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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.
Or are we all going to change our stance because its Apple?
It'll be interesting to see how the opinions on Slashdot differ from if any other company tried this sort of garbage.
E-term, several years ago.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
Yeah, I've got some windows with graduated transparency that can be manipulated. They're in my FREAKIN' CAR.
Enlightenment?
We don't need to worry too much. It's not as if Linux utilizes that technology.
One man's selflessness is another man's annoyance.
OS/2 Warp 4 Betas offered translucent windows. The feature was removed from the final release for performance reasons. Hardware just wasn't quite there in '95 to support that feature. As least that's my recollection of it.
when moving windows around. Would having a window always transparent be a natural extension from that?
if not transparent.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
I know that the enlightenment window manager had translucent windows in the late 90's. Anyone have a time stamped picture from way back then? Perhaps in the internet way back archives...
Lineage 2
I think Dark Age of Camelot
Maybe Starwars Galaxies
God spoke to me
Its not that difficult to find past art...I can goto work and just use the job tracking application I've been writing off and on for the past year. Its setup to allow users to choose transparency levels in 10% increments from 100%-10%.
--- If you can't beat them, use a heavier blunt object.
even EverQuest uses those in their current UI.
http://home.insightbb.com/~ryanvm/tinyutilities/vi trite/
Vitrite allows you to do this with any Win32 Window (on 2k, XP, etc).
FLR
Look, for example at MSDN: Layered windows
Well, this patent clearly has LOTS of prior art.
See MacSlash for more of them
DeadAim does it. http://www.freewebs.com/civman2/trans.jpg
I have one on my desktop right now, i even took a screenshot and was going to post it untill i realized you cant see it, ITS TRANSPARENT!!!
how does fvwm do it?
*sigh* back to work...
and the announcement that Longhorn will feature a heavily translucent interface -- Aero Glass?
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Nvidia desktop manager has added this for many versions, well before that date at least.
What constitutes prior art? Certainly there had been talk about making fully and truly translucent windows before OSX but for technical reasons not many people had attempted to implement such a thing. So the idea certainly isn't novel, although perhaps the implementation is.
They aren't trying for a patent on translucent windows, Mr. MacQuicktotype.
Does prior art even need to be found to invalidate this? I thought blatantly obvious things couldn't be patented in the first place. This certainly seems like a pretty simple and obvious extension to me, especially if the other type of transparancy (a static snapshot of the background) already existed.
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
but we have to root for apple because they're the underdog, that's how it works; you shun the big bad monopoly and love the underdog, it's just the way of things. In 10 years or so when apple has the monopoly on the PC market, we'll all be micrsoft (or whoever happens to be the underdog) sypathizers and we'll all be bashing apple on the slashdot message boards
You can make trillian transparent to different degrees when it does or does not have focus
trillian
winamp 5 does transparent windows too.
"When a ball dreams, it dreams it's a frisbee"
"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." ie not eterm/aterm/any term since these always grabbed the input even if they were very translucent.
The ATI MMC allows you to manipulate the translucency of its TV window.
Here's a screen shot I have from 1998: http://inconnu.isu.edu/~ink/new/linux/handogod_med .jpg
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Ok, all sarcasim aside, we shouldn't be allowing patents like this, however I would sure love to see M$ have to license part of Longhorn from Apple :)
That's a lot of lawyer-ese for describing a translucent window -- something that you understand immediately when you see it.
:-)
Can you imagine the description for the Exposé patent application?
It will be interesting to see if/how this affects the work Microsoft is doing on Aero in Longhorn (assuming the patent is even granted.)
-ch
Sounds like SCO started a trend.
Subzerorz
More Articles
the ATI windows drivers allow you to do real transparency on your windows.
Let's make a difference
It's not a patent for visual translucency, but 'manipulative' translucency :
...
If the contents of a window don't change for a preset amount of time the window becomes visualy translucent, but also all user input goes to the underlying (and now visible !) window
(take from MacSlash.com comments)
"it's my understanding that apple has a powerful patent on the use of "alpha" channels. the claim is that alpha-channels were invented by the NeXT team back in 1988.
apple of course now owns NeXT, which may explain why they think they can beat the prior art.
K."
I guess before that insight all the windows gradually faded away and disappeared.
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...
Some nVidia software does this and some guy here wrote a program to create the effect.
Applying more and more sophistocated graphical rendering techniques to graphical user interfaces should not be patentable. The reason they weren't used twenty years ago isn't that NO ONE thought of it, its because of performance advances since then.
How unique is software in being incumbered by BOTH patents and copyright?
But isn't all that matters how early Apple had translucent windows? Rather than digging up every app under the sun from the last two/three years could someone find the first Apple produced piece of software capable of handling this.
Last I checked the anger around here doesn't seem to be outrage at companies holding patents. It's outrage at companies using patents.
Apple patents practically everything they work with but very, very, very rarely uses any of these patents. In fact if you look at their intellectual property actions, some of them are kind of morally dubious but they almost never involve patents. Even when they're making legal threats against things which actually violate patents they hold-- for example, Aqua skins for other OSes-- they tend to choose to base their legal complaints on means other than patents, other forms of intellectual property.
Since history shows that Apple tends not to use patents they hold, I don't see any problem with them holding a bad patent. This is probably just the old "defensive patent" technique, where someone patents something just to make sure no one else can claim it was stolen, or to build up a "patent shield".
