Creative Talks About Ongoing Legal Battle With Apple

While legal battle between Apple and Creative continues, Creative has just unveiled their latest player, Zen V, which seems to be their response to the nano. On this occasion, Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk and Sean Michaels had a talk with Creative's Spokesman Phil O'Shaughnessy about the ongoing legal battles with Apple.

O'Shaughnessy says that the company anticipated Apple's retaliation, and that Creative's patented method for categorizing music on a portable screen is not obvious, as some critics have complained.
Interestingly enough, O'Shaughnessy's statement when Apple filed their countersuit would point out the opposite.

"Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions," Phil O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for Creative, said. "At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit."

If you were not aware of the existence of these patents, how could you be aware that Apple is going to sue you over them? Furthermore, since the very beginning of brick and mortar stores, music has been organized by: genre, artist, album and track. It goes beyond obvious; it's a well established norm that can be seen in any country in any music store.

O'Shaughnessy then argued that Apple trying to license the navigation method from Creative before the iPod was released backs up this claim, as does the fact that the HanGo/Remote Solutions Portable Jukebox PJB-100 -- the only hard drive-based MP3 player in the world before Creative's first HD-based player -- could only sort by folder and filename.

Apple had iTunes out before Creative applied for their 'Zen' patent, and Apple's software displays information just like the iPod does. While it is true that Apple did try to enlist Creative in making the original iPod, and they refused, there was simply no reason for Apple to try to license because they already had the exact same display method in their computer program. As for the other hard drive based player that only worked off of the folder and file names, that is because that player could not read the ID3 tags embedded in the music files. Creative' patent revolves around the ability of the device to read the information stored in ID3 tags, something that was invented by Eric Kemp in 1996. How Creative can claim they have the patent for organizing songs based on ID3 tags, when these tags were specifically created for this purpose nearly 5 years before. This sounds a lot like Steven Seagal claiming he invented acting.