Apple admits skint Brit invented iPod in 1979

Davey Winder
Monday, 08 September 2008 16:07

IT Industry - Strategy

A worldwide patent was granted to Kramer, but lack of funding meant he could not raise the UKP £60,000 needed to renew this in 1988. This was, after all, the era of the Sony Walkman.

With no patent, the concept became open to anyone to grab. And both Kramer and his IXI disappeared from view, apart from the odd appearance in interviews about the history of the iPod or MP3 players in general.

Until Kramer got a call from Apple, and gave that evidence, and was effectively told that he did, indeed, invent the iPod.

Speaking to the Daily Mail newspaper Kramer says "To be honest, I was just so pleased that finally something that I had done which has been a huge success and changed the music industry was being acknowledged. I was really quite emotional about it all."

He will be even more pleased, I suspect, if the negotiations that are said to be underway between him and Apple regarding some compensation for the fact come to fruition.

That could be a life-changer indeed when you consider over 160 million iPods have been sold so far, and 100 are purchased every minute of every day.

Not everyone is happy for him. One Daily Mail reader commented "Do you want to be an "inventor" like this guy? Get yourself some graph paper and some crayons and sketch out a weightless, holographic audio player that's controlled telepathically. And when such a device is actually created in the year 2090, feel free to claim credit for it."

Industry commentators seem to agree. Take Ron Miller who notes "That they brought Kramer to testify in this law suit doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but neither does it prove this guy invented the iPod. It only offers further proof of the outlandish machinations that lawyers go through during lawsuits."