Microsoft Leveraging iPod Patent?
August 16, 2005 1 Comment
Am I the only one who in no way understands all the recent hype over this patent issue (I'll keep my opinion of patents in general to myself for the moment, since I've made that quite known in the past). First, the Microsoft patent in no way overlaps with the iPod, from what I can tell. The patent is for AutoDJ, which “generates playlists for a library collection of media items via selecting a plurality of seed items, at least one which is an undesirable seed item.”, something I'm not aware the iPod is capable of. While it's true that Apple's patent application did get denied, I fail to see where that translates into Microsoft being able to charge money for the AutoDJ patent (which was indeed approved). To be honest, patents aside, the AutoDJ idea sounds cool. Where skynews got this $10/iPod figure from I have no idea, but I'd guess someone just made it up! Even if the Microsoft patent does somehow cover something that is in the iPod, wouldn't the fact that the patent was filed well after the iPod actually shipped mean prior art would be extremely easy to prove? Unreal – someone please clue me in here as I must be missing something.
–jeremy
Apple, iPod, Microsoft, Patent, mp3
Jeremy's Blog 
You must be forgetting about a small Utah company that tried this type of thing to remain solvent as well.
I agree with you that its a neat idea. Perhaps Microsoft would be better off if they put their efforts and funds into their own ideas instead of trying to bully some funds for others' ideas. Maybe they will change their ways, but it doesn't look like it.
I just read something about this in “Michael's Minutes”. I don't know how others think about Mr Robertson's ideas, but I think that he may have a point when it comes to Microsoft's requirement to dominate the playing field, regardless of how productive that may be. He has had quite a lengthy adversarial relationship with the Redmond Giant. Who knows?
BTW, you're not the only one who doesn't understand this.