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Microsoft Seeks Patent On Virtual Desktop Pager
ihabawad writes "Microsoft has a patent on file for this really cool new technology called 'virtual desktops' where you see a 'pager' on the screen. Read all about it by searching under "Published Applications" for patent #20030189597 at the US Patent and Trademark Office. You know, I had a dream that I was using such a thing once; what was it called? -- yes, FvwmPager! Weird, eh?"
It's crap, but it does provide the same functionality
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Wasn't there also something like "wintop" in some NT3.51 resource kit, in addition to Fvwm pager (and possbily some others)?
Those of you who don't want to search for the document, this is the direct URL:
1 =P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnu m.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='20030189597'.PGNR.&OS=DN/2 0030189597&RS=DN/20030189597
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect
It took ages to find it... *sigh*
-huha
I'm willing to admit that I'm old enough to remember (and use) vtwm, or Virtual Tom's Window Manager. A version of the venerable twm that added virtual desktops.
This was circa 1990, even before fvwm. I think xrooms was earlier still.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
This is available in XP as a power toy.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/
Works fine I guess... never really got used to it myself.
They have *applied* for this patent, so they don't actually have it yet. The poster needs to read a bit more before frothing at the mouth.
This means that the USPTO could still be contacted and instances of prior art be submitted.
Doesn't make it that much better, but at least make sure you're ranting about the right thing.
(Gets out Soapbox) So why don't we give the USPTO and Congress a good old fashioned snail mail slashdotting and try to convince them that while software copyrights on source code is fine, that software patents are patently stupid.
C'mon - who's with me? Anyone want to step up and coordinate this effort?
Let's write letters and Slashdot the USPTO! And the US Senate! And The House! Here's the USPTO Mailing address -
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
USPTO Contact Center (UCC)
Crystal Plaza 3, Room 2C02
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450
http://www.senate.gov for finding your state's senator. http://www.house.gov for finding your district's representative.
Another poorly-chosen article title. To most people, this is a "pager". And here is a link to the actual patent application, rather than a generic link to the patent office.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
yay for replying to myself!
from uspto's website:
A protest under 37 CFR 1.291(a) must be submitted in writing, must specifically identify the application to which the protest is directed by application number or serial number and filing date, and must include a listing of all patents, publications, or other information relied on; a concise explanation of the relevance of each listed item; an English language translation of all relevant parts of any non-English language document; and be accompanied by a copy of each patent, publication, or other document relied on. Protestors are encouraged to use form PTO-1449 "Information Disclosure Statement" (or an equivalent form) when preparing a protest under 37 CFR 1.291, especially the listing enumerated under 37 CFR 1.291(b)(1). See MPEP 609. In addition, the protest and any accompanying papers must either (1) reflect that a copy of the same has been served upon the applicant or upon the applicant's attorney or agent of record; or (2) be filed with the Office in duplicate in the event service is not possible.
who wants to do it?!
Here is the link to the Patent Protest Document.
Why do idiots (or astroturfing trolls) always say this and why do other idiots mod them up? Microsoft most certainly does go after people using patents. Just ask the author of VirtualDub
Just because most of these never make it to court is hardly an excuse either. Honestly, how many open source developers do you think could afford to face Microsofts high-paid lawyers in a patent case?
Ah, but you don't understand. MS's patent uses xml! That's makes it sufficiently different from all previous desktop pagers.:)
Funny but also (sadly?) true. With the provervial disclaimer IAMAL, but I have worked in R&D labs where were were regularly briefed by the lawyers and harvested for ideas, to be patentable, an idea does not have to be a completely new product area, it just needs to be a way of doing something. So if one step in a process is novel, you can try to patent it. This means, of course, that someone can come around with a different process to do the same thing and they can also try to patent it. In the realm of software, business processes etc. this means that some dubious sounding things can get through - but it also means that there are often work arounds e.g. if one click shopping is patented, add a second step.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
Using pat2pdf, I got a PDF of the whole document including the images. If anyone has a place to host this, I'll email it to them.
Some of the illustrations show a gnome display right down to the foot. What Microsoft seems to be trying to claim is...
1) When you preview, then entire screen is filed with tiled preview images large enough so you can really see what is in each window.