Of course, it's very easy that someday all the big software companies could choose to start using their defensive patents offensively, and the patent shields would become a shieldwall blocking any small companies from entering the business. But at the moment that's just a hypothetical, and Apple has no more or fewer frivolous patents than any other large software company, pretty much. We don't get pissy at those other such companies, for example IBM. Therefore not getting pissy at Apple would appear to be the consistent thing to do?
But the prior art search is still a good idea! It's good to have these things as clearly documented as possible in case spurious claims ever did wind up happening.
Any window on Windows 2000 or later can be transparent; see the documentation for SetLayeredWindowAttributes. It is a nice feature and some programs use it but it can be very slow.
Weird X could do translucent windows back in 2000 - and this is real translucency, where 'covered' windows keep updating visibly, even through multiple layers of cover.
:).
I actually ran this for a while, until it drove me crazy
Atern as well. Even some hacked version of rxvt.
Leopard cub
Apple is a company owned by their shareholders; the same with Microsoft, IBM, etc. And their behavior isn't all that different, except one little detail: one of them is a monopoly.
If some kind of behavior is legal (even if someone don't like it too much) for a smaller company, one that owns 90%+ of the market can't behave the same way.
now for the "control both the hw and sw" myth... Apple just uses an older business model, where they assemble a machine and it's OS (hw is basically a PC's, with the difference of an IBM/Motorola RISC chip).
But this is true, that Apple "is not your friend". The same with MS, and IBM and HP, Dell, Sun, etc. Companies are not "friends", they are businesses and they will choose one course of action over another to make $$ or, at most, sometimes to win some goodwill (and probably someone is measuring this in $$ terms).
Stardock's GUI interface makeover applications (for Windows 98, 2000, and XP) have allowed various translucent window effects (like making a window translucent while dragging) for quite a while now, certainly before Apple filed the patent.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Who cares? It's not NOVEL!
The only reason most implementations of 'transparency' isn't 'real' (only one layer and/or non-realistic blending and/or not affecting certain surfaces (such as video) is because the CPU/GPUs haven't been fast enought to implement it, not because no-one thought of it.
I assume they're trying to patent some particular implementation, and not the idea tough. If it's the idea this shit should be fucking ripped apart and pain administered.
If it's a particular implementation it's just software patent (aka 'math') stupidity. Hmm.. thinking about it.. Yeah, that deserves the same treatment.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
This isn't simply "translucent windows." Hell, you can do that in WinXP and 2000 with third-party software. This is different:
"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."
If you're going to go looking for prior art, that's what you need to find: windows that become more translucent as more time passes where you're not doing anything to them, and that eventually become so translucent that when you go to click on them, you're instead able to click on desktop objects behind the window.
While I don't think that this is particularly deserving of a patent, it is neat, and so far as I can tell, novel. It's not just "translucent windows."
Yes, someone who RTFA!
For crying out loud, they are attempting to patent a very particular behavior of a window. One that I have NEVER seen used in an OS or app before, so I doubt you will find prior art specific enough to invalidate the patent.
This does do something interesting though... give people a peek into what is coming up in MacOS X 10.4
That's right, Win2K had it at least since 1999, and I'm absolutely sure there are much earlier examples.
Brad Wardell of Galactic Civilizations fame has another product called Window Blinds. Window blinds has been doing this for years and years.
C//
All versions of Windows since 2000 have supported them. They're known as Layered Windows and are manipulated through the SetLayeredWindowAttributes API.
For example, see this article.
worse even because they control both the hardware and software
And you think that Microsoft dont control both the hardware and the software? (and that's not all else they control either!) Im amazed you are that shortsighted.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
translucent windows. Its a system where windows become more translucent as time goes on, and you can actually work with the window underneath.
This is not obvious, and simply having windows that are translucent probably not violate this patent.
Translucency is simply a color modification is not patentable. What they are talking about is a process for adaptive translucent windows that alter not just appearance but condition as well.
That being said...most software patents suck.
I hate to offer this as prior art, but Everquest has had time-dependent transparency for over a year. I personally think it's a pain in the ass, but it works.
You mouse over a window and it becomes however opaque you want (based on your settings). Then if you move your mouse off the window, after a user-defined period the window becomes as much more transparent as the user has defined. Defaults were something like 100% opaque, then after 5 seconds, 50% transparent.
There's probably prior prior art, but I don't know based on time.
There was a tool for Windows called Vitrix or something that would allow the user to easily set transparency, but now I can't find it. And it wasn't time-dependent.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
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.'"
I didn't read the article thoroughly enough. This is not the same thing.
The novel part is the fact that the window doesn't just become more transparent, but also loses focus once it is past a certain point of transparency.
Unfortunately the transparency was either 0% or 100%, not "graduated", so the Apple patent is indeed different. Also the xterm transparency was fixed: Visual changes in windows under the focus window did not change. In effect a fixed image of what was under the focus window when the window was moved/opened was used for the background image of the xterm session window.
Mentioned elsewhere in this discussion is Trillian. What makes this prior art IMHO is that it supports setting transparency in steps, so 100% is totally visible, 10% is a ghost-like near invisibility, with something like 90% being a cool effect that you'd actually want to try. (Transparency settings in Trillian 2.012 are under "advanced options" for some reason.)
