iPod Patent

Apple Tries to Patent the iPod Interface.

On Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public patent application number 20040055446, covering “graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player.”…Apple lists three inventors: Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs (news – web sites), as well as Jeffrey L. Robbin and Timothy Wasko…Wasko, Apple’s visual interaction designer, came to Apple in 1997 from Next Software Inc. when Jobs returned to Apple from Next.

It’s nice to see the work that interaction designers do get a little love every once in a while. As with many of Apple’s products, it is not the technology that is so revolutionary, but the ease of use. This ease of use can, and should be patentable. He and his cohorts invented the equivalent of the hammer – the ideal object for embedding a metal fastener into a piece of wood. iPod is becoming the ideal way to navigate through lists of electronic media. Unfortunately, as with hammers and steering wheels, Apple may suffer from having invented a a tool that litigation cannot catch up to.

More on Tim Wasko:
Tim’s Patents (he did the Quicktime interfaces, and the iApps)
Look at the friends he has.
Nerds think he’s a nice guy.

More on my past patented user interfaces:
Kris’s Patents (the other Rzepkowski patent is my Dad’s who was making Cellular technology before the term Cel Phone was even coined.