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Apple Admits: Kane Kramer Invented the iPod in 1979, Not Our Idea

In order to avoid potential legal issues in a patent dispute case with Burst.com, Apple has finally admitted that a British man named Kane Kramer, who dropped out of school at the age of 15, is the original inventor of the iPod.

Roughly 30 years ago, Kane Kramer came up with the technology that is used in Apple’s iPods and other rival digital music players (roughly pictured above), but he still has yet to collect a dime. Apple was tangled up in a pending lawsuit with Burst.com, which claimed that it held the patents to proprietary technology used in the iPod, and deserved a cut of Apple’s massive profits. In order to avoid these allegations, and settle this case for good, Apple flew Kramer to California where he was interrogated by Burst.com’s legal team for nearly 10 hours.

Mr Kramer, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, said: ‘I was up a ladder painting when I got the call from a lady with an American accent from Apple saying she was the head of legal affairs and that they wanted to acknowledge the work that I had done. I must admit that at first I thought it was a wind-up by friends. But we spoke for some time, with me still up this ladder slightly bewildered by it all, and she said Apple would like me to come to California to talk to them.

‘Then I had to make a deposition in front of a court stenographer and videographer at a lawyers’ office. The questioning by the Burst legal counsel there was tough, ten hours of it. But I was happy to do it.’ Mr Kramer said: ‘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.’

Apple used Kramer’s patents and drawings to defend itself in court against Burst.com last September. His drawings “showed a credit-card-sized player with a rectangular screen and a central menu button to scroll through a selection of music tracks – very similar to the iPod.” Kramer took out a global patent, and setup a company to develop the idea and product. However in 1998, after an unfortunate boardroom dispute, Kramer was unable to raise new funding. He couldn’t renew patents across the globe, and the technology, became public property. The dispute between Burst.com and Apple has since been confidentially settled out of court.

Of course, because of the attention received, Kramer is seeking additional compensation. Apple has reportedly given him a consultancy fee for providing his expertise in court. The Daily Mail explains that “Mr Kramer, last year had to close his struggling furniture design business and move with his wife Lorraine and children, Jodi, nine, Luis, 14, and Lauren, 16, into rented accommodation.” They go on to explain that Apple gave Kramer an iPod for himself, but it broke down eight months later. Additionally, they point out that since 2001, Apple has sold 163million iPods, and that every 60 seconds, 100 iPods are sold.

Mr Kramer, who organises the annual British Invention Show, is now working on an invention he claims will be bigger than the iPod. Called Monicall, it will allow people to have phone calls recorded and emailed to the various parties as an audio file. He said: ‘It will speed up business deals and provide a low-cost third-party witness to conversations and agreements. ‘A deal will be done on the phone and that is it – an audio file gets emailed over within 30 seconds.’

The sob story definitely came on quick with Kane Kramer, you can be sure he’s going to try and squeeze this one for every penny, plug, article and blog post that its worth. But, who knows, Apple may have paid this guy off to avoid a potential public disaster with Burst. Somebody should call the Men In Black so we can get this figured out.

[via Gizmodo]