define 'simple' tain ... if such ideas are so simple and obvious how come you're not a billionaire having invented and protected every 'simple' new invention of the last 20 years? ... 


Like someone else couldn't come up with that idea. That is why simple ideas like that shouldn't be even the domain of copyright. Soon they'll start protecting farts of a certain pitch as intellectual property.

Apple made it sell and they deserve credit for that (marketing) but the iPod is not the most advanced, feature packed or even reliable player (although it's pretty reliable). 

To be honest, Apple doesn't deserve protection either and the government should finally do something about their monopolistic practices (good luck, I know) as they harm the consumers not only by keeping the prices too high but holding back improvements, and god knows iPod and iTunes could use some.

The iPod's selling point was never its technology. Apple never claimed to have invented the MP3 player. Apple is *design* house, first and foremost, and Kane had f*ck all to do with the iPod's interface design.

If Apple were indeed claiming to have invented the MP3 player, they would hardly have used Kane's patent in their lawsuit in the first damned place. 

Nevertheless, an ancient, solid-state prototype built in the 1970s is not an iPod any more than Valdemar Poulsen's 1950s magnetic wire recorder was an Amstrad cassette deck.