I see a simple solution to the patent problem:
* license it or your patent will expire
* if you allow a patent to be used for a public standard then your patent will expire
Seriously. It would get rid of submarine patents like GIF and JPG and people who patent things defensively won't mind their patent expiring since it will be "prior art". It would also get rid of the patent portfolio trading that has allowed big players to lock out small inventors. Also, since you the "submarine" aspect is gone, there will be fewer patents and the ones that are filed will be contentested close to the time of filing.
Microsoft, IBM, and others have been stockpiling their software patents for years.. and now of late, it seems, that Apple has decided to join the fray.
I just want to know when we're finally going to go nuclear (nuculer?) with the back and forth patent infringment suits - because that's when the shits really gonna hit the fan.
And i wonder - has is not already begun? IBM, while clearly in the right wrt SCO and Linux begs the question... they "launched" a few tactical nukes in that little debate with their 8 or so patent infringment suits... while we cheer them on... should we not do so with a bit of trepidation?
Software patents are screwy and stupid... and its not going to take much pushing and shoving for all hell to break loose...
or is that for all lawyers to start raking in the dough as the cost of the judicial branch makes the US military budget look like a blip on the radar. We'll have to start cloning humans just to make enough lawyers.
Do you think that it will be "Global Thermonuclear War", where one side who's far less defenseless as SCO will actually shoot back - and then everyone starts shooting at everyone with patent infringment suits? Or will it be more gradual?
Either way... i think i should ditch this communications and networking gig, and go become a lawyer.... it soon may be the only actual viable non-outsourced job left in America by 2010.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
That's an idea, not an implementation. Why can this shit be patented?
Does this mean that they also 'own' the concept of a GUI element hiding after not having recieed any attention/events after some time? After all, that's just a special case (full opacity->full transparency) of fading out.
In reverse, shouldn't this mean that any such prior implementation is prior art, since this is a special case of GUI element disappearing immediately.
"Oooh.. let's make it fade out like those title screens in movies! ... or like those fading-to-black glenz-vectors in 90s amiga demos! This is such a fucking novel concept!"
are we all going to change our stance because its Apple?
Well, yeah. It's called reputation and it doesn't appear out of thin air; a company needs a good PR team and competitive products to earn it.
Don't worry though, the system is self-fixing - if they annoy their customers beyond a certain point or start behaving like really bad kids, you'll get more Apple-bashing than you can handle. After all, and IIRC that was what happened in the pre-Jobs-comeback era, when the Apple is dying trolls ran rampant.
Sailors. Oh man!
...indeed -- let alone a translucent window that fades with time, as described in the patent application.
Sounds like quite a nice idea.
While it's true that you need to take companies with a heavy grain of salt (because they have priority obligations to their shareholders), you shouldn't discount them much more than you should a human friend -- who after all, can be your friend while at the same time having an obligation first and foremost to their own self preservation -- just because they are a company.
Pseudo-interactive input processing in wireless environments
This appears to describe a hand held PC that can talk to a server now and then.
Method and system for providing a secure multimedia presentation
Seems to describe a secure file transfer system.
System and method for automated creation of personalized poster
This would appear to be an online poster ordering system.
There seem to be a lot of IT related patents being filed. I wonder if there is an easy way of challenging them before they are granted (perhaps some open source enthusiasts who are not so much into writing code could start a project to challenge as many patents as possible before they are granted.
Patents are supposed to be for specific implementations, not conecpts. In software specific implementations (the code) are already covered by copyright and trade secrets. Here it is being used to say that noone but Patentholder may make something that does X. Only in computing do we allow such control of concepts.
What if everything was done this way? "Sorry FooCo has a patent on cars with three doors, you can't put that rear door on your truck." "Sorry BarCorp has a patent on methods of displaying text on a screen, you'll have to stick with the teletype or license from them."This is why software patents just don't make sense.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
The existence of a patent can have a chilling effect on innovation, even if you don't use it (would you build your house on a remote-control landmine - even if the person that planted it promised they wouldn't press the button?).
Gradual highlighting in action, though written in javascript and geared more towards web usage...Though I'm going out on a limb here as I havn't RTFPAn ote.htm
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/sticky
That isn't to say that the patent isn't bullsh1t, most software patents are.
"I can understand why though, without their GUI to set them apart what do they really have to offer?"
Well, they've got this thing where the power button is on the keyboard.
And you get to Think Different
Oh, and the iPod. Don't forget the iPod. Which is eardelicious!
Apple is wonderful. Sigh.
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.
The concept of fading by decrease or increase in alpha-channel, but based on a timeout value? Genious!
Fight the Patent
The law is at fault, not the blood-sucking corporations, who go unpunished for way too many things because of, you guessed it, the law. Who makes the law? Hmm.. I wonder..
In Miranda you can set "Hide contact bar after it's been idle for X seconds". You can also set the transparency of the contact bar when active and when inactive (I run 0%/25% -- very practical being able to read through the window when it isn't in focus). In addition, you can set it to FADE OUT on going from active to inactive.
Result: The window fades out after having been inactive after X seconds (user defined). Activate Miranda again, and it fades back in.
I guess the question is "how far" is the leap from timed fading out to what Apple describes -- which includes a threshold of fading where the overlaying windows stops recieving events.
In my mind, that's not a great leap, but rather a necessity if/when you set the fade-out to be very slow. The main difference is that current apps fade quickly, while Apple seems to describe a situation where it's very gradual. Is manipulating 't' -- thereby being forced into chosing when to stop accepting events, novel? I'd say, not very.
