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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."
Is I'm looking at a Slashdot ad of Xerox.
fp
their own company symbol for trash now.
Patent the "Start" button!! QUICK QUICK before Jeff Bezos comes out of the woodwork!! :)
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Design patents aren't that big of a deal. If I designed a toaster, I'd get a design patent on *my* toaster so nobody else can call it their own. And no, I can't collect royalties or sue everyone that makes toast. It's different from a trademark, but IANAL so I'm not sure of the differences.
Ever see those infomercials where they start off with "our new, innovative, *patented* design..." Well, odds are they've got a design patent.
Well, RedHat or Google DIDN'T do it, so lets see it's the 3rd phase of the second moon(you know the invisible one) and a Tuesday. So we hate Apple, or is that hate Spam. I dunno it has something to do with food. Anyway, It's only karma what the hell
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
This was probably done in collusion with Children's Television Workshop (CTW) so that they can prevent someone from making an OS X version of "The Grouch", one of the greatest MacOS hacks ever.
It was great. Empty the trash, and Oscar the Grouch would come out of the trashcan singing. Then CTW sued the the muppety pants off the author and it pretty much disappeard.
Share and Enjoy!
There is this possibility: countless children twist it into a legal reason for not having to take the garbage out.
...
All your icons are belong to us...
What I can't wait for is when Apple patents the space character in file names. Whew! Imagine the royalties on the "Program Files" (c:\Progra~1 to 8.3 folks out there) folder.
This just in: Apple patents the technique of "double-click launching" to launch applications visually.
If not I'm making one right now!!!
Check my .sig soon to know when its available for download.
Although I hate hearing about google, red hat, apple, etc. owning some common detail such as Instant Messaging; one needs to keep in mind that these patents are often the only incentive-protecting mechanism that are available to companies.
If companies couldn't get a patent for something it would be much harder for them to profit and thus they wouldn't develop items/technology as quickly or at all.
To offset this "monopoly" that is legally created, patents have expiration dates. For example: Tylenol(acetaminophen) once cost 'too much' but once it's patent ran out other companies rushed in and the price dropped significantly.
Paying that higher price for some feature on a laptop sucks but would you rather not be able to buy a laptop because no one wanted to produce/invent it?
--Thei Antispamist A useless endevor that will cer
ANd I still say we should boycott the idea of "Software Patents" in general.
Intellectual property, in limit, should be patentable. The original idea was to provide governmental protection for inventors given they FULLY PUBLISH the idea set forth in the patent if and only if that "object" is non-intuitive.
What's turned out is software patents patenting damn near everything in sight. Who cares if it's new or not. These days, making software is becoming a legal minefield, and the USPTO isnt helping (dump dump dump). Even the process of playing a DVD you own can violate 10's of patents. That's why MPlayer is off the US shore.
So, I'm not against intelluctal property, but am against software patents until the UPSTO starts heavily regulating those types. Until then, I say we should violate EVERY software patent we can find until the rules are changed.
Keep this in mind before flaming anyone.
irb(main):001:0>
...this is a Design Patent. This means that it offers protection to a very specific, usually decorative design. There are no text claims, just drawings. Design patents are often used for things like cellphone cases, as each manufacturer tries to lock up distinctive visual fefatures to differentiate otherwise similar items. They are also found in the food industry -- novelty shapes for pasta and breakfast cereal are often protected this way. So, realistically, this is not some huge, evil attempt to patent the very idea of a garbage can icon.
As I loaded the front page and saw the Apple patent (patents are bad, remember?) there was a plain-text ad at the top that linked to:
c omd ex.h tme q_se arch.asp
http://www.invention.com
http://www.litmanlaw.
http://www.gilmanresearch.com/pages/944483/in
http://www.isc-online.com/forms/inventorinfor
http://www.qualitypatent.com
How low can you go!
Steve Jobs: We need to file some more patents quickly. My stock options are dropping.
Terrified Employee: Well sir...umm...(looks around room) how about our round corners?
Jobs: Already in heavy use. You're fired
Employee 2: How about the idea of color coding computers to go with your decor?
Jobs: Nah, we already cornered the artist market. You're fired.
Employee 3: Well....how about this (picks up trash can)
Jobs: Brilliant! Get a picture of that to the Patent office as soon as possible.
