It’s Apple vs. Microsoft over iPod Patent - Path of a Patent
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The particular patent in question deals with the iPod interface. Apple’s patent application was title “Graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player.” According to the patent records, the company filed the patent in October 2002, about a year after the first iPod hit the market. Though it doesn’t mention the iPod by name (patent applications rarely mention products by name in such cases), it gives a step-by-step description of song selection on an iPod. Remembering that Microsoft’s patent application beat Apple’s by only five months gives credence to Apple’s statement that it “invented and publicly released the iPod interface before the Microsoft patent application cited by the examiner was filed.”
Microsoft employee John Platt filed his patent claim in May 2002 – patent application 20030221541, to be exact. It is titled “auto playlist generation with multiple seed songs.” This application was filed some seven months after the iPod was unveiled. Given where things stand now, it is interesting to note that this patent received a Non-Final Rejection in mid-November 2002, and a Final Rejection in mid-June 2004. The U.S. patent office is not the Supreme Court; when the office rejects a patent, the inventor usually comes back with more documentation and other paperwork to help prove the claim. Indeed, this Microsoft patent received another NFR in early December of 2004. After Platt amended his application in April 2005, he received word on June 27 from the patent office that it would grant approval.
Meanwhile, Apple’s patent wended its way through the system, also receiving periodic rejections. This is a normal part of the process, with some patents rejected as many as five or more times before receiving approval. In July – not long after approving Microsoft’s patent, in other words – the U.S. patent office put out a six page long document stating its reasons for issuing a Final Rejection for Apple’s patent. The document pointed to Microsoft’s patent as a major reason for rejection. It stated, in part, that “Platt discloses an apparatus and a method of assisting user interaction with a multimedia asset player by way of a hierarchically ordered user interface, comprising: displaying a first order user interface having a first list of user selectable items; receiving a user selection of one of the user selectable items; and automatically transitioning to and displaying a second order user interface having a second list of user selectable items based upon the user selection.”
Those who would like to see for themselves whether the two patents are that similar can check Apple’s application here and Microsoft’s application here. The key thing to keep in mind, however, is that a Final Rejection isn’t really “final.”
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