I'm not sure when miranda got this, but I guess it's been there since 2001-2002, possibly earlier.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.................
Apple had a relatively new look and feel in the personal
computer arena.
Microsoft said hey, we should license this.
Apple said OK, license it for Windows 286 and/or 2.0 and
continued to develop the interface.
Apple continued to develop the interface while Microsoft
continued to develop the interface to DOS.
Apple made great strides in the gui department while Microsoft
continued to develop a new version of Windows with these
unlicensed enhancements.
Apple cried foul, Microsoft released Windows 3.
Apple sued.
Why are the patenting this? its new and they would like to implement it in their products without concern or loss in R&D
as it is quite clear that Microsoft has no problems rolling innovation into their products, problem is it isn't their innovation.
JMHO and some will take this as flame bait but as long as the software model is 'we charge you to use this';
for profit businesses need some form of remedy to protect themselves from the Microsofts of this planet.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Here it is - Vitrite
This isn't time-dependent, but it is very handy.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Hmm..
Maybe I should patent draggable and minimizable stained glass windows then.
It almost sounds like this may be an added feature for Expose' if it works out. Then again Apple had a ton of software patents that don't seem to make it into software releases.
it almost sounds like you can somewhat read a window while adding text to another.... like copying text or taking notes to another window (application?) while reading from one. i guess it would be nice in cases where Copy&Paste is not useful. adding info to a database/addressbook comes to mind quickly. because of the fields being broken up you can't just copy and paste the whole thing.
You're saying when Apple patents something obvious, its okay because they're not a monopoly?
So its okay when Amazon patented one-click because they're not a monopoly? Probably not.
Lets face it. You're talking like an idiot because its apple. If something is "bad", its simply bad. In this case, there is no moral relativism. This is just bad.
Its okay to criticize apple. The magic juju won't go away.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Released in 2002. Screenshot
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
The Windows are not translucent. They just have a background picture in them.
I've been using a plugin with Winamp for more than a year which makes it translucent. Desktop icons are visible through the playlist so it's not just the background pasted.
Isn't there any chance this could be defeated based on obviousness? There have been desktop features which change as a function of time, and there have been transparent windows (Fresco, if nothing else, has demonstrated true transparency. Although without the time related aspects.) So doing things with transparency as a function of time is now innovative?
This is getting silly. I can suggest possible uses of transparency including a translucent news feeder running as a desktop background, a file manager where larger files are less translucent than smaller ones, or where translucency is used to indicate permissions (opaque files are read and write, translucent ones are read but not write, and more translucent ones are neither read nor write.) These are off the top of my head - perhaps with more thought I could arrive at others, maybe even something useful. The point is if you have the technical possibility of transparency, a lot of things are going to occur to any desktop designer worth their salt. But I'm not sure how you would indicate that this is "obvious" to the patent office, since there is not likely to be any papers out there on the use of transparency in desktops. It's just not something people have thought about at all yet, since no one but Apple has actually had them to consider as practical concerns.
Maybe the place to look is games - those GUIs are probably the most relevant to this issue. But please, for the love of $DEITY someone convince the patent office that computer specific patents shouldn't last 20 years! As far as the market cycle of computers is concerned, you might as well have granted them an eternal monopoly, particularly where free software is concerned. Look at freetype - they are still waiting out an Apple patent on how to optimally handle fonts and will be for years.
I've suggested it before, but here is another good indicator of why it would be useful. Let's get a new type of filing at the patent office - Documentation of Prior Art. This type could be filed at no cost to the filer, since its only purpose is to describe an idea and not to profit off of it. We could put down all the obvious ideas these companies want to patent, and without having to pay the huge $$$ for a patent filing get things on record. THEN, have the patent office be finanically liable if they grant a patent which is overturned later using something in the Documentation of Prior Art database, which they will HAVE to go through as part of their own knowledge database.
Most of the problem is the patent office just doesn't know what is and isn't obvious in computers. So their approach is grant the patent and let the courts figure it out. Which is deadly to open source. The system needs to change, or eventually someone will pull a patent trigger the way SCO pulled the IP/derivative works trigger. Only with patents the chamber might not be empty.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Windows 2000 had translucent windows built into it called layered windows. Very easy to do, only involves two API calls, one to set the window to layered and one to set an opacity level of 0 to 255.
Prior versions of Windows could do translucency, but it required more work and wasn't directly supported by the OS.
Sorry Apple, MS beat you to this one. (Not saying MS invented it, I'm sure other systems had it before MS, but MS did have it before 2004.)
I think the patent process should be revamped...
Instead of relying on a single patent officer's research, they should accept comments on patents. Just like all the ones we post here about prior art or hidden loopholes that grant the patent too much power.
Call it distributed research... there are thousands and thousands of untapped geek-hours available to help the USPTO focus their research, and it would help to prevent patent disputes in the future.
The EFF has already set up a program to challenge existing patents, so why not set up a program to help stop these patents before they are ever granted?
During the process of establishing prior art, we could also make a list of "public domain patents" granted to the American people for things that have widespread prior art, to make it easier to stop patents in the future (just refer to the list, and if a new patent application overlaps at all with a "public domain patent", the entire appliaction is rejected and must be resubmitted).
What do we think?
