Microsoft and Apple look to be battling over the right to the iPod technology. Apple filed the patents for its incredibly successful iPod back in October of 2002. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office booted the patent papers last month.
If Microsoft peels Apple on this deal, Apple’s going to owe them a lot of seeds in the form of royalties on all the sales of the iPod and probably peripheral products. Talk about being a worm in the Apple.
Like Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes battling in the squared circle, Apple and Microsoft continue to fight for blood because if Apple loses, this could quite possibly put a real hurt on the controversial computer company.
Apple said in a statement, “Apple invented and publicly released the iPod interface before Microsoft filed the patent application cited by examiner was filed.”.
The handy dandy Microsoft Apple corer was filed about 5 months earlier by researcher John Platt. Platt had started the process for Microsoft in May of 2002 (5 mos. before Apple). Platt’s application was initially rejected in Dec. 2004 but apparently, the amended version from April of 2005 and got to the patent pending stage.
To put things in perspective, iPods have popped out all over the place to the tune of over 20 million units. Considering these things sell at $100 and up, one can see the Seattle slew salivating.
The patent process can take many years so this thing isn’t over by a long shot and one can believe this cage match of epic proportions will rage on for some time.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
