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Macromedia Sues Adobe, Claims Photoshop Infringes Patent
jmorse writes: "According to this article at sfgate.com, Macromedia is suing Adobe for patent infringement, claiming that Adobe's Photoshop and GoLive products violate a patent they filed in 1998. The article is a little short on details, so I'm wondering if there are other sources with more on this patent." Adobe and Macromedia have been skirmishing and counter-skirmishing over patents for some time now. The AP article doesn't say which patent Adobe is supposed to be violating this time, so just pick any random thing that Photoshop does that Macromedia might have patented and express outrage about it. :)
Eventually, they will both lose. When this happens, then we win.
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All I can say is that this is yet more proof that software patents are just a bad idea. Let's see; Photoshop has been around since the Dawn of Time by computer standards, and somehow it violates a Macromedia patent filed just 3 years ago. I'm using Photoshop 6 now, and as far as I can see, it does the same thing every other version has done, only with a few more mostly-useless bells and whistles. I bet the patent is either about some tiny little insignificant nitpicking function I'd never even notice, or is about something big and obvious that's been in editing utils since the Amiga or C64 days and should have never been awarded a patent.
Either way, every software patent I've ever seen covers something silly and obvious that shouldn't be patentable based on the fact that it's so obvious and isn't a real advancement at all. The real-world equivalent to most such patents would be like trying to patent a new Lego brick because you made it two rows longer. Uh-huh. Ingenious.
Take the infamous 1-click patent for example. All it is is a fairly obvious way to make shopping on line just like shopping in real life at a store where you have an account or tab. Hand the clerk at the store your stuff with your ID or account number, order is rung up, store already has billing information, customer leaves with product. Amazon's 1-click patent does the same thing, only on-line. Patentable my ass. Anything simple and obvious shouldn't be patentable.
I bet whatever this new Adobe/Macromedia fight is about, it's over something that should never have been patentable in the first place.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
The two groups are competitors. That's their sole motivation. Adobe sued Macromedia a while back for their widgeting. Macromedia's going to sue them for this, whatever it may be. The two can't win in the classical, Capitalist method by improving their product and surpassing their enemy so they just sue.
As to your hatred of Macromedia products, I'd have to agree slightly. I dislike the growing trend of using widgets. The problem: Adobe started it! As it is, I use Adobe for Photoshop and Macromedia for everything else.
Pax Digitalia
...this is why software patents are bad juju.
Don't even get me started on Adobe's 'Rights Management' crap.
My company has spent a little over $1300 on Adobe products. Of course, I could never justify spending this much personally for what many consider to be 'essential' tools for web design and publishing. A great deal of this. I imagine that a great deal of this goes to fund Adobe's legal departement and executive management layer. We know for a fact that that all three of these flagship products could be replicated by OSS programmers with not a lot of difficulty. It would be a large project, but most of that art functionality is already in GIMP. The rest is spread around a few other art and publishing tools.
That's right. Adobe's hideously inflated prices go to support their vast corporate empire, and *not* to better their products. They could be doing better, but they're not.
Macromedia is no better, having done their best to replace Adobe in the position of being an unofficial 'industry standard' when it comes to web design. If they did this with quality products, it would be one thing, but they try to do it with lawsuits, legal gimmicks, and customer abuse. Flash could be so much bigger than it is now if it were an open standard. Most of the web developers I know would vastly prefer to work with Flash rather than crank out lameo HTML and CSS.
For shame!
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My luck I spelled 'cotton gin' wrong. ;>
While I mostly agree with what you said, sometimes really obvious ideas are important (and not quite so obvious). The cotton gin is a great example- a simple device with a very basic purpose that should be very obvious, yet it didnt pop in anyone's head as early as we think it could have in hindsight. This bad boy invention ultimately helped bring some pretty big changes in the US.
But the cotton gin made it's inventer jack. The guy who make the first tv also made jack from his invention. Kind of makes you wonder.
Both inventions were made after patents were made available in the US, but the inventers both made zip. That also kind of makes you wonder.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Since tech details are a bit sparse, I'm not quite sure which patent this is or whether it is frivilous, but quite frankly, I like seeing someone (try to) take a bite out of the big guy... And Adobe is the Microsoft of the digital image world.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
Unfortunately, most of their products are priced for large corporations, and NOT for independent designers/artists. Large companies can afford $600+ for Photoshop, I don't know any freelancers who really can.
Yes, they give student copies of the software, but you aren't allowed to upgrade those copies the same way you can with a retail version.
Not only you, but many others, are cheering on Macromedia as they bring this legal action against Adobe. In some respects, yeah, cool. But you have to remember one thing: corporations who use patents to secure a foothold on a technology/idea/whatever, are not champions of open source ideals. Macromedia is just as evil as Adobe when it comes to corporate principles, so don't look at them as taking justice for what Adobe has done in the past. They'd just as soon slap the little guy around with the DMCA as Adobe would.
Why bother.
Even if we accept that a small handful of individuals were willing to innovate (accepting all the costs that come with it) without IP, this does not make IP any less necessary. Besides the fact that they can STILL invent even with the existence of IP, they are a minority. Most individuals need IP if they are to quit their jobs, spend their savings, and years of their life towards such pursuits. This is especially true of companies. There is no comparison between the amount of time/resources spent on innovation today versus that of before reasonably-strong IP protections.
Give em what for, Macromedia. Destroy each other. Adobe is quite replacable by open source counterparts, and.. Well.. The only thing I'll miss about Macromedia are those funny anti bin Laden animations everyone makes.
Are you nuts, man!?!?! I might agree that there are open source web authoring alternatives to Adobe products, but the GIMP is no replacement for Photoshop. Where are the open source versions of InDesign, Illustrator, AfterEffects and Type Manager? They don't exist in any professional capacity. Sure, there Scribus and Killustrator, but those apps are mere toys compared to their commercial brethren.Where are the open source versions of Flash and Director? Again, they don't exist.
Linux and related open source projects are very important. Don't get me wrong, but until there are commercial quality publishing, illustration, vector animation and image editing apps (that at least have rudimentary support for CMYK color!), Adobe and Macromedia will be the leaders in design and multimedia software development.
Pooty tweet
But what if I don't want to use it professionally yet? Say I'm in school and someday want to be a graphic artist. I can't "pony up" $1000 to pay for Photoshop right now. However, I would be willing to pay $60 or so for a student license to the software (which is what a lot of other expensive packages offer).
Your analogy to snap-on is inaccurate as well, because a home user can buy a decent set of lifetime-warranty tools for like $100 rather than be forced to spend $10000 on the same set of snap-on tools. To the home user, this toolset will have the exact same functionality. The only benefit snap-on offers is their service guarantees, which the average home user does not need.
AFAIK, there isn't a product that offers the exact same functionality of Photoshop for less than 1/10 of the price.