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Apple Files Patent for Translucent Windows
jpkunst writes "John Kheit at Mac Observer reports on US Patent Application No. 20040090467, published on May 13, 2004, in which Apple filed a patent application for 'Graduated visual and manipulative translucency for windows.'" Begin the hunt for prior art! It's a challenge to find a non-Apple translucent window that isn't just a snippet of desktop wallpaper pasted in the background.
https://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?rele ase_id=142811
Trillian also has it, but I don't know when they added it. I thought win2k also had it built in when it came out.
See MacSlash for more of them
I only briefly skimmed the article, but it seems to me that this isn't as broad as it initially seems.
:)
The translucency can be graduated so that, over time, if the window's contents remain unchanged, the window becomes more translucent. In addition to visual translucency, windows according to the present invention also have a manipulative translucent quality. Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window.
So, the windows fade with time (if they are not used much), and the windows below are phased above the fading window... Rather than just plain old tinted windows.
I personally have never experienced anything like this, it sounds like it could be useful... or maybe I'm just behind the times
Hey everybody, this is NOT a patent on translucent windows. It is a patent on fading windows. That's right, it covers windows that fade over time as their content remains static. Once their translucency reaches a certain point, they no longer receive focus from user input, instead it passes to the underlying UI elements.
Imagine if your console log was set to full screen, but behaved in this manner. As long as nothing is logged the window gradually fades out and you can use your other windows. As soon as something is logged it becomes more opaque and accepts user input again.
I suppose more people click on patent articles if they sound ridiculously easy to find prior art for or otherwise abusive, but this one actually sounds innovative.
Methods and systems for providing graphical user interfaces are described. overlaid, Information-bearing windows whose contents remain unchanged for a predetermined period of time become translucent. The translucency can be graduated so that, over time, if the window's contents remain unchanged, the window becomes more translucent. In addition to visual translucency, windows according to the present invention also have a manipulative translucent quality. Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window.
Yes, software patents are evil...so lets do the right thing and not claim that every transparent xterm hack qualifies as 'prior art'.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Well atleast it updates when completely moved.
Perhaps (just guessing) Eterm doesnt qualify because of the way the "transparancy" was accieved. Afaik, every Eterm had in memory a copy of the background image, and just painted the approperiate part as it's (Eterms) backgroud. So it did NOT "read" the actual background imaging, it just painted the background picture.
As a result, if you had multiple windows on top of each other, all showed the background, while on "Terminal.app" (OS X), the transparancy shows underlying windows, apps, graphics et al.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
jpkunst, I know you were in a hurry to get a story submitted to and accepted by slashdot. I can imagine the scene now; Palms moist, you rush to type a compelling, FUD-spreading (same thing, around these parts) story which will be sure to get your story accepted! And in your mad rush, you don't even bother to read the patent application. If you're going to link something, you should really read it in its entirety to find out if it contradicts your story.
If you want to complain about Apple patenting translucent windows, perhaps you should examine U.S. Pat. No. 5,949,432, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Providing Translucent Images on a Computer Display", which is referred in Patent application 20040090467 (your link.) This patent was granted September 7, 1999 (filed April 11, 1997.) That appears to be a patent on software transparency by blending layers done by the CPU, which is to say it does not compete with hardware transparency.
True laziness is a virtue. Your brand, however, leaves something to be desired.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Disclaimer: I'm equally opposed to software patents as everyone else here is, I just want to corrent some misinformation here.
I do not want to spoil the fun here, but this patent is in fact not about translucent windows, so anyone here posting about prior art in the respect is basically Off Topic.
Instead, the patent basically describes the overlays Apple has been using for certain system functions like increasing/decreasing brightness (whenever you press the corressponding buttons on the keyboard an overlay shows up, displaying the current volume, and then slowly fades away again unless you press the key again). The patent exactly describes the Apple OSDs, even if maybe in a bit of general way, so it could probably be applied to similarly behaving ordinary windows.
A comparable programm would e.g. be "xosd" and prior art would probably be best searched for in TVs and other appliances using on-screen-displays.
Jeskola Buzz is a program that allows you to create music, so usually you have 5+ sub-windows open with all the controls for your synths, samplers and effects. The most recent window was fully opaque, whereas the window that had been open for the longest grew more translucent every time a new subwindow was opened. Time was not taken into account, and when clicking any subwindow (even the almost fully translucent ones) put them on top of the stack, making them fully opaque again.
Closest thing I've seen to this.
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Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Microsoft Outlook 2003 has time-dependant translucent windows which notify you of new incoming mail messages. You can move your mouse over the window, causing it to be opaque - or you can move the window out and allow it to slowly become more and more transparent, eventually disappearing. This window also contains delete, open and flag message (IIRC) option buttons.
