Creative wins MP3 player patent

Creative said the patent applied to its players, as well as some competing products such as the Apple's iPod and iPod mini.

The patent covers how files on a music player are organised. Creative said it had applied for the patent, dubbed the Zen Patent, on 5 January 2001 and was awarded it on 9 August. It applies to the way music tracks are organised and navigated on a player through a hierarchy using three or more successive screens. For example, this would be a sequence of screens that could display artists, then albums and then tracks.

"The first portable media player based upon the user interface covered in our Zen Patent was our Nomad Jukebox MP3 player," said Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo.

"The Apple iPod was only announced in October 2001, 13 months after we had been shipping the Nomad Jukebox based upon the user interface covered by our Zen Patent."

But Mr Leigh added that Creative was likely to have a hard time to get anything out of Apple as the applicability of patents was often difficult to prove.

[ Its internaly generated so cant capitalise the costs anyway... ]