Apple blunder gives Gates iPod royalty
Apple Computer may be forced to pay royalties to Microsoft for every iPod it sells after it emerged that Bill Gates’s software giant beat Steve Jobs’ firm in the race to file a crucial patent on technology used in the popular portable music players. The total bill could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
This is just way too funny if this ends up being true. Yet another massive error on Apple’s part that will benefit Microsoft and set Apple back even further. Way to go guys. Two important points:
- 1. It was brought to my attention that there is a clause called “Prior Art” that basically states that someone can’t file a patent for a product that you have already produced and brought to market…even if you don’t have the technology patented. This really is a dumb clause considering you don’t actually have to patent anything you produce according to the idea…you just have to bring it to the market and then no one else can patent it anyways. How stupid.
- 2. As a certain brilliant and beautiful female friend of mine *wink wink* smartly noted…even if this is true and Apple does in fact owe Microsft hundreds of millions in royalties, the chances that Microsoft will see that money any time soon is very slim. Apple will tie this up in court between retrials and the usual hoops that one has to jump through in the court system before Microsoft will ever see a dollar.
Wandering the Interwebs 