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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?"
to the Patent Office! Because you just know they don't read slashdot.... if they did, they wouldn't approve half the patents they approve.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Someone at the patent office needs to wake up and smell the coffee. We are going to have a situation like the landrush on domain names as a few bottom feeders run off and patent every idea in the book, and if the past is any indication, the patent office will grant patents on whoever is the first to show up, regardless of prior developments or use.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
Microsoft reminds me of that kid who always has to be "reminded" of the rules whenever he plays a game with the other kids...
"No Billy, that's not your toy. That's FVWM's toy. Say you're sorry!"
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
... patents idea with lots of prior art.
News at 11.
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
I use a program called CodeTek Virtual Desktop for Mac OSX, and the abstract in that application sounds an awful lot like it.
I'm sure there are differences, but is this patent, if it is awarded, going to allow Microsoft to send C&D letters to every company and organization that has been providing virtual desktop software for years, regardless of platform?
How could such a thing happen?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
You know, I had a dream that I was using such a thing once; what was it called? -- yes, FvwmPager! Weird, eh?
Can a dream constitute prior art?
-kgj
-kgj
Microsoft also has an (unsupported) utility for this, one of their XP Powertoys.
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Ah, but you don't understand. MS's patent uses xml! That's makes it sufficiently different from all previous desktop pagers. :)
Push the button Max!!!!
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.
It is interesting that they don't cite any references in their application. But if you do a quick search for "virtual desktop" you'll get a dozen results with dozens more references. This patent application should be thrown out pretty quickly. This patent was filed in 2002, while a quick search shows references in the 1987 to 1995 time frame.
Thank you for your application fees. Don't call us, we'll call you.
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.
I was looking through the patent application pdf at (http://www.dagsavisen.no/innenriks/apor/2003/06/7 39300.shtml)
On page2. Isnt that a gnome and KDE screendump? You can clearly see the foot and the KDE logo in the right bottom corner.
How is it possible to file a patent on someone elses technology, and use a picture of their product to describe it?
From the USPTO abstract:
A method for a user to preview multiple virtual desktops in a graphical user interface is described. The method comprises receiving an indication from a user to preview the multiple virtual desktops and displaying multiple panes on the display. Each pane contains a scaled virtual desktop having dimensions that are proportionally less than the dimensions of a corresponding full-size virtual desktop. Each scaled virtual desktop displays with one or more scaled application windows as shadows if the corresponding full-size virtual desktop has one or more corresponding application windows that are active.
This really sounds similar to Apple's Expose with its ability to display multiple windows. And it is Expose if you are running a bunch of emulators on a Mac and each "window" is an emulated desktop.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The way it's described in the patent, the 'preview' of all of the desktops is hidden until the user specifically triggers it, whereas all the other virtual desktops I'm familiar with have an omnipresent preview on your current desktop.
Of course, this is exactly the kind of trivial difference that disqualifies it from being 'new and non-obvious', so it still deserves to get laughed out of the Patent Office...
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.
I think this has to be the first time I've read such a posted patent and come to the conclusion the submitter is absolutely, 100%, right. While I see a few apparently new (but not exactly non-obvious) features (a preview button is on one of the variants), the vast majority of the inventions covered by this patent have abundant prior art, dating back to the late eighties at the latest. And, to the best of my knowledge, while Microsoft has made some of these features available in bonus packs or add-ons or downloadable features since the mid-nineties, I can't recall MS ever bothering to actually include the features by default in their operating systems. It's like they're taking credit for something they've only ever supported grudgingly.
Full marks to Microsoft for blatent patent abuse.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Perhaps you are forgetting the current patent licensing they started enforcing with the makers of compact flash and other digital media for the DOS filesytem?
I wrote it sometime during the fall of 2001; I don't remember exactly when, but it was last updated Jan 23 2002.
Of course, X pagers had been around long before this one... can the public submit prior art to the USPTO and get MS's patent denied?
Here is the link to the Patent Protest Document.
This goes back to windows 3.1. I guess the most widely used utility of the time that made use of the technology was HP's Dashboard product circa 1992. This product pretty much set the standard for how Virtual desktops would be used and visualized. I know all current VD's work as similar if not identical manner to the Dashboard tool.
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
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!
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.
