WiFi Finder
Locate wireless services by a specific address, city, state, country, airport, or zip code.
Creative Sues Apple Over the iPod
Creative asks court to block sales of the iPod, claiming it violates one of its patents.
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Digital media player vendor Creative Technology has asked a U.S. court to block sales of Apple Computer's iPod devices, claiming they violate one of Creative's U.S. patents.
Creative yesterday also asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate whether Apple has violated U.S. trade law by importing the players into the U.S., a move that eventually could halt iPod sales in the U.S.
The lawsuit asks the court to stop Apple from selling iPods and seeks unspecified financial damages. It was filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
User Interface the Issue
Creative claims to have invented the user interface software used by most portable digital media players, including the iPod.
This invention is protected by a 2005 patent entitled "Automatic Hierarchical Categorization of Music by Metadata," (U.S. Patent No. 6,928,433) Creative said.
An early entrant to the digital music player business, Creative sells a line of music and video players, called Zen, that competes with the iPod.
The company, based in Singapore, is also known for its line of Sound Blaster audio cards.
Apple representatives were not immediately available to comment for this story.
With HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly.
Turn Data into Dollars
8 Useful Mobile Tools
Related Tech Industry Articles
- Apple Releases Another Mega-Patch for Mac OS X It fixes 40 more bugs; total for year now exceeds 250.
- The ROI of Influence How do smart companies include social media in their marketing?
- YouTube Takes a Page From xkcd Would YouTube users leave better comments if they first heard their words read back to them out loud?
- Are You an Innovation Sucker or Winner? Will innovation will grind to a halt?
- Lessons Learned: IT's Biggest Project Failures Think your project's off track and over budget? Learn a lesson or two from the tech sector's most infamous project flameouts.
-
CDW Security Center Is your data protected? Visit the CDW Security Center Learn where you may be vulnerable and how to address those risks.
-
Asus Laptop Showcase Ultra-fashionable thin and light notebooks with SmartLogon Face Recognition. Find out more...
-
HP Ink Center Bring improved color and brilliance to your printed material. Visit the Resource Center for more info...
PC World's Marketplace
PC World's Free Whitepapers
"Creative Sues Apple Over the iPod" Comments