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

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.