$8.95/mo web hosting
So the invention is: I put one window on top of another. After a while the window on top fades and the one under it becomes active. I don't understand why I would want that to happen.
This would change everything if you look at it, but it is, like, transparent. Can I patent invisible screens?
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Jay Smiley from Los Angeles, California applied for and received a U.S. patent on the phrase, "really sucks" and henceforth anyone or any thing using this phrase will be required to pay royalties to Mr. Smiley.
When asked about the potentialities of this type of patent, a spokesperson for the U.S. Patent Office replied off the record, "Hey, it's business and business is in the business of making a profit. As Teddie Roosevelt once said, the business of America is business. So, you don't like it move to commie China ya little faggot -- this country is all about our freedom to make a profit and nothing else matters, at all, ever."
Hmmmm.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
I know that i have post this idea on slashdot some
years ago. Now I can only view my last 24 comments in my profil.
Is there a way to see some of my older comments ?
To anyone with ordinary skill in the art, making a translucent window gradually opaque is obvious. Patents are not (well, at least, should not be) granted to the first person to say or do a thing, but to teach others something truly novel and useful, advancing the art in some profound way. This application does no such thing and should be severly narrowed to precisely what they are doing or rejected outright for obviousness (or even silliness).
Will this make it more expensive for women to buy translucent and fading swimsuits? Damn!
Table-ized A.I.
Apple isn't patenting "translucent windows", they are patenting a specific method for choosing to make windows translucent. The method seems pretty hokey to me (windows automatically become more translucent over time and eventually let events pass through), and probably has horrible usability problems. I can just see the support calls: "but my Microsoft Word window was there a few minutes ago, and after I came back from getting a cup of coffee it was just gone".
In this wonderful world of software patents, the patent may be valid, but it is not relevant to anything real.
If you want to read about good uses of translucency in user interfaces, see this survey from 1994 (long before OS X).
I've used Mandrake 10 and KDE 3.2 for a while, and sorry.. it's not a patch on OS X. I mean, come on.. no proper window translucency, no magnifying dock, and it's a lot slower. Of course, it's better than Windows.
...so typical, it almost seems like a troll. I believe this is what the grandparent poster was looking for.
but if Apple doesn't patent this some other company might. Given Apple's involment in the open source community with Darwin, http://www.opensource.apple.com/ , I would rather see them with a patent for this than some company based on patents only.
This is the usual Apple apology. Apple is the "good" company, and otherwise "bad" behavior is OK for them to pursue, since an evil company might patent it first, and we all know that Apple never does anything evil. Oh, and they're involved in open source, too, which makes them even more of a "good" company, unlike some other evil companies who aren't involved in supporting open source at all.
It's all fairly typical of the excuse making by Apple followers who otherwise masquerade as FOSS zealots in other threads.
Why is the tech world spending more time doing legal work than tech work ? The guys filing these bullsh!t documents are making more money than the guys whose work is being protected.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The game is very buggy, but one thing that does work is it's transparent windows.
The transparency can be set from 0-100%, and when the mouse pointer is hovered over, the window gets gradually opaque. There is also the option to lock the transparency which give the ability to "click-through" to the item behind.
This is game is for windows pcs and macs
Trillian: news and new buddies appear in small windows that fade over time. If you place your mouse over them, you can interact with them. Otherwise, the windows eventually fade after little use.
Outlook 2003: New message notification window fades in, stays faded in while the mouse is over it, then fades out (if the mouse goes over it while fading out, it fades back in again).
Just about every warez "proggie" from 1999 on (when they introduced alpha rendering in Windows).
Apple really doesn't have a case here, but they'll probably get the patent anyway.
It's going to be a lot harder to find prior art for this one.
Yes: that's because it's probably a bad idea. People have looked at use/time-dependent changes of window state or appearance before, but they have never become popular. You can probably still dig up some prior art from the HCI literature if you really care. Many bad patents are just not worth fighting, however.
http://ssonicnet.com/localhmc/translucent.png
Proof enough? I know some skins under Winamp 5 allow you to have it fade out a bit when the windows doesn't have focus (or when you're not hovering over it, if you like always on top). As you can see, that translucent window crosses over three different windows and the desktop, and acts properly.
And bah, I realise I wrote 'granted' in that IM window to myself - ignore that, I hadn't read closely enough and I don't feel like re-grabbing it. Still, shouldn't this be enough to deny them a patent for this?
FC Closer
Until the patent system is overhauled, this is the sort of thing that will happen. It's a waste of time fret over each individual ridiculous patent. Focus on pushing for a system revision rather than nit-picking at things which are legal within the current flawed system.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
And not to mention the hacks over at freedesktop.org.
You can tell if it's truely translucent if you move the window and watch the background. If psuedo translucent then it'll jerk around but if smooth most times it's a true translucent.
Asheron's Call 2 has Translucent windows for chat.
Horizons has translucent windows.
This is silly that they would patent something like this. Who owns the patent on glass?
OpenGL supports the concept of translucent entities.
Many OpenGL games, as well as DirectX, have used translucent windows (for configuration settings, etc) in the past.
The alpha channel tecnique is exactly the same. I doubt this patent is enforcable. Perhaps SGI could patent this one?
You cannot proceed from the informal to formal by formal means
I believe that Stardock's Windowblinds may have similar functionality. I may be wrong, but I have this memory.
also don't several, or all, twindow managers do this?
