Creative win mp3 player patent battle

Creative Technology, one of Apple’s main rivals, has secured a patent for the interface used on many digital music players. The patent applies to Creative’s players, as well as some competing products, including Apple’s iPod and iPod mini.

Although Creative was one of the first companies to produce MP3 players, the market has been dominated by Apple, which is responsible for 80% of sales of digital music players which store music on hard drives.

Creative is competing fiercely to regain lost ground in the sector. In November, Creative CEO, Sim Wong Hoo, said the MP3 war had started and he aimed to out market his competitors.

Creative applied for the “Zen Patent” on 5 January 2001 and was awarded it on 9 August. The patent applies to how music track files on a music player are organised and navigated, through a hierarchy using three or more successive screens. For example, this would be a sequence of screens that could display artists, then albums and then tracks.

Sim Wong Hoo said: “The first portable media player based upon the user interface covered in our Zen Patent was our Nomad Jukebox MP3 player”. “The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the Nomad Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent.”

According to Creative, Apple filed for a patent for a user interface in a multimedia player in late 2002, but its application was recently rejected.