Apple-licensed iPod navigation patent invalidated by US regulatory agency
A patent that Creative Technologies used in the beginning of the century against the iPod forcing a $100 million payout by Apple has been invalidated, saving the rest of the smartphone industry from costly settlements and protracted legal battles.
First spotted by Law360, Administrative Law Judge David Shaw of the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) has ruled that Creative Technology's patent that addresses music library navigation and sorting in the iPod, and now iOS overall, was too abstract to be eligible for a patent.
In August 2006, Apple reached an out-of-court settlement with Creative Technology for the patent just potentially ruled invalid by the USPTO. Apple paid Creative a single license fee of $100 million to use Creative's software interface patent, which had just been awarded to Creative at the time, for all Apple products.
Creative defended patent number 6,928,433 before the USPTO earlier this year by claiming that as a result of the 2006 agreement forged over the iPod's software, thousands of jobs at Apple were created, and would be in danger if the patent was invalidated.
"These innovative inventions of the '433 patent have now become ubiquitous in the industry," Creative's complaint to the USPTO said in May. "While Apple Inc., which uses these inventions in its iPod and iPhone products, has taken a license, others in the industry have made use of Creative's invention without permission."
Creative filed for the patent violation investigation against Blackberry, HTC, Lenovo-owned Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sony, and ZTE and was seeking a wide array of products be banned from sale in the U.S. The ruling on Friday was made under the USPTO's new 100-day program to streamline the patent complaint process, which can stretch on for years, well after the products alleged to be infringing patents are irrelevant in the marketplace.
Judge Shaw's ruling is still reviewable by the full USPTO commission of judges, and may be overturned upon examination. The ruling will not stop Creative's lawsuits against several of the manufacturers in the federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, also known as the "rocket docket" for patent trials.
First spotted by Law360, Administrative Law Judge David Shaw of the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) has ruled that Creative Technology's patent that addresses music library navigation and sorting in the iPod, and now iOS overall, was too abstract to be eligible for a patent.
In August 2006, Apple reached an out-of-court settlement with Creative Technology for the patent just potentially ruled invalid by the USPTO. Apple paid Creative a single license fee of $100 million to use Creative's software interface patent, which had just been awarded to Creative at the time, for all Apple products.
Creative defended patent number 6,928,433 before the USPTO earlier this year by claiming that as a result of the 2006 agreement forged over the iPod's software, thousands of jobs at Apple were created, and would be in danger if the patent was invalidated.
"These innovative inventions of the '433 patent have now become ubiquitous in the industry," Creative's complaint to the USPTO said in May. "While Apple Inc., which uses these inventions in its iPod and iPhone products, has taken a license, others in the industry have made use of Creative's invention without permission."
Creative filed for the patent violation investigation against Blackberry, HTC, Lenovo-owned Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sony, and ZTE and was seeking a wide array of products be banned from sale in the U.S. The ruling on Friday was made under the USPTO's new 100-day program to streamline the patent complaint process, which can stretch on for years, well after the products alleged to be infringing patents are irrelevant in the marketplace.
Judge Shaw's ruling is still reviewable by the full USPTO commission of judges, and may be overturned upon examination. The ruling will not stop Creative's lawsuits against several of the manufacturers in the federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, also known as the "rocket docket" for patent trials.
Comments
If the full USPTO commission on judges decides to review Judge Shaw's ruling and agree with him, will Creative be on the hook to pay Apple back all of the licensing fees they paid or will Creative simply be shut down, finally ending their crusade against all the other companies?
As fair I know, Creative is a company with a lot of different products. How can be a troll? Or are you saying that every company that sues others for patent infringement is a troll?
Another different tale is the validity of a lot of patents, that shouldn't being granted.
If the patent is invalidated will Apple get their money back? Or will they be screwed of $100M while the other scumbags get away Scot free?
By the way, what other scumbags are you talking about?
I love this justification
"Creative defended patent number 6,928,433 before the USPTO earlier this year by claiming that as a result of the 2006 agreement forged over the iPod's software, thousands of jobs at Apple were created, and would be in danger if the patent was invalidated."
So Creative wanted the court to believe people will loose their jobs at Apple if the patent is thrown out. I am having a hard time see how this maybe the case, but give them credit for trying this argument. What I think they meant to say is the fact Apple paid them in 2006 means the patent must have been valid otherwise Apple would not have hire so many people to work on. Plus the fact that Apple paid them means they had the right to sue everyone else. I am kind of surprise Apple did in fact settle.
To answer the first question: no, Apple will not get the money back. The licensing deal they made was between them and Creative and really had nothing to do with the courts since they chose not to fight it.
Secondly, I think people are mistaking Creative for a patent troll. They were pioneers, making some of the first MP3 players on the market. The market got too crowded, MP3 players were replaced by smartphones and the rest is history.
The Ipod was on the market for a while before the lawsuit was brought, and they were making lots of money. Apple did not seek the patent to use it in their design they made their design independent of what Creative was doing at the time, plus Apple would have just designed around the patent. I think it was during the time when Apple legal team was not at its best, since then Apple lawyers have been very aggressive and not settling anything.
code is copyrightable. if no theft of code (implementation) occurred, then other ways of coding the idea should be A-OK. that's how it works for other speech products such as novels and film. you can't patent your car chase or heated argument scenes, but you can copyright the written details.
It did not tell us what the patent was for! Was it for the physical click-wheel navigation system?! If so, then the USPTO committee made a big blunder invalidating it. That's hardly an obvious way of navigating a music and song database. How long do patents last these days anyway?! Originally, it was 17 years, right?! In the hurly-burly fast-paced tech era, it shouldn't be any longer!
if it's for the specialized database scheme as a poster indicated, that would depend, right, on what its form was and how widely it was already being used?! How obvious would an underlying scheme be, anyway?!
A method, performed by software executing on the processor of a portable music playback device, that automatically files tracks according to hierarchical structure of categories to organize tracks in a logical order. A user interface is utilized to change the hierarchy, view track names, and select tracks for playback or other operations."
*tho Samsung did make possible recovery a stipulation in agreeing to give Apple their court-awarded payment in December last year even tho the case is still under appeal and some utility patents asserted may be ruled invalid. We'll have to see how that actually works out.