NetNewsWire into Yojimbo!
Why has no one mentioned the Berlin project?!?!
h ots/xggi-xchat. png
Doesn't this look like a transparency?
http://www.fresco.org/data/screens
The project had full window transparency at least as far back as 1999, which is when I first saw it. Check out http://www.fresco.org/ and see if this pre-dates Apple's work; I would guess that it does.
If I found the prior art, what do I win? A big kiss? A sock in the mouth? World peace?
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
They are shooting themselves in the foot. They think that a "better UI" is a great selling point, but it isn't. UIs are largely about familiarity, and the more Apple's UI differs from everybody else's, the worse their chances become in the market because only dedicated Mac users will stick with Macs while everybody else will be turned off.
They are also missing where user interfaces are going. They still think it's all about windows, buttons, and visual flash, but the world is moving in a different direction.
Actually if you RTFA you'll see that APPLE CLAIMS MORE THAN JUST TIME DEPENDANT TRANSPARENCY in this NEW applciation!?!?! Sheesh. Look at claim 26.
26. A computer-readable medium for providing a graphical user interface for a computer, the computer-readable medium comprising: means for rendering a window on a display; and means for varying a level of translucency associated with said window in response to a predetermined event.
A predetermined event is ANYTHING! Not just time. The earlier 1999 patent may be limited but this is a translucent patent land grab.
Was "Transperizer" released before Mac OS X ?
If so then it definitely is prior art !
Proof of prior art would easly be found in eTerm, wTerm, and aTerm. This does not include the use of Translucensy in gaim, KDE, and for windows users the Windows mod system.
Hesperant.
What about games? Lots of games used see-through menus.
Windows 2000 and above include "transparent windows" and contains a setting to have "fading menus", which are essentially windows that grow more opaque over time. Admittedly, the fading is very fast, but it is fading and this becomes more apparent when compared with the alternative "scroll" effect.
Similarly, Outlook 2003 has a really cool feature that shows a small pop-up window in the corner of the screen when a new mail arrives. This fades out over time and disappears, unless the user hovers the mouse over it, in which case it becomes opaque and you can click on it to see the mail.
Seems like prior art to me.
sound is broken (sound processing delay punctuated with random bursts of noise at max volume) under KDE 3.2 for me.
maybe i installed it wrong, but that's kind of hard to do using Gentoo.
Gnome comes alot closer to what i want from a desktop environment, but i can't quite bring myself to work at getting double-click and right click behavior working right in..... damn, which one of those apps was Gnome's 'official' file browser? Nautalus? Hell, couldn't even get it to "view as" in any way that was asthetically and ergonomically acceptable to me. Installing Gnome themes is also semi-broken. (i managed to to it once, a long long time ago)
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
In 1992 I was working on a Radar Display project which used Barco graphics generators on Sony 20kx20k displays with two screens, front and back.
The back screen held the flight information, and the front held the information windows. It was possible to make the front windows fade to invisible if required (outline only left). Sounds like a graduated window to me.
This was an absolute piece of piss in X using the PEXLib extensions BTW.
Having transparent or translucent windows was pretty common in Radar Display system, both commercial and military.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
My house has had translucent windows since like 1981.
I'm sure martha stewart did not patent all her home decorating techniques but now were faced with patents for customising our UI's so if we want certain features we'd have to lock ourselves into another OS.
If MS had their way they could just patent all the cool UI stuff that the layman likes to seein their OS and nobody would adopt Linux becuase it was reduced to a standard Xfce style interface.
I can do this in WinAMP - the window fades out when I don't use it for a couple of seconds.. .. when did they put that feature in?
Neko
disclaimer: All respect to apple, I admire their high quality hardware (compared to generic pc crap) ..
.... ...
... let's make a patent on using a pen as a pointer on a touchscreen screen so all your PDA using geek souls will pay for my neverending vacation because I catch you on the street drawing your PDA and the stylus I WILL PROSECUTE YOU ....
... ... you do not have to, but do not restrict people from creating something good just because you have the POWER and resource to make it first ..
.... putting xawtv with news behind my terminal window ..... or under the space consuming toolbars of mozilla ..... it has several cool uses and now I am really pissed ...
:) cheers
and I know that whereever I went to work the designers touched anything with a big amount of disgust that did not have the apple logo on it
However I am against patents that trademark common sense data structures, computer interfaces or anything "obvious"
if it continues like this someone will patent such basic things az pressint CTRL+ENTER to send mail, or CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart a computer..
Even worse, the EU seems to tend to go the US way, not opposing such ridiculous patents, creating an other law system where it becomes business to slip on a wet surface and suing the crap out of decent law respecting everyday people...
I feel that code based on ridiculous patents such as the previously mentioned "long M$ button press" and other interface patnets SHOULD BE reproduced/decompiled/reverse engineered AND redistributed from a place where these patents do not have legal effect or cannot be enforced
Rebel? not really, but I do not want to end up being sued by a BIG_LAME_ASS multinational corporation because my software uses a timed button press, or because my website uses "LINKING TECHNOLOGY" or a certain method of accessing data from a (freely available) database structure
what's next? really?
get a life, be innovative
have code? do not want to share? fine
while desktop FANCY was never my priority (i am the kinda guy who does not care about the screensaver or the background, I usually use an older version of gnome toolbar with wmaker og gnome dt with minimum window decoration for speed and simplicity) REAL transparent windows was always a kind of dream of mine
will ms come and bust my ASS for pressing record on my linux IPAQ for too long to trigger a recording or will they go after opie developers ? seriously will someone enforce that shit ?
huhh that became long
Actually if you RTFA you'll see that APPLE CLAIMS MORE THAN JUST TIME DEPENDANT TRANSPARENCY in this NEW applciation!?!?! Sheesh. Look at claim 26.