2) The mini-images on the toolbar have the same background properties as the full-scale window.
Not the most innovative patent in the world, but not a slimy attempt to patent the work of others either.
I wasn't, but it didn't matter. From what I understand of the "Full-Screen preview" (since I used to do this on XP until i decided it was complete crap) was built into their multi-virtual-desktop powertoy. Anyway, with the powertoy you can have 4 desktops (no more, no less), and when you add the switch buttons to the taskbar, you can click on 1, 2, 3, 4, O - where that O represents the full-screen preview button. What would happen is that the screen would be split into 4 and you would see the applications as they currently are (and if some of them changed while you were on another screen). You'd see everything - kinda cool and all, but not really very practical. I'd prefer to click both buttons and then find the app that I'm looking for that way instead of getting a full-screen mode of all 6 of my virtual screens.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
Just my 2 cents.
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
Reviewing patent applications to assess if they comply with the basic format, rules and legal requirements, determining the scope of the protection claimed by the inventor, researching relevant technologies to compare similar prior inventions with the invention claimed in the patent applications, and communicating the examiner's findings to patent practitioners/inventors with reasons on the patent ability of applicant's inventions.
Patent Examiners are responsible for the quality, productivity, and timely processing of patent applications, which is the basis of their performance evaluation.
See the actual posting HERE
I'm not trying to be glib, and I know one person cannot change the world, but with all of the unemployed /.'ers out there, one of you could take a leap and actually apply for this position.
Let us know how it goes.
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this is a patent application, not an actual patent. All patents filed after the near end of 2000 are pubished 18 months after they were filed. This is a good thing, as examiners can now search this database of prior art, which is substantially larger than the current USPTO patent database.
As this is only an application, it does not have patent protection.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
The Borland C compiler for Windows 3.1 shipped with a pager in the early 1990's. It was called "amish desktop" if memory serves. That was over 10 years ago. Talk about prior art!
Here's staright link to the pdf: http://www.pat2pdf.com/20030189597.pdf
And this is what it says about these figures in patent application:
[0013] FIG. 1A is a pictorial diagram illustrating a desktop of a graphical user interface according to the prior art.
[0014] FIG. 1B is a pictorial diagram illustrating one implementation of a panel containing a desk guide used to switch among multiple virtual desktops according to the prior art.
[0015] FIG. 1C is a pictorial diagram illustrating another implementation of a panel containing a desk guide used to switch among multiple virtual desktops according to the prior art.
MS clearly states that there is prior art, which makes me think that they aren't patenting desktop pagers but some kind of enhancement to it. (I only had a quick glance at the patent)
#50 How does one file protest on patents that are pending?
Protests by a member of the public against pending applications will be referred to the examiner having charge of the subject matter involved. A protest specifically identifying the application to which the protest is directed will be entered in the application file if: (1) The protest is submitted prior to the publication of the application or the mailing of a notice of allowance under rule 1.311, whichever occurs first; and (2) The protest is either served upon the applicant in accordance with rule 1.248, or filed with the Office in duplicate in the event service is not possible. For more detailed information on protesting a patent, you may visit our Web site at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/mpep.htm for the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Chapter 1900.
no joke
I work as an examiner.
The claims presented in this application will likely be signifigantly different if it becomes allowed.
Examiners usually have 10-40 hours based on paygrade to fully examine a case. Keep in mind experts don't need as much time to search, and unless you have a proper legal background to understand the metes and bounds, you may not realize how narrow or broad the claims actually are.
I can not comment on office policy, or validity of the claims for this, or any other patent application.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
They're not actually trying to patent virtual desktops, they're trying to patent a pager with a preview of each desktop. You know, kind of like Gnome has (and probably KDE as well; can't remember).
No, they're not - they're actually showing the Gnome pager as prior art (Figure 1c). You have to go up to Figure 5 to see what they're actually claiming: a method to preview your virtual desktops on the entire display. So you'd click a button on your pager to get, say, all your 2x2 desktops displayed simultaneously at half size. The undeniable advantage is that at half-size you'll see a lot more detail than at pager (say, 1/16) size.
