Microsoft, General Motors, Apple, & Patents

by , 4:15 PM EST, March 31st, 2004

Matt Loney of ZDNet's UK offices has penned an interesting editorial on the patent application we reported (in a scoop) last week. Mr. Loney questions whether or not Apple truly has anything original that it can properly patent, and he uses an old tit-for-tat story involving Microsoft, General Motors, and Apple to help illustrate his point.

That tit-for-tat take involves a comment from Microsoft (then CEO) Chairman Bill Gates saying the auto industry hadn't kept up the rate of innovation that Microsoft and the tech industry had. That led to comments from General Motors that following Mr. Gates' analogy through to its conclusion would mean that we would all drive cars that crashed twice a day, as well as related Apple analogies. If you aren't familiar with that story, Mr. Loney's editorial is worth the read just for that.

His overall point, however, is the reason for us telling you about the piece. Mr. Loney extends the automobile analogy to asking what would have happened to the car industry had someone successfully patented the mere idea of a steering wheel, a thought that has often been brought up in criticism of the current US patent system. From the editorial:

Few could deny that the iPod is a superb example of industrial engineering, or that the user interface is one of the coolest around, or, indeed, that the accompanying iTunes service may yet prove to be the one that makes the music industry recognise it can mix with the Internet after all.

But I have yet to see anything in the iPod interface that I have not seen before elsewhere. If this patent is granted, it will simply serve to show what a car-wreck the US patents system has become, and should serve as a warning to governments elsewhere.

You can find the full editorial at ZDNet's Web site, and we recommend it as an interesting read. In related reading, a designer named Noel Rubin is saying that many elements of the iPod are similar to ideas he developed for a Flash project called scrollJET.

The Mac Observer Spin:

The US patent system has indeed become a problem; companies can patent basic ideas too readily, and that is stifling innovation in a number of areas. Amazon's patent of the idea of a 1-click ordering system is one such example. To date, Apple is one of the only companies paying Amazon for licensing that patent.

So, should Apple not patent the iPod GUI? Under the current "rules" for doing business, the company should. The company needs to protect the work it has done in order to maintain its advantage in the market (note that this is a separate issue on whether or not Noel Rubin actually has prior art in this area). At least Apple is being consistent in that it is licensing an idea it shouldn't have to license from Amazon.

Be that as it may, it's the rules that need to change, but that doesn't take away from the underlying reasoning from Mr. Loney's editorial.

ZDNet Editorial