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.

Comments

Didn't Amiga have this?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it has to be on a gay computer to count. Right? Amiga wasn't a gay computer.

Re:Software patents are evil

[the_Bionic_lemming]

RTFP, it's only one click away. The patent isn't on transparency per se, but on a new for of GUI interaction which uses transparency. It does look original. I've certainly never seen any prior art for it.



I've had the ability to make trqanslucent window forms ever since VB.Net rolled out. I wrote a "hello World" app that was a calculator that you could see thru just to check out the "whistles and bells".

So - if all else fails - I'll send them the source and show them prior art. ;)

Re:Existence alone is bad enough

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Most invention is not primarily driven by a desire to make money.

Whatever, man.

The failure to grasp this is a possible explanation of why software companies are the least likely companies to last five years.

You might be interested to know that virtually no company lasts for five years, statistically speaking. Depending on which market segment you look at, between 80% and 95% of all new businesses fail to last through their first year, and the rate of attrition remains high after that.

The existence of patents (owned by HP and Panatone) is why Photoshop is better than GIMP, for print work.

It's not just Pantone's color technology. There are other reasons, too. RGB-to-CMYK color space conversion, for example, is not a patented technique, but Gimp still lacks that basic requirement. (It may have gotten it just recently; if so, the point still stands that it only got it just recently.)

Most CGI studios use Cinepaint, which is a fork of GIMP.

Not really. Most CGI studios use in-house tools. ILM, for example, uses a paint package called Sabre that has been under active development for years. Disney has DAPS. And so on.

What this has to do with software patents, I don't know.

Re:Software patents are evil

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Graphic Users Interface that incorporates translucency.

Gosh the Mac zealots are out in force - A "Troll" for speaking about .Net? Who'd of thunk it? ;)

Re:Existence alone is bad enough

[Twirlip of the Mists]

To convert color space accurately, you need color space profiles, gamut matching, etc.

Nonsense. These are helpful tools, yes, but they're not necessary. How do you think we did RGB->CMYK in the days before ICC? Using simple algorithms like UCR and GCR.

Gimp either lacks or until very recently lacked even that kind of basic--and perfectly usable--CMYK support. It just wasn't there. And you can't blame that on patents.

Ironically, this is one area where patents may be particularly well justified

Except for the fact that I don't think it's ironic in the slightest, I agree with you completely. :-)

Re:Parent typical Apple appologist

[rawg]

OK, I'm getting tired of this.

Good company or bad company does not matter. The reason that people don't mind that Apple does something that Microsoft does isn't because they are a "Good Company". It's because Apple makes good software, and that software works. Microsoft makes crap software that does not work.

If Microsoft made good software, people wouldn't hate them so much.