Design patents are offered for those marks in which companies have proprietary rights. Because Apple won't be using the Garbage Icon as an indication of goodwill , it wouldn't qualify for Trademark status.
All in all this is much ado about nothing.
Will the crowd spew a diatribe against intellectual property in general
How about just a diatribe against the patent office. Did you actually take the time to look at the patent? Probably not. Here, I'll save you the trouble.
The ornamental design for a user interface for computer display, as shown and described.
That's it. And a picture of a trash can, which the patent office would be happy to sell you a copy of. This is an invention? If this is an "invention", then I think I can literally patent my ass. Why not? By this precedent, I should be able to send them a picture of my ass, with the claim "The design for a sitting device as shown and described."
Furthermore, if you really want to piss & moan about how everyone would jump on MS for doing something this underhanded then you may want to check this one out: Utility (not Design) patent 5,757,371 Taskbar with start menu from (you guessed it) MS.
Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the
The Icon itself has Copyright to protect it (-Diety- knows that Apple sure protects their little widgets and pictures fervently).
The Patent on the concept of the "Trash Can" in an O.S. is what is ridiculous.
The USPTO defines "design patents" here.
For ADHD slashdotters:
A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture...
In general terms, a "utility patent" protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a "design patent" protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171)...
Clearly a design that simulates a well-known or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute. Furthermore, subject matter that could be considered offensive to any race, religion, sex, ethnic group, or nationality is not proper subject matter for a design patent application (35 U.S.C. 171 and 37 CFR 1.3).
According to the PTO web site:
So, it doesn't cover any functionality. In fact, if the design relates closely to functionaly, then that weakens the patent. In this case, I'd say the design of the garbage can icon pretty precisely relates to the functionalty of throwing away files.
With this in mind, it seems that it's probably a pretty toothless patent. Don't lose any sleep over it.
There will be a point when the whole system will have to be scrapped or totally overhauled. More such "garbage" patents will bring this day closer. I can't wait.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Thomson's brainless analysis was posted on February 20th in the Financial Post. As for the analysis itself:
1) Revenue fell from a year earlier. Making Apple the only computer company to have been hit by the sagging economy.
2) ... the same time Apple's sales were falling, PC sales rose. This tells us nothing about Apple's performance in comparison with competing companies. It only reveals Apple's performance vs. the aggregate of all competing companies. This includes not only Dell, Gateway, and HP, but also Bob's Cheep Komputer Shack. Such comparisons don't tell us whether the overal PC sales growth was fueled by one or two companies or was solid across the board (which it wasn't).
3) ... there aren't any new iMacs in Apple's future. I'll reread that statement and laugh when the next iMac (or the next consumer Mac, whatever it's called) ships. Does this crystal ball have a "reset" button?
4) ...has recently undergone a restructuring and is slowly fading into nothingness. I'm not sure what restructuring he's referring to here, but I'm also not sure how restructuring equals a slow fade to nothingness. Restructuring happens all the time in large organizations, and it can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how and why it is implemented. As to nothingness, why are there so many new O'Reilly books about OS X, so much interest in Apple on Slashdot (vs. 3 years ago), and so many positive reviews of Apple products in publications that include PC Magazine and InfoWorld?
As a final point, Apple, like any large company, engages in intellectual property development and protection as a matter of habit. It's not as if someone at Apple says, "Oh, shit! We'd better get off our asses and come up with a design patent on the trashcan!" The process can take *years* to implement, and at any given time, I'm sure Apple, like any other computer hardware/software company, is pursuing dozens of claims.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I don't see a single post defending this obviously frivolous patent, or Apple for filing it
Oh, for crying out loud..
It's a design patent, not a utility patent. Go learn the difference before you call it frivolous.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The best part about this is that after the patent expires, EVERYONE can use their garbage can icon.
Heh.
Education is the silver bullet.
The real reason to patent the garbage can picture is to keep slashdot from choosing to use it to refer to macos in the future instead of the shiny silver apple.
The problem with software patents is lack of code disclosure. If the patent judges could compare line-by-line a MS .asp page feature with a php/apache page, they would laugh most of this stuff out of court. Unfortunately, they can't force them to include the patented code, because code is also protected under copyright and trade secret. The patent office is allowing a "black box" style patent--without even proof of a working system. They used to require detailed specs and proof of actual working devices. Now companies like Rambus can draw some pretty pictures and then prosecute the people who actually spend time and resources building the thing. This goes aginst 200 years of precedent!
