Creative: Trade agency investigating Apple

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If the patent is upheld, then obviously it does have merit. That's the way our system works, if the courts say it's valid, it's valid and you have to live with it no matter what. I still won't like it, but will accept it.

This is why I distinguish between legal merit and "layman" merit (or whatever one might want to call it). I put 0 weight on the end result of a case when it comes to my personal determination of a case's "layman" merit. I think any case involving the look and feel of something like a computer case is without merit, even if the courts, in their infinite wisdom, disagree.

Note that such a decision would screw over every single portable music player on the planet, including all of those wonderful "Plays For Sure" partners who would be next in line for injunctions and lawsuits.

That's okay, I don't have a "Plays For Sure" device, nor do I plan on getting one.

The suit was about the shape, the form factor, the overall design.

The shape? It was shaped like a monitor. The form factor? LOT'S of computers had integrated the screen into the case, all the way back to old terminals. The overall design? Other than material, shape, and form factor, what else is there? Things like this are very subjective. You probably put more importance on the look and feel of a computer than I do (the less I see of my computer case, the better!). As such, you probably feel that copying that look and feel is a more egregious violation than I would. I suppose that is why I have difficulty understanding why you don't give the same respect to Creative's look and feel of their hierarchical menu system. Perhaps a case could be made that this shouldn't be a patent issue and more of a "trade dress" issue? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer (obviously).

Don't know that this would pass the "novelty" requirements for a patent.

Fair enough. As I said above, perhaps this shouldn't be a patentable issue. However, that doesn't mean that Apple didn't pilfer the look and feel of Creative's menu system in the same way that eMachine's use of an integrated monitor in a clear case was a pilfering of iMac's look and feel.

you do have strong biases (as do we all)

Yup, I don't pretend to hide mine. While I like her products, I am biased against Apple, mostly because I feel that she (and most of her users) seem to hold her up to a different standard than they do MS. In my opinion, she is just as "rotten" (as much as a business can be rotten?) as MS is without the power to actually be noticed. Apple advertising spreads as much FUD about Microsoft as Microsoft does about Linux, and I use FUD in the proper sense: an attack that has a grain of truth but is mostly spin.

Posted by: NonZealot   Posted on: 06/14/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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