Apple’s settlement is unsettling
Apple to pay $100 million in iPod patent disputes
Part of Creative’s patent is not specific to the technology related to their music player itself, but how the information is categorized. The method in
question is commonly called faceted classification, because an item could belong to multiple categories.
There is an interesting discussion starting in the IA community, because this seems to suggest that you can patent a way to organize information. Peter Merholz began a thread on the IA Institute’s mailing list, and someone posed interesting questions — perhaps somewhat rhetorically:
If information architecture creates mental models that frame a user’s experience, can you patent that? Or is the patent on the IA in use on a specific device? Is there a difference? Is IA a gateway to experience that you can patent?
I didn’t read the patent or anything, but the idea is rather unsettling. I think it’s easy to see that it’s a very slippery slope.
Does this mean Red Envelope owes Creative some money because their customers can choose to shop by recipient, occasion, or price? What if Webster decides to patent the way a dictionary is organized — A to Z! Want to sell clothes online? Better pay Gap — they patented organizing clothes by men, women, and kids. Ingenius!
I admit I have close to zero knowledge on this subject, so I’ll be interested to hear an expert’s take on this…
