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Lemak Lemang

A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Jeff Ooi, Malaysia

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Apple pays Creative US$100m to settle patent suits

Aug 25, 2006 12:18

Both Steve Jobs and Sim Wong Hoo are my adulthood idols, so I won't take side.

I've just heard that the iPod giant will pay Creative Technologies US$100 million to settle patent suits between both parties, and with that, Apple will get a license to a hierarchical user interface flagged in the MP3 player patent.

I also read of Steve Job's statement regarding the case: "Creative is very fortunate to have been granted this early patent." If I remember correctly, Creative filed for the patent in January 2001 and received it in August 2005.

Much earlier on, late last year in fact, I also heard Sim saying his company planned to aggressively defend its patents. It later developed into a total of five lawsuits pending between the companies.

So, with the early settlement, the anticipated prolonged litigation is now in short-circuit. Good for everybody, isn't it?

However, early reports seem to indicate that Creative gets a better deal.

First, Creative can now use the precedent to secure licensing deals with other MP3 player manufacturers that use or plan to use its patented interface.

Two, the settlement with Apple also certifies Creative in Apple's Made for iPod program, in other words, Creative is now, de facto, an authorized seller of iPod accessories. Some have even gone on to say that Creative can now affix the Made for iPod logo to its speakers, headphones, earphones and other related products.

Thirdly, after so much bad press in quarterly financial reports and market share retreats, Creative shares may now show sign of climbing north.

My wishlist is that Sim will use all of the US$100 million extraordinary revenue to hire better industrial designers for its products. Sim should know that such opportunity doesn't come home everyday.

If I have to declare my vested interest, it is none other than that my first MP3 player was the iPod shuffle. I was so head-over-heels over it that I bought both the 512MB and 1GB versions.

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About Jeff Ooi

Jeff Ooi is an Internet and e-Business consultant based in Kuala Lumpur who's spent the last four years blogging internationally on the tech scene, on anything and nothing. Which doesn't really explain why most of his own technology is about three years out of date. He doesn't even own a PDA after his Palm V crashed. He's on 3G, though... Lemak Lemang refers to coconut-flavored sticky rice stuffed in a bamboo container.