That alone should be enough to get these thrown out, but patents don't work that way. They are assumed to be sacred, holy, creative genius by the courts until someone spends the time and money to strike each one down. Our wonderfull legal system doesn't allow the courts to "see" what goes on in the real world, only what comes into court--they can't even overturn bad Laws until someone's hanged for breaking it!
Am I the only one who thinks that dumping floppies into trash should REFORMAT instead of EJECTING?:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Consulting the chart, it seems that today, we hate... stupid generalizations. Oh, crap! :)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
You'd think the Northern California latte liberals at Apple would care more about their environment than Microsoft folks do, but that isn't the case. While Apple's filling up our landfills with garbage bits, Microsoft recycles them so they can be used again.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... Can we all get the stupid trash can off our desktops now? Honestly, does anyone leave it on and actually go rescue things from it? When I click delete, I want the file deleted, not moved somewhere to be found by a nosy roomate or something.
Just because something is cute doesn't mean it needs to be in gnome/kde/windows/apple/gem/whatever desktop.
When people first encounter lack of trash on a unix box, they come running to the sysadmin, who tells them "You cannot undelete files, there gone there gone."
Data isnt something to be hap-hazardly pushed about and retrieved from garbage cans. Back it up, keep track of it if its important. Trash cans encourage a lax attitude toward work habits on the computer.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" - George Orwell
You do that. I'll find a way to get cigarettes and Playboys to you for as many years as they get you for, too...
Not a popular opinion on this site but it's against the law and breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how wrong you feel the law is. You'd better be damn sure they turn it over (like segregation, or slavery) if you go against it, and that they do it before you're caught. Even if the law is repealed, if you commit the crime while the law exists then you broke the law of the hour and are responsible for it.
Breaking patent and copyright law is thrown around much too trivially these days. While bad laws (horribly bad ones), they are as much laws as is fraud and larceny. Most people aren't caught, but the ones that are are hung by their toenails for years before they pull them out.
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.
These are patents on ornamental designs. This is fairly typical, and is used to protect how thinks look.
Jewelery, etc, often has ornamental design patents on it.
As for laptop design patents,
"While a design patent may be issued for a utilitarian article, such a patent may be obtained only to the extent that the ornamental features dominate the functional features. To the extent to which a design is predominately utilitarian in nature, it is not protectable by a design patent in the United States. "
The only thing the patents prevent you from doing is making something that looks exactly like say, a powerbook g4, such that an ordinary observer might purchase the "fake" product thinking it was the patented product.
I wouldn't worry much about it, since the only protectable parts are the parts of say, the trash icon, not found in the prior art.
My guess is that a copyright only protects that particular set of pixels. Apple's (and other) desktops are rapidly gaining scaling and other functions, and the design patent probably allows them more flexibility with protecting the look of their trashcan. I mean, if MS were to implement an inverse vector algorithm or something they could probably argue that they didn't copy Apple's stuff, but they did copy the design. This protects that.
But hey, IANAL, so what do I know.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
You're basically talking about a utility patent, which is indeed the dominant kind. This is a design patent, there's a difference.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
For starters, this is a bit offtopic considering that this patent is a design patent and has absolutetly nothing to do with software.
Secondly, and more importantly, whats so evil about software patents?
I happen to hold a software patent for an idea that I'm currently marketing. If it werent for the patent I would have _NO CHANCE_ at making any money on my idea. As a result, I would have had no reason to spend the thousands of hours researching it. **THE IDEA WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT OF DAY**
It is completely unique and highly fuctional. How is this any different than designing a new device? If it has function and is unique it has function and is unique.
Why is the fact that its a patent on software make it evil?
OK, does anyone remember when Apple came out with the garbage can? I'll give you a hint: It was part of the whole package which signalled an entirely new era in computing.
That's significant. A new era! The beginning of something other than EVERYTHING that had proceeded it. (Yeah, Xerox notwithstanding. That's another story.) The garbage can WAS a completely different, new, and innovative idea.
