[bakron1]

Interesting Read!!

Creative pushes for US bans on several smartphone makers

[Uzi]

What patent is exactly creative own?

[bakron1]

They don't into specifics, but most of these tech companies have been battling each other over patent rights for years. I would hate to see what the legal cost some of these companies pay out each year?

[DenverRalphy]

What patent is exactly creative own?

It's a rather vague patent. In this article, U.S. Trade Panel Investigates Smartphone Makers Over Patent - Fortune, it states...

�The products at issue in the investigation are portable electronic devices, such as smartphones, with the capability of playing stored media files selected by a user from a hierarchical display,�

In short (and this is simply my opintion), it's patent trolling. The patent seems to be something that should have been disputed years ago if ever it was an issue.

[howarmat]

it will never end sadly...

[jope28]

It's a rather vague patent. In this article, U.S. Trade Panel Investigates Smartphone Makers Over Patent - Fortune, it states...

�The products at issue in the investigation are portable electronic devices, such as smartphones, with the capability of playing stored media files selected by a user from a hierarchical display,�

In short (and this is simply my opintion), it's patent trolling. The patent seems to be something that should have been disputed years ago if ever it was an issue.

According to a commenter there "This patent is merely applying a hierarchy against music meta data so you can navigate like Artist>>Album>>Track. Both the music meta and the use of hierarchical data structure is so generic...".

That's pretty much all media players nowadays lol

 Passport/SQW100-3 .2876 CB10 

[DenverRalphy]

According to a commenter there "This patent is merely applying a hierarchy against music meta data so you can navigate like Artist>>Album>>Track. Both the music meta and the use of hierarchical data structure is so generic...".

That's pretty much all media players nowadays lol

Yeah it is generic. The patent is a result of so many companies making a mad dash to create as many patents as they could on generic and already accepted common concepts. All they did was slap a "on a portable or mobile device" qualifier on the concept.

[Gatmyer]

Good luck enforcing it as they are all made in China.

They don't give a rats *** about patents.

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[bakron1]

Good luck enforcing it as they are all made in China.

They don't give a rats *** about patents.

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It does not matter where its manufactured, to legally sell the product in the USA, the patent laws apply here. I think the same applies to the European countries, Canada and the U.K. But not a 100% sure how it works outside the USA.

[glwerry]

I have seen similar sorts of things in the past over software patents.

Unfortunately, a software patent can cover something that is honestly just a "good idea", and a person can do that "good idea" in a multitude of different ways. As stated earlier, the hierarchical setup that is being disputed is incredibly generic.

[kvndoom]

Ugh Creative is still a thing, eh. They used to be the gold standard of sound cards (my first ever was a SB16 ISA..), now I guess it's patent troll time.

[DenverRalphy]

I have seen similar sorts of things in the past over software patents.

Unfortunately, a software patent can cover something that is honestly just a "good idea", and a person can do that "good idea" in a multitude of different ways. As stated earlier, the hierarchical setup that is being disputed is incredibly generic.

It used to be that software fell under Copyright rules instead of Patent rules. Which for the most part it is how it "shoud" be. Unfortunately, when it was discovered that Copyright didn't hold water because in programming, multiple people writing the same function would always write the same code (because at its base level, it's very simple). It was soon found that common functions in any source code would always be similar if not identical. Enforcing those rules was a practice in futility. Which birthed the concept of software patents. Which in itself was a joke. Common concepts, like parsing phone numbers "on a mobile device" in a text stream into a clickable link is a patent owned by Apple. Which is ridiculous. Apple was simply the first to use the commonly accepted practice applying the "On a mobile device" moniker. IMHO, all "on a mobile/portable device" qualifiers should be exorcised from the patent system.

[Ment]

Wonder if this is the same Creative 'Zen' patent it wielded against Apple and Ipod over menus and sorting. After litigation, Apple paid Creative 100M to make it go away.

[joeldf]

Wonder if this is the same Creative 'Zen' patent it wielded against Apple and Ipod over menus and sorting. After litigation, Apple paid Creative 100M to make it go away.

I think it is the same.

Supposedly, Creative has been on this for years, and it's just now getting a hearing date - or something like that.

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[thurask]

I guess SoundBlaster isn't working out for them?

[DenverRalphy]

I think it is the same.

Supposedly, Creative has been on this for years, and it's just now getting a hearing date - or something like that.

I'm not an expert on Patent law, but I wonder if it'll hurt Creative in court for stalling until the number of units violating the patent grew to a bigger payoff.

[thurask]

I wonder if they filed the case in Marshall, TX. Then you'd know that a) they're patent trolling and b) they're probably going to win.

[DrBoomBotz]

I'm not an expert on Patent law, but I wonder if it'll hurt Creative in court for stalling until the number of units violating the patent grew to a bigger payoff.

I would be surprised if there isn't prior art here.

[DenverRalphy]

I would be surprised if there isn't prior art here.

That was one of my first thoughts too. But Apple paid out $100mil over 10 years ago when Creative hit them up for the same patent being used on the original iPod's. I'd like to think Apple would have pounced on prior art. That pesky "on a portable device" identifier in the patent is probably what did them in. Which is probably why Apple suddenly filed a lot of new "on a mobile device" patents for piddly stuff.

In any case, this dispute (if it goes anywhere) probably won't be resolved for 3 years minimum since there are so many OEMs involved, they'll pool their resources together for a huge legal team.

[ToniCipriani]

I guess SoundBlaster isn't working out for them?

Funny thing, I was about to buy a Sound Blaster X3 to use with my Priv while I was in Hong Kong, but it was quite expensive so gave up.