As I mentioned the other day, Creative Labs’ $100 marketing effort to overtake Apple has led to Apple controlling 75 to 80 percent of the portable MP3 player market, while Creative posted a $114 million loss in its recent 3rd quarter financial results.
So what do you do if you’re in Creative Labs’ shoes? Of course, the only recourse is to sue Apple for patent infringement.
According to an article at MacNN,
The patent is for an invention that “provides an efficient user interface for a small portable music player. The invention is suitable for use with a limited display area and small number of controls to allow a user to efficiently and intuitively navigate among, and select, songs to be played. By using the invention, very large numbers of songs can be easily accessed and played,” according to the filing at the US Patent office.
Specifically, it describes overlapping categories that would allow for selection of the same song via different categories and for multiple functions assigned to the same device button or control. The patent also calls for organization based on metadata associated with each track as well as internet-based sources such as CDDB as well as the now popular playlists for organizing music.
“The creation of playlists is one technique to organize the playing of songs. A set of songs can be included in a playlist which is given a name and stored. When the playlist is accessed, the set of songs can be played utilizing various formats such as sequential play or shuffle,” the company wrote its patent filing.
Given how Creative Labs has pretty much ripped off the iPod look-and-feel, using over something as basic as overlapping metadata categories and playlists is beyond absurd. And it will probably prove as effective as Creative’s marketing campaign to unseat the iPod.
Source:
Creative sues Apple over iPod interface. MacNN, May 15, 2006.