A really interesting article on blogs.zdnet this morning reveals a patent application by Apple for podcast navigation. To me it simply amounts to a simple hierarchical navigation structure, the underlying process for which has been around at least as long as IT applications have had menu structures. It appears all you need to do is put some content/context in (ie podcast, episodes etc) and you may have grounds for a patent.
I really struggle to see how this should be a patent and am really concerned about the implications of it. Does this mean that if granted, you may be in breach of the patent if you have a similar navigation structure?
I was really underwhelmed when I saw the parts of the patent that were published in the blog but really concerned about the implications of it. Some very interesting comments already showing up on zdnet’s blog.
3 Comments
Jerry - we and all other developers of anything with content browsing capabilities wait with baited breath as Apple decide how to weild and unleash their power.
Hi David,
I hope common sense prevails here (is that possible with patents) and it is knocked back.
Cheers,
Jerry.
Hmm,
Well the navigation isn’t patentable. But I don’t think that it’s main aim. it’s more about ‘ editing in the fly’ (I think). i.e link together portions of programmes on one or different synced devices, push the play button, and yu have a newly minted (seamless) programme.
Claim 39
…..playing a multimedia asset from a group of multimedia assets stored therein, comprising: displaying at a home interface, …………………, the songs list item or the podcasts list item; receiving a selection of the highlighted item(S); and AUTOMATICALLY TRANSITIONING TO (a second interface based upon) the selected item.
40. A method as recited in claim 39, wherein when the selected item is the podcasts list item, then the second interface is a podcast interface that includes at least one selectable podcast item associated with at least one podcast, wherein the podcast is associated with an audio file and metadata therefor.
41. A method as recited in claim 40, further comprising: receiving a selection of the podcast item; and AUTOMATICALLY TRANSITIONING to a third interface that includes a selectable list of episodes corresponding to the selected podcast item.
Basic post production from ths old engineer’s perspective. Yeah they’ll probably get it. It would at least help these academics from disappearing up their own orifices. http://www.annodex.net/
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