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Posted on 04/20/2006 1:02:59 AM PDT by Swordmaker
"The iPod is the world's fastest selling electrical equipment ever," said early MP3 inventor Kane Kramer, "and I suppose, in a way, I am the world's biggest failure." Although he lost his patents in the '80s, Kramer is consulting lawyers to see whether he has any claim to the design and technology behind the iPod.
The man who nearly invented the iPod two decades ago let it slip through his fingers along with a fortune worth millions.
British inventor Kane Kramer came up with the world's first MP3 player in 1979, a device remarkably similar in appearance to the now ubiquitous music players.
A staggering 42 million iPods have been sold since it was launched in 2001, bringing its maker, Apple Computer (Nasdaq: AAPL) , an estimated US$9.2 billion (Pounds 5.2 billion). Every minute another 100 are snapped up worldwide. There is no doubt that had Kramer hung on to his invention, he would now be a millionaire several times over. Instead, he runs a furniture shop in Hertfordshire, England.
Constant Reminders
Now Kramer is consulting lawyers to see whether he has any claim to the design and technology behind the MP3 player.
"I don't just get reminded once or twice that I didn't get any benefit out of my creative thinking," he said. "Every time I walk down the street I see people with the headphones, or adverts for iPods."
Kramer was 23 when he quit his job running a music industry trade exhibition in 1979 to begin work on a device that would store music in digital form on a computer chip -- a radical idea at a time when music was recorded onto tape and played back on cassettes or vinyl records.
Working with friend and technical wizard James Campbell, he came up with the IXI, a device that would now be known as an MP3 player.
His sketches from 1979 show a credit card-sized player with a rectangular screen and a central menu button to scroll through a selection of music tracks using arrows for left, right, up and down.
Volume is controlled by keys on the left-hand side.
The iPod is a similar size with a display in the same place and a central dial to select and play songs.
The only catch was the amount of memory; the IXI only stored 3 1/2 minutes of music, but the team rightly believed that chip storage capacity would improve.
Kramer took out a patent for the technology in 1981 and set up a company to develop the idea.
Beatle Connection
In its first year, the firm nearly folded after Kramer was only able to raise half the $27,000 (Pounds 15,000) needed to renew the patents. Then Paul McCartney stepped in and paid the rest -- the cost of a detached house at the time -- in return for shares.
By 1986, the IXI could store 5 minutes of music and was described as "the most radical system yet -- a music recorder on a chip."
In 1988, on the brink of commercial success, the company was split by a boardroom coup.
Distracted and unable to raise money in time to renew patents across 120 countries, Kramer watched as the technology became public property.
"I was heartbroken," he said. "I'd put in a tremendous mental and physical effort. It was eight years of intense work." The recording industry began using digital technology in the early Nineties, and the first MP3 player was launched in 1999.
Two years later, the iPod became a design icon of the 21st Century.
"The iPod is the world's fastest selling electrical equipment ever," said Kramer, "and I suppose, in a way, I am the world's biggest failure."
Five More Who Came So Close ...
The literary agent. The first agent to whom J.K. Rowling sent Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone rejected her in little more than a day. Her second agent, Christopher Little, was turned down by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury said yes a year later.
Decca Records and the Beatles. In January 1962, The Beatles were turned down by Decca Records because they were considered too similar to the Shadows. They signed with Parlophone and became the world's most famous band.
Windscreen wipe-out. In 1967, Robert Kearns invented the intermittent car windscreen wiper. He took the idea to Ford but after several years of talks, the company began offering the wipers without paying Kearns, who sued. The legal battles dragged on for more than 20 years. Although Kearns eventually won $10.7 million (Pounds 6 million) from Ford, he lost his case against General Motors.
The forgotten genius. Nikola Tesla,a Serbian immigrant to America, invented the modern electric power system, the fluorescent bulb, neon lights, the speedometer and the basics behind radio, radar and the microwave oven. Others made millions from his inventions but he was paid a flat $216,000 fee.
The other Bill Gates. Software genius Gary Kildall invented the first operating system for PCs in the early Seventies but missed out on supplying IBM because he went flying instead of meeting company bosses. Bill Gates later sold IBM the MS-DOS system.
Timing is most important... too early, flop. Too late, flop.
MP3 Ping!... coulda, woulda, shoulda... wah, wah, wah...
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I'm confused about the patent renewal problem.
He got the patent in 1981 and then the 'same year' Paul McCartney pays to renew them?
And then apparently in 1988 he's supposed to renew them again and doesn't have the money.
What's the story here?
The man who nearly invented the iPod two decades ago let it slip through his fingers along with a fortune worth millions.I'll bet the sound quality was just staggering back then. /sarc
The other Bill Gates. Software genius Gary Kildall invented the first operating system for PCs in the early Seventies but missed out on supplying IBM because he went flying instead of meeting company bosses. Bill Gates later sold IBM the MS-DOS system.Actually, the way I heard the story, the IBM people were over an hour late for the meeting regarding CP/M, and Kildall went sailboarding. CP/M interrupts were legacies within DOS up to 5.0 (read that in one of those inside DOS type books).
By 1986, the IXI could store 5 minutes of music...MP3s store about one minute in a megabyte. I recall the cost of RAM in 1986, and it wasn't cheap -- 5 megabytes of RAM would have cost a small fortune, and the box would have been pretty big. That's what doomed the design.
I saw that too... and wondered. Usually patents were 17 years, I think. I wonder if the reporter has confabulated the need for cash to DEFEND his patents... if he could not bring a suit against an infringer, his patent could be invalidated due not not pursuing it agressively.
Cool, except that the mp3 algorithms weren't invented until 1992.
Kane Kramer's apparent argument is that he invented the MP3 player concept... to accept his theory, then Chester Gould invented the Cell Phone... on the other hand, Arthur C. Clarke IS credited with inventing the communication satellite, although he never built one and Kramer actually built a solid state player that could hold ONE (1) song.
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