| How MP3 Was Born |
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Karlheinz Brandenburg doesn't like being labeled the "inventor" of MP3. He points out that the most popular format for digital music on the Internet is the work of at least a half-dozen core developers and many others who made important contributions. Even folk-rock singer Suzanne Vega inadvertently played a walk-on role in the creation of MP3. "I know on whose shoulders I stand and who else contributed a lot," says Brandenburg, now director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Ilmenau, Germany. Still, there's no doubt Brandenburg was one of the crucial contributors to the technology that upended the music business and paved the way for Apple's (AAPL) immensely popular iPod media players and iTunes download service (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/26/07, "Apple's International iTunes Controversy"). In a recent interview, Brandenburg, 52, recalled how MP3 came into being. The story offers a lesson in the innovation process and a warning about how tricky it can be to sort out the intellectual property rights behind inventions that involve numerous organizations and people. In February, a jury at the U.S. District Court in San Diego awarded Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) $1.5 billion in damages from Microsoft (MSFT) for use of some MP3 patents. Those patents stem from work done at Bell Labs, which belonged to a corporate forebear of the French-American telco-equipment maker. Read the rest of the story at BusinessWeek Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites          Add your comment
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