Not sure if this completely corresponds with the "Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window." part of the patent request. More over, I am not even sure if this is prior-art - whether Apple had this before Microsoft or not.
Get it straight -- Xerox interface was not stolen. I'd suspect that if it were, Xerox would have long-long time ago sued anyone trying to implement WIMP.
--AP
Judging by the abstract, the window needs to be inactive for a certain time before becoming translucent, and the translucency becomes greater the longer the window remains unchanged.
I don't think any software patents are good. However, *if* software patents are permissable, this is a novel application of a concept and I would think that the implementation meets the standards for patentability.
I still don't think it should be patentable, however.
What is stupid is failing to realize that computers are just another medium, and that "fading one image into aother image" has been a common practice since the first slide projector was built.
Having experimented with every imaginable transition, I would suggest that none is so natural as the gentle fade. Perhaps because it mimics to some extent the sliding of the sun behind a cloud - thus "fading one scene into another" naturally.
From this shared experience we project "fading" into amorphic examples "Summer fading into fall".
"Love fading", fading youth etc.
But the quintessential fade - I believe is caused by the sun passing behind a cloud - that noticible relief - or some times chill and the effect it has on the emotions as a result of frequency of the change relative to the bodies ability to accomodiate change without notice has this marked effect which we cary into our language and seek to replicate in the virtuality of the computer.
AIK
If someone sues you and you don't lose, they pay your legal fees. If they offer you a reasonable settlement and you instead go to court and you lose, you pay their legal fees. So it doesn't exactly "cost them money whether they win or lose." If they win it doesn't cost them anything.
This is just incorrect in the United States. Absent some special statutory rule, each party pays its own fees, win or lose. This is called the American Rule.
DAILY ROTATION
I remember there being an article about a pharmecudical (yeah, I can't spell) company that got one for some treatment so that no one else would be able to patent it and it would be openly available and published.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Just to state the above cited rule with a ittle more precision, thanks to http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matte rs-9201.html ...
"Under the U.S. legal system, each side pays their own attorney's fees, win or lose, unless there is a specific statutory provision for the recovery of such fees. The patent law includes such a provision, but it only authorizes the award at the discretion of the court or arbitrator in exceptional circumstances of the type which justify an increase in damages.
"On the other hand, the patent law also provides that the accused infringer may be entitled to attorney's fees under exceptional circumstances, such as when the patent was procured by fraud or the infringement suit was brought or prosecuted in bad faith."
DAILY ROTATION
1. It wasn't stolen. How many times does this have to be corrected before people actually pay attention?
2. It was a look-and-feel issue (basically, trademark). No patents were involved.
I am neither a patent agent nor a lawyer, but I have read about the patent process and learned the following:
U.S. patent applications always name one or more individual inventors, and they usually name an assignee. Engineers' employment contracts typically require an employee to name her employer as assignee in any patent on an invention developed with the employer's resources. The shorthand "Foo Corp filed a patent for the baz process" means "An employee of Foo Corp filed a patent for the baz process, using a patent lawyer retained by Foo Corp, naming Foo Corp as assignee."
It's not a patent on translucent windows, it's a patent for using graduated levels of translucency instead of active/inactive window coloring schemes. From what I've read, it appears that the longer you go without performing actions in the window, the more translucent it becomes, to the point where you can "click through" it and input into whatever object is underneath.
This particular interface feature would be incredibly annoying and confusing to people with less than perfect eyesight, so I hope that Apple defends its patent and that it never appears outside of Apple's software.
If it was simply an attempt to patent translucent windows, it would be easy to knock down. Some games use translucent pop-ups in their interfaces via D3D / OpenGL.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Well, NO if they did, they would have had to do it before 1990, when I saw it done by people working at Cambridge University Maths Lab, and whoever did do it first, the patent would have run out by now.
If you invent something and keep it secret but do not follow through on the invention by publishing it or selling it (or otherwise making it public) or file for a patent you have abandoned your invention. Someone who comes along later and invents the same thing is entitled to a patent on that invention.
The lesson is, if you invent something and don't want a patent you have to publish.
I know that the enlightenment window manager had translucent windows in the late 90's
To the best of my recollection, those translucent windows only showed the desktop background, not other windows that were behind the translucent ones. I'm not sure if that counts in this case - I haven't looked at what Apple is patenting here. But none of the translucent windows I saw on Linux showed anything but the background. Contrast this to Apple's Terminal app, which shows windows underneath. And this translucency is real-time: if the window is playing video or something, it shows through.
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