This patent application is thorough, obviously written by someone who knows how to push patents through. The last three pages of the PDF have a listing of 25 claims that they say are the embodiment of the "invention." I'm not a patent examiner, and am not in the place to refute each of them. However, its clear that they aren't claiming a patent on basic pager functionality. As mentioned elsewhere, they give examples of prior art.
There do seem to be some improvements listed. Foremost appears to be the ability to view a scaled version of the desktops in full screen instead of just the little icons in the pager. For instance, with 4 virtual desktops, they describe a scaled view where each desktop is essentially 1/4 of the screen. If you have two browser windows open in two different desktops, such a view would enable you to visually determine which is which. I don't remember seeing such a feature in other VWMs. They also describe animating the transition between this view and the full desktops via shrinking/expanding the active desktop.
While this does seem to be an improvement over existing pagers, many will argue its triviality. I personally suspect it's still enough to get the patent issued and drag someone into court...
http://home.eol.ca/~andgur/software/goscreen.html
Beats anything in powertoys hands down.
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
The Enlightenment window manager does that already. Look at the lower left corner of of this screenshot.
I'm not sure if that was irony or stupidity. Anyway, here's a clickable link to the patent.
Examiners don't spend 18 months reviewing prior art. All applications filed after 2000 publish at 18 months. This does not mean they become a patent (that is "issued"). It merely becomes public knowledge. This means that patent applications that were never issued are still searchable as prior art instead of just getting tossed in the circular file, never to be seen again.
/. populace when it comes down to even the basics of the patent system is astounding.
And the PTO is not incompetent. Overworked, yes. Incompetent, no. I guarantee you 99% of the people posting on slashdot don't even look at a patent before crying foul. Of the 1% left, 99% of them only read the abstract and not the claims, the claims being what is considered enforceable/infringeable.
IANAL, IANAExaminer, but I deal with both daily and the ingorance of the
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
A. Microsoft costs the patent office time on this, and that's our money.
B. They cost us, as a community, time.
C. They're gambling on getting it through under radar, and if that happens it'll cost lots of folks money to fight it.
So there's a monetary component to this.
Meanwhile, Microsoft KNOWS they don't have actual title to this, and are submitting it in effort to take title to this idea FRAUDULENTLY, as they KNOW they don't have title.
That sounds to me like slander of title, and is ACTIONABLE, correct?
And while it's hard to figure out who needs to do the actual suing, damages to the community could be set as a fraction of legal fees expected as an average of Microsoft's expenditures on patent actions.
And it would put the fear of God into some of these slanderers of title we've been talking about for the past year(s).
Now...if I had a seperate monitor for each desktop, that would be cool.
:P
If you actually had a separate monitor for each desktop, it would be hard to call them virtual at that point, wouldn't it?
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Thanks for pointing this out. Tried a few times before; but the message doesn't seem to get through. With respect to publishing after 18 months: the US (this time) followed worldwide tradition.
I might not be completely agreeable though with the stated competence of the USPTO. Having been an examiner until 7 years back, they had a tendency to be politically correct; more than legally correct. And how do you distinguish between incompetence and overworked ? When our car comes back from a shoddy repair I don't bother if the mechanic was incompetent or overworked. And I wouldn't know; badly repaired is badly repaired. A horribly granted patent remains a sore; for the industry and the consumer.
The independent claims will be discussed, eventually slightly modified and granted; I bet quite some money on this outcome. Patent business is a monkey business. Whatever they get - and they will get something - they can always use it to strangle the competitors: would you / Gnome / KDE / enlightenment have the funds to go to court against Microsoft ? So, there won't even be a need to make the patent stand in court; just a few letters and Longhorn will have workspaces and desktops while OSS won't (any more). Cease and desist: the honestly conducted business of the future.
...that there's TONS of prior art available that does exactly what they're describing here.
Starfish Dashboard...
Several different pieces of shareware at the time Dashboard95 came out...
FVWM...
GNOME...
KDE...
Simply put, they shouldn't have filed this one.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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.
I also had my first VD (virtual desktop) experience with Sun's CDE. I use to think that the invented the concept. So can we now expect a new round of law suits against MS?
THANK YOU FOR CLARIFYING. WE THOUGHT YOU MEANT VENEREAL DISEASE.
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