoft snuck in to license some of the technology the previous May. David Kaefer, Microsoft's director of intellectual property licensing, said it was open to letting other firms patent its innovations. He said: "In general, our policy is to allow others to license our patents so they can use our innovative methods in their products. "Microsoft and Apple have previously licensed their respective patent portfolios to one another and we maintain a good working relationship with Apple." The dispute comes days after Microsoft declared war on the iPod and pledged to come up with a series of rivals. So far, 21 million iPods have been sold worldwide, 18 million in the last year alone.

	16-08-2005 21:13									#2
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That's just mean.

	16-08-2005 21:26									#4
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Apple won't pay anything, the customers will.

	16-08-2005 21:33									#5
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I think that if you can prove that you were using something before someone else patented it, then that persons patent is null and void (of course, you couldn't then patent it)

the idea of the patent is encourage innovation

so punishing someone for not patenting makes sense (in that others can use their innovation without paying for it), but to have someone else patent the innovation, and to have to pay to use your own innovation, that is just wrong

JM

	16-08-2005 21:36									#6
	Got spare money?

We need to have a Ned posting here - it's his area of specialty.

	16-08-2005 21:46									#7
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That's what usually happens with everything. But it will make their product less competitive.

	16-08-2005 21:51									#8
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quote: originally posted by Miller the idea of the patent is encourage innovation

Ohh, that hope was dropped eons ago.

	16-08-2005 21:59									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Jon Miller I think that if you can prove that you were using something before someone else patented it, then that persons patent is null and void (of course, you couldn't then patent it)

To qualify as "prior art" you have to prove that you were using it before it was invented, not before it was patented. (Or you have to prove that you were using it more than one year before the patent was filed, though that one probably wouldn't apply here given the dates mentioned.)

	16-08-2005 22:29									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Winston Apple won't pay anything, the customers will.

If this applies retroactively, Apple will definately pay something... to the tune of a couple hundred million dollars

And adding $10 to the price of every Ipod certainly won't help sales.

	16-08-2005 22:31									#12
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I don't think that this will apply retroactively. It's just too cruel.

	16-08-2005 22:32									#13
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Why wouldn't it?

	16-08-2005 22:37									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Az I don't think that this will apply retroactively. It's just too cruel.

If the patent holds up, it sure as hell should.

MS could also sue them for using it beforehand unlicensed.

	16-08-2005 22:52									#15
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How exactly do you "patent" a generic piece of hardware that decodes some musical file formats and plays them ?

	16-08-2005 22:52									#16
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quote: The iPod was launched in November 2001 but Apple waited until July 2002 to file for a patent; Microsoft snuck in to license some of the technology the previous May.

Typical behemoth behavior. My, look how INNOVATIVE they are!

Gatekeeper

	16-08-2005 22:59									#17
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Yep, they are innovative, since MS's time of invention predates the launch of the iPod.

	16-08-2005 22:59									#18
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The reaction on /. is priceless.

	16-08-2005 23:06									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Gatekeeper Typical behemoth behavior. My, look how INNOVATIVE they are! Gatekeeper

Are you referring to Apple or MS, because they both patented the same thing. MS just beat them to the punch.

	16-08-2005 23:07									#20
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quote: Originally posted by aneeshm How exactly do you "patent" a generic piece of hardware that decodes some musical file formats and plays them ?

The same way Apple patented a circular scrolling device for a portable electronics product.

	16-08-2005 23:16									#21
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The intentions of MS were quite dishonorable, IMO, Asher. It looks like they knew Apple hadn't completed its patent paperwork and "snuck" in, as the article so eloquently stated. I am stumped as to why Apple didn't do the patent paperwork right away.

At any rate, this is a legal fistfight that isn't going to end anytime soon.

Gatekeeper

	16-08-2005 23:18									#22
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iPods sucks

people who buy iPods suck

Apple sucks

MS sucks

paying for music sucks

god bless usenet!

	16-08-2005 23:22									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Gatekeeper The intentions of MS were quite dishonorable, IMO, Asher. It looks like they knew Apple hadn't completed its patent paperwork and "snuck" in, as the article so eloquently stated. I am stumped as to why Apple didn't do the patent paperwork right away. At any rate, this is a legal fistfight that isn't going to end anytime soon. Gatekeeper

MS didn't patent the iPod, they patented some portable digital music playing methods using files such as MP3s.

People seem to forget that variations were invented and used by by Diamond/Rio (IIRC) well before even the iPod did this.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player...

FWIW, MS' patent involves dynamic playlist generation, which wasn't implemented in iPods til late 2002/early 2003 IIRC, if not later: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...=DN/20030221541

	16-08-2005 23:28									#24
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MS' patent is about a product called AutoDJ: http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/autoDJ.pdf

The title of the paper is "Learning a Gaussian Process Prior
for Automatically Generating Music Playlists":

quote: This paper presents AutoDJ: a system for automatically generating music playlists based on one or more seed songs selected by a user. AutoDJ uses Gaussian Process Regression to learn a user preference function over songs. This function takes music metadata as inputs. This paper further introduces Kernel Meta-Training, which is a method of learning a Gaussian Process kernel from a distribution of functions that generates the learned function. For playlist generation, AutoDJ learns a kernel from a large set of albums. This learned kernel is shown to be more effective at predicting users’ playlists than a reasonable hand-designed kernel.

As far as I know, Apple still doesn't have that. I'm confused what all the hubbub is about.

	16-08-2005 23:33									#25
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If that's the patent, why would Apple have to pay anything? It doesn't have that.

	16-08-2005 23:59									#26
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Dunno, all I know is Slashdot and Apple sites are in an anti-MS panic again.

	17-08-2005 01:03									#27
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This is just so hilarious. the one thing Apple has done to appeal to the masses, they can't even profit from it.

	17-08-2005 01:42									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Sava iPods sucks people who buy iPods suck Apple sucks

What about people who got a free iPod shuffle as a gift from their company?

	17-08-2005 03:24									#29
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Then the company sucks.