AfterDawn: News

Apple to pay 100 million to Creative

In an ongoing struggle for patent rights, it seems that mp3 hardware leader, Apple may be trying to lick it's wounds and hide in the corner. In an out-of-court settlement agreement between Apple and rival Creative Technologies, Apple has agreed to pay $100 million to end litigation over the patent dispute.

The two companies had submitted simultaneous lawsuits against each other when Creative claimed that Apple infringed upon it's patent for the iPod interface.



In the agreement, Apple is essentially paying for a software license for use of the interface in it's devices. In return, Creative will now be allowed to produce and sell products and accessories designed for the iPod.

Apple pioneer Steve Jobs had this to say, "This settlement resolves all of our differences with Creative, including the five lawsuits currently pending between the companies and removes the uncertainty and distraction of prolonged litigation".

Source:
BBC

Written by: Dave Horvath @ 24 Aug 2006 6:49

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• 12 comments

• riplord

  Wow. That's some outcome. I guess my art teacher was right, being creative does pay off.

  24.8.2006 08:59 #1

• MightyOne

  Well said...Riplord

  24.8.2006 11:27 #2

• Mr-Movies

  How does stealing from some one else’s product and good marketing (accentually taking their market share) help them even with the $100M and peripheral rights. It will be a bit before they get back what was stolen, as both Job's and Gate's have done so well since day one. Your teacher is brain washing you but then what's new there.

  25.8.2006 10:34 #3

• Mr-Movies

  Here is a no brainer you can get a ARCHOS 104 8GB player for under $180US and this is as good, no I mean better then a iPod, pull your heads out and do some comparisons before you buy or form an opinion.
  
  It's amazing how crap floats, but it does...

  25.8.2006 10:44 #4

• sammorris

  On afterdawn, in the posts made by mr-movies LOL. I find Creative and Apple Mp3 players the better ones on the market to be honest. Toshiba ones are good too, but they're tied up with Microsoft so you have to be a bit careful. Creative-made accessories for the ipod? Cool. What I'd like to see is more stuff made for Creative mp3 players, you get ipod this, ipod that, but very rarely zen this zen that. Never Gigabeat this, walkman that, but then that's hardly surprising, they're not as popular.

  25.8.2006 11:09 #5

• mark5hs

  Zen Vision M is by far the superior MP3 player. I hope the outcome of this lawsuit helps creative out a bit, becuase they dont get the recognition they deserve in the MP3 market

  27.8.2006 13:08 #6

• sammorris

  That's how I feel. Creative make the better stuff by a small to medium sized margin, and Ipods get all the credit "for being ipods".

  27.8.2006 14:47 #7

• vegaydos

  I too have a creative 20GB ZEN and truly found it far superior to any iPod I saw. I too would like to see more Creative options come out for the ZEN.

  28.8.2006 20:31 #8

• vudoo

  And next folks the Creative 400 GB iPod lol. Now that is what you call a video player.

  4.9.2006 21:02 #9

• sammorris

  To be a complete philistine I never saw the point of having a portable video player with tonnes of stuff on it, from the point of view you have to hold it for all that time to see it. Why do I get the feeling that holding a device for the full two hours of a film will get uncomfortable?

  5.9.2006 02:16 #10

• vudoo

  Here is a point that most of the public hasn't figured out for themselves so here I go again:
  
  1. You can use an adaptor that allows you to show your viceos on a TV or monitor. This is useful if you want to go on a vacation with your significant other and don’t want to carry 10 to 20 DvD’s to watch a nice movie after the adventure of say walking or a whole day of shopping and you want to lay in bed and watch a great movie together.
  
  2. PVR’s or Portable Video Recorders or players makes good sense just like a Mp3 player. Imagine a 400 GB portable player that can hold 1,000-10,000 movies. In the mp4 format (Apples format) it is possible. The entertainment industry doesn’t want you to figure that for yourself just like they didn’t want you to go ape shit over the Mp3 player.
  
  3. Its not really a big deal to hold your device (when your waiting for that plane to arrive at the airport or waiting for your significant other to come back to the car after more than 6 hrs of window shipping at sax 5th Ave.
  
  4. The videos you Download from LimeWire pro, Bearshare Pro, Ares, or where ever you choose to get your videos can be converted to play on your iPod using Videora Ipod converter.
  
  5. The DvD’s you legally purchase can be converted to play on your iPod using Clone DvD to copy and Any DVD to strip the copy protection.
  
  So why haven’t most of the technically challenged people figure this out for themselves without being informed? Well my answer is because the entertainment industry is really doing their job of trying to sell you a physical medium to buy this stuff on. Yes it is technically possible for Apple to come up with an iPod that can play Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS via an adaptor and an iPod built to play surround sound content.
  
  CD’s should have been recorded in surround sound. If not Dolby or DTS, but at least Pro logic. A few artists have chosen to record their music in DPL II which is not quite as good as the full 5.1 Dolby Digital but however can be technically recorded onto a standard CD. The iPod and iTunes could advertise that they are the ONLY manufactures to support full 5.1 surround sound.
  
  If Apple gets smart they’ll come up with an iPod HD that can play both Audio and Video in true HD and then we’ll see how these other Mp3 players hold up.
  
  Screw 2 channel Audio time for HD surround Sound.

  5.9.2006 22:12 #11

• sammorris

  HD surround sound, through an ipod. And I suppose you're one of those users who still uses the standard earphones... ;-)
  Most people haven't pointed those facts out because for the most part they're unnecessary. I could barely tell the difference between DPL II and Dolby 5.1 with my home system, let alone using an ipod or alternative mp3 player. Someone's clearly an ipod fan!
  
  If Apple were to invent an HD Ipod, the other manufacturers would be likely to hold up by following suit. Given who won the lawsuit in this case, who do you think the innovators are?
  They wouldn't invent an HD Ipod any time soon though, for the simple reason of size. Can you imagine how big or expensive the screen would need to be for that?
  Aren't ipods 320x240? If they are, then a 1366x768 screen would need to be over four times as long and over three times as high, making the ipod somewhere in the region of 9 inches wide and 7 or 8 inches tall. That's ridiculous, and you can forget about 1920x1080!
  

  6.9.2006 01:56 #12