If anyone knows of prior art specifically relating to this kind of preview, please *do* contact the patent office. This isn't going to be so easy to defeat as some here are spouting off without bothering to look at the blasted thing. Give the MS-lawyers some credit - they may be evil, but stupid they're not.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
I think there is a key difference between the KDE, Gnome implementations, Bigdesk for windows etc. and this patent.
Reading the patent document, the key point is that the users hits a key and all the desktops are scaled within the window using animation. So if I have a 3 x 3 virtual desktop and hit the desktop view button, my screen is shrunk to (say) the top left 9th of the screen and 8 other mini desktops become visible. If I select another desktop it zooms towards me filling the screen. They make a number of references to background images and I guess animating 9 different background images for the demo above would look very cool.
I haven't seen this implemented before. The nearest is Mac OS X.3 which allows all application windows to be minimised and switched between, I use it a lot and it is excellent, particularly if you have a number of quicktime movies or similar playing. As I recall, Apple patented this and I think this is Microsoft's answer
It can make miniture pictures of all your apps and you can rearrange them, etc.
Checkout my desktop screenshot Note: this is my desktop on 2.21.03 almost exactly a year ago. And I've run E for at least 5 years.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Appendix A of this document has some Usenet postings from over a decade ago discussing who came up with the concept of Virtual Desktops.
It looks like the first virtual window manager for X was developed sometime between 1988 and 1990
I often see the posts on /. generally stating that there ought to be a procedure for the public to raise issues of prior art before the USPTO grants a patent. Well, guess what? there is such a procedure. And it is very very simple.
/. why not do something to help the USPTO do a better job?
... set ... go!
37 C.F.R. 1.291 gives members of the public the right to protest a pending application by simply advising the patent office of any reason why a patent should not issue, including prior art. The essential aspects of this are that you must (a)correctly identify the application; (b)provide a concise explanation of the reason for the protest; and (c)provide a copy of the prior art your protest relies on.
So, rather that the usual pablovian reflex of ranting about this stuff on
Ready
In other words, the same exact pager that Enlightenment has had since the nineties. Lesson to be learned: in a patent-crazy society, patent defensively.
Not really. It's kind of like if the Enlightenment pager had Expose functionality. You hit a key, the pager scales to full screen, you pick a desktop.
What's interesting is that the patent application predates Expose by a few years.
Patent Application
The link above points to a patent submission by Bret Anderson (aka MrJukes) on behalf of Microsoft for a Virtual Desktop Manager. Here's a relevent blurb from the patent application itself...
"...each pane containing a scaled virtual desktop having dimensions that are proportionally less than the dimensions of a corresponding full-size virtual desktop, each scaled virtual desktop being displayed with one or more scaled application windows if the corresponding full-size virtual desktop has one or more corresponding application windows that are active."
The patent application was file on April 5, 2002. MrJukes and I have both been writing and writing applications for replacement shells for many years. In 1997/1998, i wrote a shell called Dimension. One of its components that eventually was released by itself (in 1998) was DVWM. It was downloadable from my website between 1998-2002. Below is a link to lokai.net's download page from 2001 (the best i could get via archive.org). Bret Anderson had clear knowledge that this patent application contains prior art. I was definately not the first person to do something like this either.
VWM's and VDM's have been around for a very long time. Enlightement's Pager/VWM/VDM did this at the time as well, however at that point in time, while giving mini-views of the windows on a given desktop, it did not provide a 1-to-1 mini-view like DVWM did to my knowledge (please correct me if i'm wrong).
I believe this to be a pretty low point. A former shell developer lands a job at Microsoft and patents ideas obtained from the shell community and/or elsewhere in free software. I don't know if idea theft is illegal since i didn't patent it myself, but i'm just disgusted that this has happened.
Here's the archive.org view of lokai.net's downloads. You can download the version of DVWM that was hosted at the time which does all the things i describe.
Archive.org view of Lokai.net in 2002
Here is a screenshot of DVWM from 2001.
DVWM Gif
Here is the source to DVWM from 2001.
DVWM Source
Here is DVWM 1.02 in case archive.org fails to work for you.
DVWM Zip
Here is the skinnables.org orphanware page showing DVWM.
Skinnables Orphanware
I'm currently exploring my options to see what if anything i can do about this. I find it to be just flat out wrong. It should be noted that not all things that are wrong are necessarily illegal, but i'll see what i can do.