Digital Home Thoughts: Apple Receives iTunes Interface Patent

"Apple Computer has won a patent for the interface of its iTunes music software, underscoring the growing importance of the multimedia business for the company. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Apple a patent for its media player software interface on May 4, along with several other features of the company's high-profile products. Other parts of the iTunes software, including the ability to stream songs over a network to another copy of the program, had been the subject of earlier patents."

This should be very interesting as several MP3 players on the market today, including Dell's Digital Jukebox, sport user interfaces that are similar to the iPod. A deluge of lawsuits or cease and desist orders may be the "next big thing" from Apple.