Will Flash Be Taken Off The Shelf?

bugninja writes "According to an article at News.com, Adobe wins 2.8M from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash. But this isn't the end, further legal battles could require that Flash be removed from Macromedia's list of "products for sale". We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?" Update: 05/03 13:29 GMT by J : Speaking of Flash, yesterday eEye discovered a very serious security hole in the version of Flash distributed with most copies of Windows. Go download the fixed release.

Comments

Re:Patents: Defend them or lose them. --- Bzzzt!

[ClarkEvans]

. A key part of having a patent is defending it. If Adobe fails to defend their patents, they'll lose them.

Bzzzt. Try again. This is true for Trademarks but not Patents or Copyright.

Not All Tabbed Palettes�

[deharlow]

From Adobe's FAQ at http://www.adobe.com/adobefacts/faq.html#Q11 they are not claiming to have a patent on all tabbed palettes but only on those that can be customized, separated, and reorganized by users. Also for all those who say Adobe is claiming a patent in tabs in general check out Question 17 on the FAQ. Lastly check out the pictures that Adobe has on the site showing the problems...I bet the court took on look at those and had a lot of questions. Daniel BTW Now whether this patent should have been issued is a whole different matter and I am sure that others will cover it.

Re:patented 'tabbed palettes'?

[Twylite]

There is a tendency, especially in the OSS/FSF world, to under-estimate the significance of innovations in software. While I am largely against the current patent system, my dislikes for it revolve around the duration of patents, and the inability of clerks to apply or monitor the requirements for innovation.

You consider "tabbed palettes" ludicrous. With the benefit of hindsight, I can hardly disagree ... but were they innovative at the time, before world + dog started using them?

Maybe a better example (unpatented, fortunately): toolbars. Would those be patentable? Are they (were they) innovative? We managed to get through over 20 years of GUI use without the widespread use of toolbars. Anyone know when they first appeared?

Assuming a windowed environment, the use of a title bar with some system buttons can be considered obvious: that has been around since the beginning. But the idioms by which we further break down interfaces and make them accessible are developed over time. Which necessarily implies that there is room for innovation: doing something which is NEW, and not just a variation of what has been done before. And that is patentable.

So we're left with two questions: should such innovation be patentable; and are tabbed palettes new or a variation?

I assert that GUI innovations SHOULD be patentable (although I'd like to see a much shorter duration on all software-related patents). There are individuals and companies which spend a lot of time, effort and money researching GUI concepts, improving ease of use, and generally developing idioms which gives their software an edge ... but then have that idea reused by others in less than a couple of months, because the development cycle is shorter than the research cycle.

From Adobe's site:

Q11: Tabbed palettes are fairly common throughout software applications and operating systems -- what makes Adobe's palettes special and patentable? A: Like Velcro® and Post-It® notes, the very best inventions become so familiar that they are taken for granted. The fact that tabbed palettes seem so natural and common now is a testimony to the Adobe development effort that went into the invention. Adobe's patent describes a unique method that allows tabs within palettes to be customized, separated and reorganized by users. This invention was a significant leap forward for customers' productivity and personalization of the interface.

As for tabbed palettes ... this is a more difficult one. But first you need to understand the patent. This is not just about a tool dialog with a tab panel in it! The patent is available from Adobe's site, and a set of animations illustrate the infringment.

As you can see ... this patent is about multiple tool dialogs (palettes) which dock together to form tabbed panels within a single dialog. Suddenly the idea is not so obvious anymore. Dockable components which overlap to save space ...? That's not a universal GUI concept; showing and hiding tool windows or popping up dialogs in a stack is a traditional means to handle this problem. Arguably Adobe DID innovate in this instance.

Already been done

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

It's happened already, ask Google about it.

The result was that MS said "well if you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you- drop this or we'll
stop making Office for Macintosh."

Apple bowed under the pressure, and nothing really was made of it.