Microsoft Invented the iPod?

Each year Microsoft submits hundreds of patent applications on ideas for technologies that may or may not be in development within the company. Occassionally articles like this one are written about them:

Microsoft, Intel Build Up Patent Portfolios

It's sickening to read some of the ideas that end up getting patented by Microsoft.

And now it looks like Microsoft's gross abuse of the patent system may have won it $10/iPod for every iPod sold.

Check out this article written a couple days ago:

Did Microsoft Invent The iPod?

The documents in the Patent Office do not mention the iPod by name. The documents describe a "portable, pocked-sized multimedia asset player" that can manipulate MP3 music files.

According to a citation on "Platt's home page, he and other colleagues at Microsoft developed a paper in the 2001-2002 timeframe discussing AutoDJ, "a system for automatically generating music playlists based on one or more seed songs selected by a user."

Other articles I've read suggest the $10/iPod licensing fee that Apple will have to pay Microsoft depending on the outcome of the appeal.

Isn't that crazy? Isn't that really sick?