26. A computer-readable medium for providing a graphical user interface for a computer, the computer-readable medium comprising: means for rendering a window on a display; and means for varying a level of translucency associated with said window in response to a predetermined event.
A predetermined event is ANYTHING! Not just time. The earlier 1999 patent may be limited but this is a translucent patent land grab.
What the hell is this?
I've been using the transparency in Konsole (KDE's terminal) since I switched to Linux over a year ago, and reading around, Konsole's had it for years. KDE has it in their KDE 2.x screenshots page (fourth screenshot from the top).
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
If slashdot was around when Edison was alive, someone here would claim that his lightbulb patents were invalid because the sun was prior art.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
There are consistently coming times of the overabusing law for the capricious wilfulnes.
Only long time historic result could be a law will be considered of a low value and dishonorable by the common society, making a living much harder in future, because of oppression and enforcing.
There you are, staring at me again.
Apple must do this. If you look at the "new" features of longhorn, nearly every one has been done by Apple for years with OS X. Apple has been using translucent windows, expose window management, drop shadows for windows and auto discovery networking....all of which MS announced as breakthrough technologies that THEY are rolling out in Longhorn. These are just a few examples there are more.
Apple has been bitten once my MS knocking off the GUI and other Mac elements. This time around it will not be so easy. Remember it is also up to Apple if they wish to enforce this patent, or with whom they wish to enforce it.
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.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Everything is a bad idea until someone implements it in a particularly brilliant way.
Imagine throwing oxygen and gasoline inside a steel box and using the explosive reaction to move.
Imagine powering a state with a nuclear reaction.
It takes real work to make raw unfinished ideas and make them usable.
GPL Deconstructed
ati all in one wonder 50% image overlay with tv - gives me a headache but its close
suns looking glass demo makes the windows transparent
Not sure if this is what we're looking for but iirc Windows 2000 had the concept of alpha-blending.
I don't think it was actually used (unless you used some add-on software to set the alpha channel) but it was there nonetheless.
In fact, I don't even know it is prior to Apple's claim.
it has translucents, which "fade" over a second or two (as opposed to all or nothing like eterm had).
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
http://freedesktop.org/~keithp/screenshots/ It's the part of the new XServer from guys at freedesktop.org. It looks pretty sweet and it's been around for a while. I just can't wait till it makes it to one of the more stable releases.
Everything is a bad idea until someone implements it in a particularly brilliant way.
So why should Apple get this patent, then? Their patent describes the bad idea itself, not the brilliant implementation of it.
Imagine throwing oxygen and gasoline inside a steel box and using the explosive reaction to move. Imagine powering a state with a nuclear reaction. It takes real work to make raw unfinished ideas and make them usable.
Yup, and it is that kind of "real work" that was patented when it came to the gasoline engine.
My two year old HP laptop does this with its special keys.
I hope this doesn't cause problems for my pending patent on the " =) " smiley.
=)®
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There's a program for Windows called Actual Title Buttons which was on version 2.5 as of October 2003, and appears to have been around since 2002. Here's the site for it.
Blatant self-promotion: Jerek.net
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."
when the Apple is dying trolls ran rampant.
Related link
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
As a GUI design idea, its a horrible, horrible idea. The notion appears to be that if you have a window, after a while of inactivity you will be able to, for example, double click on an icon on a window/desktop underneath that window.
It breaks pretty much every rule of WIMP GUIs and leads to an inconsistency. To bring focus on a window, a user clicks in the window space. With these windows, it wont and only succeeds in confusing the user.
I'm an IP attorney, and I think the real question here is not prior art, which is from others, but the on sale bar. Apple filed this application Nov. 5, 2003. They do not claim priority to any earlier patents or applications. The on sale bar holds:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States. (102(b) of United States Code Title 35)
Having no experience with Apple since college, I'm not sure when they started doing the opaque menus. Was it after November 3, 2002? If it is before that date, they will not be able to patent it.
Funny thing I have these command line windows on my little Linux box that you can see right through and even make it pretty colors.
I wonder about Apple patenting any window patent in the first place seeing they use KDE. They even used the default background. I got a big laugh when a Mac friend of mine showed me the OSX beta the first time and there it was in a pretty blue with white.
Yes where is the bashing. If M$ went for this then everyone would be up in arms. The thing is If M$ did make a patent for a see through window it would be for a M$ OS which is Closed Source and patented. Apple is no longer built on Closed Source code so isn't patenting an addon for a OS built on Open Source more evil than patenting an addon for a patented system????
(I'm using the word "addon" to show that it isn't really a thing of its own but part of something bigger) I know here if we come up with a useful addon to an open source project that we are using and making money with or making our life simplier we submit what we come up with and give it back for someone else to use. What we are using on didn't cost us anything. Should we make money off of an addon when the core was free? Or should the addon be free too? Could we have built the plugin without the core? Yes we could have BUT that would take a lot more time and be reinventing the wheel. I think that if Mac is going to use GPL soruce code it should stick to that. Yes this is the same crime just a differant thief.
