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Did This Man Invent the iPod?

September 12, 2008 10:16 AM

By MIKE LEE, ABC News London

British engineer Kane Kramer, 52, has a new invention that will soon be unleashed upon the world. More about that in a moment. One thing is likely. Whether the new gadget is a success or a flop, a lot of people will at least sit up and take note that the inventor is back in the game. 

In 1979, Kramer invented what was to become the iPod.   

But here’s the shocker. Kane Kramer didn’t get a dime for thinking up the concept. And, what may seem even more shocking, he is not entitled to a dime. Kane Kramer also acknowledges that Apple was not at fault for picking up his idea and turning it into a fortune without him. Don’t hit the forward scroll key: this story will play out like an iPod ballad.   

In the beginning (the 1970s), Kramer had been trying to think of a better way to deliver music to people than records or audio tape. He decided, long before the Internet was even sending public data, to try to send music to people down a phone line. Kramer told ABC News: “The only way I could get it (music) down the phone line is to convert the music into digital bits, chop it up, send it down the line, then reassemble it at the other end (in a digital audio box), and that’s what I started with.” 

“Then,” said Kramer, “I started theorizing about it and I [made] the drawings that have become famous because of the likeness to the iPod and a number of other MP3 players. Then I theorized about it and started to do some research, then subsequently in about 1981 I applied for the patents." He added:  “Everyone knew it was the leading edge state of the art.”   

No one seems to dispute Kramer’s claim on the concept that evolved into the iPod, not even Apple Computer. In fact, according to Kramer, Apple flew him to the U.S. last year to testify on its behalf in a lawsuit, to defend Apple against the patent holding company Burst.com, which had claimed that Apple used a patent held by Burst. Kramer supported Apple’s claim it had used his technology, thus admitting who was really the iPod "inventor." 

Disclosure:  Apple CEO and Chairman Steve Jobs is a major stockholder in The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC News.

Kane Kramer has emailed me what seems to be an enhanced graphic representation of his original hand drawing. The new photo is described as a “3D visualisation of Kane Kramer's original IXI player. All colors and details are true to Kramer's original concepts and drawings from 1979. The only addition is the image of the album cover…” The actual Kramer machine never got to the high tech stage seen in this new photo.

So, what went wrong? 

Kane Kramer and his small company, in the 1980s, could not raise the $120,000 needed to update and keep his patent. He and other company board members were squabbling. Kramer accused some of them of being too greedy. No money for patent renewal, no patent. So his drawings and specs became public property, and anyone, including Apple, was free to use them as they wished. It may not sound fair, but it is the law, and inventors know it. 

The iPod, of course, has its own set of features, and is vastly more sophiscated than what Kramer called his "plastic music box," in the late '70s. It’s not as though Apple didn’t develop its own version of that early digital audio player. And Kramer’s prototype box might seem crude in comparison to the Apple iPod. But there is a familiar look to Kramer’s 1979 sketches. He told ABC that the digital audio machine in his drawings was about the size of a credit card. The iPod itself wasn’t launched until 2001. 

The rest of the story is a multi-million dollar blur of regret, mixed with pride, for Kane Kramer. He told ABC News: “When Apple came out and put delivery system, and my device, and the four way scrolling control, and the same look  in a digital audio player that downloads its music…it was all a bit much and I had an odd combination between really being rather pleased and happy.” He added, “I spent nine years of my life working on it, that’s a long time to believe in something and be committed to something and to really only to lose through others' greed.”

The greed he speaks of, he says, is that of his company directors who wanted to split the firm and deal others out of potential profits. He said he doesn’t speak to most of them anymore. Kramer told ABC: “There was a certain sadness and disappointment because it [the Pod] was just everything that I had conceived and basically it was everything that I had built, except for downscaling it.”    

I asked Kramer if he ever imagined how much money he would be worth now, had he not had to give up the patent? There was a long pause, then he said:  “Very very very.” He couldn’t seem to bring himself to utter the word money, but did add: “It [the patent] would have given me the time to put into place the addition two million pounds [about $4 million] to fulfil the orders which we’d taken.” Again I asked how much he might have been worth today. Another long pause, then: “I would probably have given much of it to worthy causes. More than I need.”

That may be one of the understatements of all time.

Kramer said that Apple gave him one of the early models of iPod, but that it broke down and he could not afford to replace it. He says he did receive a consultancy fee for testifying on Apple’s behalf in court, and is negotiating with Apple for what he hopes will be additional compensation for his contribution to one of the most successful gadgets ever.

So, is Kane Kramer one the world’s most successful failures? Or is he one of the biggest failures who invented one of the most successful machines of modern times? He told ABC: “Mostly I feel sorry, particually, for the people around me, who I should be able to do better for [considering] the effort I put in.”

I have not yet met Kane Kramer, but it is hard not to like him on the telephone. He has the inventor’s continous gush of enthusism, and he is obviously a bright spark. And, judging by the way he talks, Kramer seems to have kept his dignity, despite having lost a vast fortune because he couldn’t find a few peanuts to protect his patent.   

Now, Kramer is about to market his latest idea, an automated telephone conversation recorder called "Monicall," which will allow people to have a legally binding copy of phone calls stored with a legal firm. Kramer told ABC: “You’ll be able to exchange contracts over the phone.” 

And there are other uses for Monicall, according to Kramer. He told ABC: "Another use for it is relationship management. You could have a situation where the husband and wife are splitting up and the husband has to pick the children up on the weekend.” He continued: “And the husband is being abusive on the telephone, not picking the children up on time, or threatening her on the phone. An arrangement can be set up through a marriage counsellor, or legal representative where in all of their calls go through Monicall to a third party where legal copy is kept on record.”   

He assured ABC News that his new invention is well protected.

Even if his new venture takes off, his old invention has a multi-billion dollar head start. Without him.

September 12, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (2)

User Comments

Posted by: Mark S. M. | Sep 12, 2008 10:46:38 AM

Posted by: Mark S. M. | Sep 12, 2008 10:52:24 AM

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