Do they deserve a patent for it? Hmm. Tough call. Would I be as fair to Microsoft if they'd invented it? Tougher call--I've tried to be fair to MS when they do something creative or right, but it's been such a rare event that I can't promise unbiased commentary.
But as long as a general patent like this is legally valid, I'd say that this specific patent is valid. At the time, it was creative enough to change computing, and that's impressive.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Utility patents are for useful inventions. Machines that do things, methods for doing things, etc.
Copyrights are for original artistic works. BUT with regards to pictoral, sculptural, or graphic works, they must be non-functional.
Trademarks are for designs that indicate the source of a good or service used in commerce. Since the Trash isn't being used to identify products in commerce, it wouldn't qualify. The Apple logo would, OTOH.
Thus, a typeface is not copyrightable, because the letter shapes are arguably not sufficiently original, and are certainly graphic and functional, said function being to convey to people a particular letter.
Design patents apply to how things look, as opposed to how they function. There's some additional requirements (one relevant here being that the design might not be original enough)
Thus a typeface could receive a design patent, and basically they exist to fill in that gap in copyrights.
Of course, if you had a Banana Jr. computer that closely resembled the original Macintoshes, and Apple had a design patent on the case, then a design patent could serve a similar role to trademarks.
Note also that the types of protection that the various approaches convey can be significantly different.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
As patents get sillier, the jokes almost write themselves. I withdraw my joke on the grounds that it's just too easy.
Originally, the ability to eject disks by trashing them was a "hack" only intended for use internally. The UI designers did decide that it didn't make any sense and that being able to trash a mounted disk to eject it was wrong. So this feature was removed. The resulting annoyance of people who had gotten used to trashing disks to unmount them resulted in this feature getting put back in.
You could very easily get by using floppies without ever knowing that you could eject by trashing, however. As others have mentioned, "Eject Disk" (Command-E) was under the Special menu. "Put Away" (Command-Y) also worked, although the idea there is that something should be put back to where it came from. Usually you used "Put Away" for files.
So many cartoons represent garbage with crumpled papers and apple cores. It figures that a half-eaten Apple would end up associating itself with the trash. This is funny. I'll try to remember this for the next time some Apple-whacker starts telling me, as if I were utterly unaware of its very existence, of the inarguable superiority of his preferred platform. "Yes," I'll say, "Apple is so innovative, they even patented garbage. . . . No, it's not that it's an innovative technique, but it's that no one else would have ever thought of it. That's what makes it art. It's like the guy who patented silence, except more audacious."
I just downloaded the patent to my OS X desktop, and threw it in the garbage. It gave me a warm feeling.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Public Domain can mean openly available to everyone and not subject to copyright protection, or simply openly available to the public (i.e. for sale to the public).
You know, if every fuckwit in the world makes up definitions for commonly available words, english will get more fucked up than it already is.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Quoth Josh Crawley:
Until then, I say we should violate EVERY software patent we can find until the rules are changed.
ahknight responded:
Not a popular opinion on this site but it's against the law and breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how wrong you feel the law is.
Except that Josh Crawley is advocating something called "civil disobedience" -- something that is a time-honored tradition for getting unjust laws changed.
Burning one's draft cards was also "breaking the law" thirty-five years ago but there were enough of us who were willing to go to jail rather than participate in a war we considered unjust-- that we made a point that is still being heard today.
Taking in a runaway "Negro" slave was "breaking the law" a hundred and forty years ago but enough people believed strongly enough in their principles to do it anyway.
Dumping a shipload of tea into a harbor was "breaking the law" two hundred and thirty years ago, but... well, you get my point.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
---For starters, this is a bit offtopic considering that this patent is a design patent and has absolutetly nothing to do with software.
The patent itself is moot, because art is covered under COPYRIGHT LAW.
---Secondly, and more importantly, whats so evil about software patents?
I never said that. What's evil is a government organization is OK'ing patents on damn near every aspect of computing. They dont care if it has prior art or not. If we had a decent system where all patents were checked for consistency and prior art, we wouldnt be in this situation.
---I happen to hold a software patent for an idea that I'm currently marketing. If it werent for the patent I would have _NO CHANCE_ at making any money on my idea. As a result, I would have had no reason to spend the thousands of hours researching it. **THE IDEA WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT OF DAY**
You have to do that, as well as everybody else. Still the point is that the software patent sector is crumbling under its own weight, and rapidly.
