When the news of Apple’s patent application for the iPod surfaced last week, designer Noel Rubin was a little perturbed. Apple’s iPod was released in November of 2001, its interface bearing a striking resemblance to his ‘scrollJET’ project, a Macromedia Shockwave (and later Flash) front end that allows visual hierarchical browsing of filesystems—specifically media file systems. Although scrollJET had been publicly released in the summer of 2000, Rubin then remained ambivalent about any course against Apple. His iPod died a week later.
Now Apple’s patent is a reminder to Rubin that he perhaps should have taken some action two years ago, although many questions remain.
“I’m not sure I understand the scope of my situation,” says Rubin. “From what I can tell, it looks like iPod copied parts of my scrollJET, visually.”
Rubin is seeking advice from those who have had experience with similar situations. He’s afraid Apple may be trying to patent an idea he developed.
“The thing that gets me is the fact that the iPod GUI uses the same basic interface structure, and also identical animation [as] scrollJET, ” says Rubin. “Who knows? Apple’s development was probably happening for a year previous to the launch. But the hard fact is that scrollJET was posted on the web in 2000. I spent months on it.”
If you’d like to offer Noel Rubin any advice, he’s asked to be contacted via his website.
