New Patent Challenge to iPod

The RED HERRING reports on Creative Labs new patent that it claims may cover media player interface used in Apple’s iPod and other MP3 devices. The article gets a Yankee Group perspective to the possible ramifications.

Yankee Group analyst Mike Goodman said, "I think you probably won’t see an impact for probably 8 to 10 years. There seems to be a natural inclination to root for the underdog and to want to take the market leader down a peg or two. But I think this will be one apple that’s going to be awfully hard to take a bite out of," he added.

According to Yankee, the iPod has a 75 percent market share in the United States while Creative’s Zen MP3 players had a share below 10 percent. Nitin Gupta at Yankee thought the "patent will probably not affect Creative’s market share" and thought that using it to challenge Apple would not be "a very respectable move."

Since Gupta's quote is at the end of the article, it's hard to say what a respectable move would be for Creative. There must be more that the Red Herring cut out of the article...