---It is completely unique and highly fuctional. How is this any different than designing a new device? If it has function and is unique it has function and is unique.
A device has a purpose and is physical. Software is simply equasions... math. SHould I be able to "patent" calculus, or the pythagorean theorem, or hell.... even addition? If anything, software patents should be limited to very complex equasions with source included. In that guarantee, they will have royalties delivered to whomever uses that source. Also, a very limited patent time should also be given. Personally, no more than 5 Years.
---Why is the fact that its a patent on software make it evil?
It's the corruption already in the system. Not the patent itself.
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"
Some reasons software patents are evil are:
- regular patents protect one specific thing, software patents protect one tiny piece of a large puzzel. So a single program most of the time infringes on a large number of patents, making licensing not feasible (if you have to pay 5% of your revenue for every patent you use, you'll probably have to pay for each copy you sell).
- they don't protect small-time developers at all (except maybe against other small-time developers). If you find out that IBM or Microsoft violates your patent and you demand some retribution for that, they'll have a look at your program and probably find that you violate 30 patents of theirs. Of course, because they are such nice guys, they will probably allow you to keep using their patented stuff if they can use your 1 patent. So the protection you get is zero, and if they're not nice guy's you'll have to pay extra. The advantage of a small software developer is the speed at which he can follow changes of the market and do things, compared to the big, slow megacorporations.
- Programming not very unlike composing a symphony: just like you can't just take a couple of "musical techniques", throw them together and get something that sounds good, you can't take just a couple of (patented) cool software techniques, throw them together and get a killer app. It's the way you make those things work/sound together, the hours of debugging/refining that makes/breaks the result.
- Software patents are granted for the most stupid things, for tthe simple reason that if you take something already existing that is completely obvious, but do it in software, it is considered new (e.g. selling stuff in a store -> selling stuff via the Internet, keeping client records in a store -> keeping client records in an internet store,
...)
- there are so many software patents that pretty much every program in existence probably violates several patents. If you want to develop a program, sell it and make sure you don't violate any patent, you'll probably spend more time on lawyers to look at all available software patents than you'll ever make selling your program.
The bottom line is that software patents do not promote progress and inventions (which is the original goal of the patent system), but in fact retard it (since you should be scared to do something, knowing that you're probably violating at least one patent or another and that when someone who has such a patent finds you annoying enough, he'll either sue you to hell or force you to give him all "intellectual property" you got). See also this article.In the same spirit: Beethoven is considered a great composer that was very progressive for his time, i.e. he introduced a lot of "new" things in his music. Nevertheless, should there have been music patents in his time, he would have been unable to make any of his compositions, since although he was smart, he wasn't smart/good enough to reinvent the music from zero and still get something that sounds good. It's similar in software development: you may be a superprogrammer with great ideas, but no one is that good that he can reinvent software development from scratch. You're just bound to reuse ideas that others have had before (and lots of people have the same ideas at the same time, without knowing anything about eachother).
Donate free food here
"I happen to hold a software patent for an idea that I'm currently marketing. If it werent for the patent I would have _NO CHANCE_ at making any money on my idea. As a result, I would have had no reason to spend the thousands of hours researching it. **THE IDEA WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT OF DAY**"
Maybe YOU would not have brought the idea to see the light of day, but there is a high probability that somebody else would have done it if you didn't, and it is very likely somebody else already has done it before you but didn't patent it. Tell us what your patent number is, and we'll almost certainly be able to find somebody who already has a fully functioning product that implements what your patent does, and they did it without owning or having knowledge of the patent.
Over 99% of patented software would have been created anyway by the patent holder or somebody else if software patents didn't exist. Also, over 99% of software accidentally implements somebody else's patent. Even the techniques that are advanced and original enough to possibly deserve the patent they received, like RSA encryption and MP3 compression, have had equivalent alternative unpatented implementations created by others.
Plain and simple, there is almost no software out there that would not have been created by somebody if software patents didn't exist, but there is a lot that has been aborted or delayed because of the minefield of software patents that exists.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
The quote stands for any instance. Rejection of unjust law is one of the ways changes get made - and since there's little or no direct responsibility from lawmakers (a flaw in our system thats gotten worse over time), direct action is one of the few ways to make major changes.