On heels of releasing a new iPod clone - Zen Vision: M, Creative boss Sim Wong Hoo told the BBC he plans to "pursue aggressively" a US patent it owns on a system used to navigate music on digital players. Creative was one of the first to market digital music players in 2000, but has since been overshadowed by Apple. This little fact apparently eats Sim and he wants the world know it.

"We will pursue all manufacturers that use the same navigation system," said Mr Sim. "This is something we will pursue aggressively.

"Hopefully this will be friendly, but people have to respect intellectual property."

The similarly styled and priced device will compete directly with Apple Computer's video iPod for a spot on every technophile's holiday wish list. Creative plans to put the Vision:M up for sale this month, and with less than three weeks left in the shopping season, that makes the device a tough sell reports Forbes.

"They're extremely late," says Tim Bajarin, analyst with market research firm Creative Strategies, which is unaffiliated with Creative. "In this stage of the game, I'm skeptical this product will give them enough revenue to impact the bottom line for their next quarter."

Mr Sim denied the company had copied Apple's design, saying it had been working on the look for more than a year.

Creative are touting the Zen as a far more powerful player than Apple's offering, with additional functions such as FM radio and a built-in mic reports the BBC

"We are focused on the technology," he said. "This is still a technology marketplace."

"This is the key difference between a technology company and a branding company," he said, taking a side-swipe at Apple's successful marketing campaign for its iPod.

Past Quote - CEO Sim Wong Hoo on the Apple iPod Shuffle

We're expecting a good fight but they're coming out with something that's five generations older. It's our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that - that's a four-year-old product. So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people - it's worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don't have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it's a non-starter to begin with.