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Another Garbage Patent
*no comment* writes "Literally "garbage patent" that is, Apple was rewarded a patent for the "Garbage" icon in Mac OS X. The patent documents can be found at the USPTO by clicking here. More on this and other Apple patents are in this article over at the macobserver."
Does microsoft have a patent on the "Recycle Bin" icon??
This is repeated every single time Apple behaves like a corporation (since that's what it is) instead of a lovable gang of fashionable geeks. Yet Microsoft is evil when they do things like these, but Apple is just... well, being Apple.
And BTW, why didn't the SNORT hole make it to the /. front page? Two serious vulnerabilities in one week too much for the frail ego? God forbid IE develops yet another hole that changes my wallpaper at the behest of evil hackers in Lithuania. I'd be reading about it for the next five weeks.
Flamebait and offtopic. We aim to please.
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.com
thats cures that....
http://www.englishfirst.org
I can understand their wanting to protect their company's image, but the image of their trash can? Don't you think that's going a bit too far?
It doesn't matter if Apple is a favorite company of mine. I love Apple like I love my iBook but thais patent business is ridiculouslly out of control. The worst case of how bad this patent business has gotten are the companies that search out for patents and sue people to add to their bottom line.
Pangea IP activelly seeks out ecommerce firms and sues them because PanIP has a vaguelly worded patent that is letting them settle with small ecommerce firms for thousands of dollars a year. Patents like PanIP means if you create a candy store online, you can potentially get sued. Check out the Anti PanIP Fight Back Crew to see how serious one patent can be.
What really needs to be stopped is the Patent Office from issuing another ridiculous patent. OS and interface patents are hurting human-machine interactions because people have to bend over backward now to avoid patents. As a webdesigner, I really hope I'm not liabel for some sort of design I implement sheerly because some idiot has a Patent application on my design. I hope congress can frigging pay attention to this problem and how serious it is.
I like to suggest a more dramatic Slashdot icon for 'patents'...
the current does not look enough like "suppressing and bonding of the small programmer"! Thats how I, as a independend programmer, feel the effect of patents.
Mark
I'm starting to agree with the people who say patents are bad in general. This is utter idiocy.
In this particular case, though, I don't know what extra protection does a patent give them. That icon (as designed) is or can be already protected by copyright, I assume, which lasts, let me see, forever.
What's the point of getting these design patents? Or, even better, what is the point of awarding ornamental design patents, other than a source of funding for the USPTO?
The US Patent Office has a page on "What can be Patented"
Some interesting excerpts for those to lazy to click through:
"...any person who 'invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,' subject to the conditions and requirements of the law."
The patent law specifies that the subject matter must be "useful."
"... patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc..."
I dont think a trashcan icon fits that.
It's not used to identify someone for purposes of trade, though. The name of a company, or images used to represent a specific company (logos or mascots) may be trademarks.
But the Apple Wastebasket isn't used as an identifier in any commercial situation- it represents neither a saleable product, nor anyone who can sell a product.
Also, trademark infringement only occurs if you duplicate the image for "trade". Thus most trademarked images are also copyrighted. That's why Disney was worried about Mickey Mouse's copyright expiring- that would've allowed people to duplicate their corporate logo, as long as it wasn't used to identify a company or product.
(That's also related to how Apple was able to get the trademark "Apple", even though there already was a company of that name. But their products didn't overlap at all...)
It depends... does the patent cover the specific pattern of pixels Apple uses, or does it cover the concept of a trashcan icon?
Not being a patent lawyer, I don't have any idea.. but Apple has had a trashcan icon for what, 20 years now, and just now decided they needed a patent on it? Is that legit? Especially considering there's been a trashcan icon in KDE for a while now... can the estate of the Wright brothers apply for a patent on `device for airborne transportation' next week?
Also, does this patent cover the `dumpster' icon on my Irix desktop?
If the patent is actually just on the specific pixel pattern Apple uses for an icon, why didn't they just copyright the image? Kind of like Nintendo did with their logo (in order to boot, a Game Boy Advance ROM must contain a Nintendo logo.. the exact bit pattern must be present.. but since the logo is copyrighted, you can't legally distribute homebrew GBA games containing it)
Things like Instant Messaging and weighted search results are of such obviously high usefulness that they would be invented, regardless of the inventor thinking he would be able to get patent protection.
In fact, your very example has disproved you, for ICQ very willingly invented and published "Instant Messenging" techniques without any protection, and there were many immediate copies (AOL, Microsoft, and others). Yet, even knowing they had no way to prevent clones, Mirabilis still went ahead and created the field.
We had to write a unix shell script that replaced the rm command with one that moved the files to a .garbage directory. We also had to write an 'erase' script that removed thise files from the .garbage. Everybody in my undergrad CIS course had to write this, and it is only a few lines long. That pretty much proves the 'obviousness' of this stupid patent.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
You're right. Microsoft has it upside down. I've always kept my taskbar at the top (and auto-hidden) because it just makes more sense that way. I mean, most everything you do within most programs is at the top of the screen, e.g. File, Edit, View,...
Say I OWN a trash can that looks like the one Apple uses.
I take a digital photo of it in a similar position and use it as an icon in a theme I use for my new Linux distro.
Am I legally screwed, or does it have to be a perfect duplicate?
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
I agree completely!
...
I always found this aspect of macs... rather... disturbing. (always hated them, too.)
I recently got my first mac (Titanium PowerBook) and i just use the eject button on my keyboard (F12).
Or i rightclick on a CD/etc and select eject. Works for disconnecting from network shares, too.
This dragging shit into the trash is for deleting. I don't CARE if it changes into an eject icon. It was still a trash icon before i began dragging
D.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
This may be a design patent; however according to this, "a design which simulates a well known, or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute."
I think a trash can might be a well known object.
Yeah but the Apple menu bar didn't have application buttons; i.e. all you could do on a mac was roll up the windows.
If I recall correctly, didn't they either trademark, or patent the label on the icon already. Which is why windows says "recycle bin" instead, and why it is locked as recycle bin and to change it you need to edit the registry. I might be wrong on that one, since the source was my highschool computers teacher, but it seems plausible, especially now.
"I am the Flail of God!" -Genghis Kahn
Um... if it's just a patent on the image of a trash can, how that is anything but a frivilous patent?
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
The other way of looking at this is that it should be at the bottom because the file menu etc are at the top. One of the fairly standard ui standards is that the screen should be balanced - i.e. roughly equal numbers of 'bars' at the top and bottom, so that the display window is in the middle of the screen.
Or perhaps they are aware that patent law is supposed to prevent design patents being given out for pictures of everyday objects?
Hems, Taco, crisd et al - GET A CLUE.
Quite.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well the idea is that the mouse stays near the top. In general you don't access the windows start bar anywhere near as often as you access the toolbar and file menu. ;)
This is why the status bar is at the bottom - since your mouse should rarely have to go down there.
One GUI 'expert' said that the start menu is in the bottom right hand corner because in general the mouse will be quite far away from it, and so you can just shoot the mouse down as far as it goes and click. This works in most enviroments - gnome(panel), kde (kicker), fvwm.. but not the newest windows (tut tut).
Reminds me of this Doonesbury strip from 1995. The whole week is pretty funny.