Slashdot Mirror


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."

3 of 559 comments (clear)

  1. Ridiculous. by hateddamntruth · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I can't believe the USPTO can be so ignorant considering all the prior art. This patent thing is getting really bad and spectacularly stupid.

    Moves like these are only detrimental to society and nothing else. Instead of promoting development, they only foster stagnation and work against the common man which is simply spectacularly stupid.

  2. Re:RTFA (as usual) by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    "Of course, it was absolutely GENIOUS to do this as opposed to, say, making a folder called "pre-delete" and just doing a mv file /pre-delete . Somebody has to spell it out and alias that command to rm for them..."

    Wouldn't a 'pre-deleted' file be one that isn't deleted?

  3. Re:How could they do this?? by Mr.+Sane · · Score: 0, Redundant
    I would expect people would be able to make a point without resorting to insults and flames.

    Regardless, Any release of information (regardless of sale or otherwise) made available to the public is considered in the public domain. This term has been in use long before your posted definition and refers to any published information (i.e. patents, books, software).

    "Information that is published and which is generally accessible or available to the public" Definition