Apple faces the music on iPod patents

In the first case, the Cappuccino based outfit has been accused by Advanced Audio Devices that the iPod infringes on one of the company's patents covering a "music jukebox."

Advanced Audio Devices got its patent in 2003. The patent details a method for storing a music library in a digital format. When AAD tried to negotiate with SnApple, the outfit rebuffed them with the strongest of its buffs.

Meanwhile the Hong Kong-based Pat-rights has also filed a suit claiming Apple's digital rights management (DRM) technology infringed its patent.

Pat-rights was also granted its patent in 2003, for its technique for protecting software from unauthorised use using one program for encryption as well as another program for authentication.

Apple's DRM technology, Fairplay, is unpatented and Pat-rights president Peter Chung claims it is because Apple knew that the patent belongs to someone else.

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