Apple loses 3-year iPod interface patent battle

This article does not list the correct application serial number or 18 month publication number. All I have been able to find are applications 10/259,159 and 10/072,765 (go to portal.uspto.gov to see status info). 10/259,159 has a second non-final rejection issued. Also, don't look at final rejections as "final". You can respond to a final to make the application allowable, or if you respond and the Examiner respond with an Advisory Action you pay $790 and file a request for continued examination along with a response. You can also file an RCE responsive to the final office action. Anyway, be wary of patent information you see on blogs, I've noticed a lot of it is misinformed.

Begun, the clone wars have.

I think AppleInsider has jumped the gun here. Robbin & Jobs have several other patent applications pending with the USPTO: "Graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player" for example. IMO the key iPod patent is Patent Application number 20030095096 "Method and apparatus for use of rotational user input" filed May 22, 2003. Abstract: Improved approaches for users of computing devices to interact with graphical user interfaces are described. According to one aspect, a rotational user action supplied by a user at a user input device is transformed into linear action with respect to a graphical user interface. According to another aspect, a portion of an extended list of items is displayed by a graphical user interface and, through rotational user actions at a user input device, the portion of the list being displayed can be varied with welcomed ease of use. Although the type of computing device can vary, the improved approaches are particularly well-suited for use with a portable media player. If that one falls it's time to buy those APPL puts in a big way.

Here's that guy's main page on the playlist techonology: http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/abstracts/AutoDJ.html And for the math geeks out there, check out the actual research paper, its pretty insane: http://research.microsoft.com/~jplatt/autoDJ.pdf

So if this John Platt dude works for Microsoft, could it also mean that all of his ideas are property of Microsoft? Could that also mean that Microsoft can sue Apple for using the interface? Man, what a heavy blow to Apple if that's the case. Fishes, narco.

Yea this is definately not over yet. Does the creation of the Mighty Mouse and the soon to be in house trackpad production equate to powerbooks and ibooks with 2 button trackpads? I doubt i would purchase a powerbook before the intel switch but i am curious how the mac community would feel about 2 button notebooks...

"so we might not have heard the end of this one yet" ... gee do ya think?

typo first word and does this mean apple can't use this interface anymore? or they just can't stop others from using it. kinda a blow to apple, nothing seems to be going their way recently. first they get rid of their trackpad supplier, and now they lose the ipods interface... wow.