Apple caught scrumping!!!

[Buleste]

In a bid to proove that Apple didn't steal the idea of the iPod and iTunes from Burst Apple prooved that it stole from someone else.

That poor bloke there invented the concept of iPod back in 1979. He's British, although his alarmingly American-sounding name - Kane Kramer - suggests otherwise. Kane lives in Hitchin.

Mr Kramer came up with the idea of a portable music player, called the IXI, when he was 23. However, technology wasn't ready for this in 1979. Kramer's player could only store 3.5 minutes of music on its memory chip and no one wanted to back it. After years of trying to get it made, Kramer eventually gave up and the patents expired in 1988. Allowing anyone to nick the idea and not pay poor Kramer a penny.

Which is precisely what Apple did.

Things went wrong for Apple, though, when tech firm Burst sued it over alleged copyright infringements contained in the iPod and iTunes systems. To help defend itself, Apple rather brazenly called up Kane out of the blue and flew him out to California to tell the judges that the portable player was his invention, and that Apple hadn't copied Burst - it had in fact copied Kramer.

Kramer was paid a consultancy fee for saving Apple millions upon millions, but that's all the money he's seen from his invention.

"Apple did give me one but it broke down after eight months," is his only opinion of the Apple device. It is a very sad story, especially as Kane's not exactly well off these days, after having to close his furniture business last year.

Poor sod!!!

[Harrison]

And people wonder why some of us don't like Apple?

Apple - The Packaging company!

We take other peoples inventions and ideas and package them well.

[Zetr0]

Apple has been and always will be style over substance.

in my book, this means worthless

[AlexJ]

Taking a step back from the Apple bashing for a minute, isn't this guys idea just a generic MP3 player style-device? The only thing that sets iPod apart from a generic MP3 is it's branding, design and menu layout. I see none of them in this guy's designs.

iPod was far from the first MP3 player - you could argue they stole someone like Rio's idea. Another difference is that this guy's used a memory chip (ala Flash Memory) - iPod's used HDD in their initial incarnations.

Unlike with copyright which seems to get extended everytime Mickey Mouse is about to go into the public domain, patents do have a limited lifespan. This guy had his opportunity to make his money from his invention, failed and so it was opened up for others to have a go.

[Zetr0]

In all truth, imma thinking apply just picked this guy at near enough random to win a court battle on the cheap...

Ooo... there i go..... posting out loud again....

[Harrison]

Except the guy did register his patent in 1979, long before the technology was advanced enough and ready for a digital potable music player. Plus the MP3 format didn't exist back then.

I expect it is quite common practice for larger companies to keep an eye on the expired and due to expire patents that haven't been utilised and to grab the ideas for themselves once they do expire. It is an easy way to gain new ideas. Not 100% ethical but legal.