MP3 Player Maker Creative Wins Patent on User Interface

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 30, 2005 - 4:54am.

Scotts Valley, Calif. -- Consumer electronics firm Creative Technology announced on Tuesday that it has been granted a U.S. patent on its user interface technology for portable media players. The "Zen Patent" covers technology found both in Creative's own Zen and Nomad MP3 players, as well as in Apple's iPod. Creative said the technology covered by the patent describes "a method, performed by software executing on the processor of a portable music playback device, that automatically files tracks according to hierarchical structure of categories to organize tracks in a logical order. A user interface is utilized to change the hierarchy, view track names, and select tracks for playback or other operations."
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