Did Apple Settle Playlist Patent Suit?

An apparent patent troll company called Premier International Associates sued Apple in 2005 claiming (PDF) that Apple had infringed on a PIA's patent of organizing music into a playlist. On September 11, PIA sued a long list of other tech companies who use playlists, including AT&T, Dell, LG, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola, Napster, Nokia, Real, Samsung, Sandisk, Spring, Toshiba, Verizon, and Viacom.

Techdirt theorizes that Apple paid PIA off to drop the suit, which it apparently did at the same time the new suits were filed, and that PIA is using whatever money Apple gave it to go after these other companies.

Here's what PIA says its patent covers:

"A system implementable using a programmable processor includes aplurality of pre-stored commands for building an inventory of audio,
musical, works or audio/visual works, such as music videos. A pluralityof works can be collected together in a list for purposes ofestablishing a play or a presentation sequence. The list can bevisually displayed and edited. A plurality of lists can be stored forsubsequent retrieval. A selected list can be retrieved and executed.
Upon execution, the works of the list are presented sequentially eitheraudibly or visually. The works can be read locally from a source, suchas a CD, or can be obtained, via wireless transmission, from a remoteinventory. If desired, establishment of a predetermined credit can be apre-condition to being able to add items to the list for presentation."

As unlikely as it might seem that an idea so obvious as a playlist would be patentable, Apple paid
Creative $100 million for infringing on that company's now-standard,
and also somewhat-obvious-in-retrospect patent on song navigation (by Artist,
Album, Genre, etc.).

PIA asked for permanent injunctions against these companies that would stop them from using playlists immediately, but ZDNET says there's a precedent (PDF) for courts not wanting to shut down major commercial operations during the resolutions of such disputes. We'll have to wait and see whether Microsoft, Nokia, Verizon, and the rest of the new defendants follow Apple's apparent lead by offering cash payouts to PIA in exchange for dropping the suits. Playlists are a must-have feature of most hardware and software media players, so unless the judge rules against PIA, they won't have much of a choice.