But that isn't what the patent was for... (Score 1)

I don't think it's that simple but it isn't not simple. If you read the patent, which promises much but delivers little, you'll see that it describes something very common on MP3 players. The claims to invention are:

1. Three categories are to be used in the hierarchical organization of the tracks: Albums, Genre, Artist, as well as Playlists. You can pick different traversal paths, Genre>Artists>Albums, Artist>Albums>Genre, but not all paths make sense a whole lot of sense in most cases. I'm pretty sure all traversal paths are preset. Nevertheless, for those claiming that they did this on a file system 50 years ago, could they start at arbitrary root nodes in their classification schemes as they drilled down to find the track(s) they wanted? This is actually kind of silly. Why limit it to three and Playlists? Playlists is in there because at any point, you can hit play and have all the tracks associated with that point play. If I have 4 categories, Track Length, am I in violation of the patent or have I made an innovation?
2. The metadata associated with the track will automatically assign its place in the hierarchy. Okay, duh. How else would it work? For those claiming they already did this 50 years ago, did they have a script that automatically put the file in the appropriate folder based on the file's metadata?
3. The hierarchy is derived from metadata coming from CDDB and other sources. Because the hierarchy is fixed, I can only assume this means they adhered to a standard when choosing their categories in the top level claim. You can get a patent for adhering to a standard?
4. The metadata is stored separate from the unaltered track in one file. Okay, I can think of only about 4 ways to solve this problem.
   1. Create a file format that includes the unaltered track and metadata or leave the track alone
   2. Put the metadata in an accompanying file.
   3. If the audio format supports metadata, embed it there.
   4. If the file system supports metadata, embed it there.
5. As the tree is traversed, pressing play at any point, will automatically play all tracks associated with the next subcategory or track if a single track is reached. yeah, okay.
6. The UI that displays the hierarchy. obviously this is going to be different than a tree view on a regular computer because of screen size but, come on, showing each level on a new screen instead of a new pane?

So clearly, this isn't quite as simple as "inventing the treeview" or the "inventing the database search". However, it is pretty simple...and certainly obvious to a reasonably skilled practitioner of the art. Off the top of my head, I can think of three or four innovations that would make it actually interesting.

This can hardly be classed as an instance of an offensive patent (patenting something but not intending to build it) because Creative had actually implemented the algorithms and data structures as well as the hardware required for the patent to be embodied in something. In fact, the patent pretty much well requires it to be embedded in a portable music player.

However, if I put this in software on my laptop, which is not a portable music player per se, is the patent violated? The iPod can hold files, calendars, notes, music files, video files...is it "just" a portable music player? This is where these patents get problematic for the Joe Average programmer who wants to earn a few bits to rub together for his efforts. How do you know that some algorithm you're using (usually revealed through a UI) hasn't already been patented? Programming (and by extension Software) is both science and art. You used to be unable to get patents for algorithms. Picasso said, "Good artists borrow. Great artists steal." Uh, not anymore, Pablo.

I'm not saying that it's a reasonable patent, I'm just saying, let's see what the patent really is and talk about what we don't like. Do we like the patent system but hate the way software is gets treated under the current system? Are we against software patents altogether?

Absent patent reform, what are we going to do about it? Would every person here, belly-aching about software patents, be willing to join a consortium that would defensively put every patentable idea they have in the public domain or assign the rights to the consortium where the ideas are available without licensing or royalties?