A patent application for the iPod’s interface was not granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), according to a report by AppleInsider. The patent was originally filed in October 2002 (and ameneded on March 25, 2004), but was denied by the USPTO because of a May 2002 patent application filed by an inventor named John Platt.
Apple’s patent application was filed by Apple vice president John Robbin, who came to the company as the original developer of SoundJam MP3 (that product was marketed by Casady & Greene, but was pulled from the market at Mr. Robbin’s request after he was hired by Apple).
Mr. Robbin amended his original patent application and resubmitted it last October, but an examiner for the patent office again rejected the claim last month.
AppleInsider quotes the examiner as explaining: "Platt discloses an apparatus and a method of assisting user interaction with a multimedia asset player by way of a hierarchically ordered user interface, comprising: displaying a first order user interface having a first list of user selectable items; receiving a user selection of one of the user selectable items; and automatically transitioning to and displaying a second order user interface having a second list of user selectable items based upon the user selection."
AppleInsider does not explain who Mr. Platt is, or if his patent was submitted on behalf of another company. While the patent office’s rejection means Apple can’t protect its iPod software interface from copycats, it’s also unclear if other companies will have to go through Mr. Platt to license his design if they want to mimic it.