The U.S Patent & Trademark Office has rejected Apple’s 2002 claim on the iPod’s rotational wheel interface, noting Redmond filed on it five months earlier. OK, that’s just funny. A bonus to whatever Microsoft patent lawyer cooked that up.
Patent lawyers say Apple won’t have to start ponying up royalties to Microsoft yet and could alter its patent to differentiate it from Redmond’s, as well as file a declaration stating it obviously concocted the interface before Microsoft filed the patent.
One really interesting fact from the story: 21 million iPods have shipped since its invention, which constitutes 75% of the U.S. MP3 market.
Via My Way News