Maybe I can get a patent on see through glass. I'll call it "Transparent"
A) I count 20 so far, mostly modded "insightful", and not one of them modded "redundant"
I know it's a pain, but as well as reading the title of the story, try and read the first 5 or so comments to see that all 5 of them are discussing the point that you're just about to make. Please.
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
The other claims, besides the GUI bit are insanity at it's finest. But the GUI isn't so terrible that Linux market share isn't rising above Apple's, so it's either something people are willing to tolerate for a better system overall or it isn't much of an issue. I'll vote for the latter, as while Mac OS's GUI is consistant I find it a pain in the neck anyway. I can honestly say I love tools like virtual desktops, customizable window managers, and the option to not have sickly amounts of glitter if I want them, and by default no less.
If not now, when?
based on reading just the title, Microsoft has applied for a few.
My favorite title is "Universal Computing Device".
20040093593 Software componentization
20040093568 Handwritten file names
20040093515 Cross platform network authentication and authorization model
20040093393 System and method for selecting a media file for a mobile device
20040093389 Light weight file I/O over system area networks
20040093372 Challenge and response interaction between client and server computing devices
20040093371 Memory bound functions for spam deterrence and the like
20040092297 Personal mobile computing device having antenna microphone and speech detection for improved speech recognition
20040090457 System and apparatus for sending complete responses to truncated electronic mail messages on a mobile device
20040088657 Method for selecting a font
20040088589 System and method for preserving state data of a personal computer in a standby state in the event of an AC power failure
20040088537 Method and apparatus for traversing a translation device with a security protocol
20040088394 On-line wizard entry point management computer system and method
20040088390 Method and levels of ping notification
20040088335 Method and system for ghosting a property during synchronization
20040088321 Method and system for modifying schema definitions
20040086191 Passive embedded interaction code
20040086181 Active embedded interaction code
20040085523 Pen projection display
20040085468 Photo-sensor array with pixel-level signal comparison
20040085370 Input mode selector on a mobile device
20040085364 Page bar control
20040085358 Glow highlighting as an ink attribute
20040085302 Statistical model for global localization
20040085287 Decoding and error correction in 2-D arrays
20040085286 Universal computing device
20040083460 Forward walking through binary code to determine offsets for stack walking
20040080499 Adaptive input pen mode selection
20040080482 Display controller permitting connection of multiple displays with a single video cable
20040078792 System and method for selectively deactivating auto-deploy functionality of a software input panel
20040078597 Automatic client authentication for a wireless network protected by PEAP, EAP-TLS, or other extensible authentication protocols
20040078581 Installation of black box for trusted component for digital rights management (DRM) on computing device
20040078565 Method for prompting a user to install and execute an unauthenticated computer application
20040078460 Network connection setup procedure for traffic admission control and implicit network bandwidth reservation
20040078383 Navigating media content via groups within a playlist
20040078382 Adaptive menu system for media players
20040078357 Optimizing media player memory during rendering
20040078356 Method for selecting terms from vocabularies in a category-based system
20040077314 Bluetooth smart mode switching for security and privacy
20040076069 System and method for initializing a memory device from block oriented NAND flash
20040075696 System and method for automatic mnemonic assignment
20040075695 Method and apparatus for providing context menus on a hand-held device
20040075687 System and method for managing a message view
20040075673 System and method for scaling data according to an optimal width for display on a mobile device
20040075672 System and method for block scaling data to fit a screen on a mobile device
20040075671 System and method for scaling images to fit a screen on a mobile device according to a non-linear scale factor
20040075648 System and method for inputting special characters
20040075623 Method and system for displaying images on multiple monitors
20040073873 Adaptive image formatting control
20040073872 System and method for converting between text format and outline format
Which i learned about right here of course.
e nt /
http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~unk6/translux
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
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
Turnaround is fairplay! (although, I'd personnally have preferred if Apple had patented a male sexual organ in dire need of Viagra instead...)
Personally, I would like a windowing system whose windows sank or rose to different levels, reordering themselves based on which applications had the most interesting content. Applications steal focus all the time so that wouldn't change anything; Perhaps in a system like this you could more easily enforce a rule about applications not stealing focus. The focussed application would always be pulled immediately to the top, with a title bar button provided to send it back to its rightful place in the hierarchy so you can get back to what you were doing. Windows could be scaled, dimmed, and made translucent to varying degrees to convey the impression of depth, up until the point when the retinal scanning interface becomes the norm, making it easy to project quality stereo images. (I hereby abdicate all copyright on this idea and place the concept in the public domain. That ought to take care of any of those pesky patents. Will someone please implement this now?) :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As another OS X user I am *really* annoyed by OS X users spreading outright untruths about Linux, even blatant, obvious trolls like this one.
/. all the time now? I seem to remember a time when people here believed that diversity is a good thing. I love Linux, I love BSD (I know, I know, it's dying, any day now, really, we're not kidding this time), hell I'm still kinda fond of Ultrix, my very first Unix! And I love Panther on my Powerbook.
What is this "one true OS" bullshit I seem to be reading on
I've always thought it was neat how various Unix-like OS's had their own individual quirks. It gave every system personality, especially before all the big vendors went System V on our asses (ahhh, SunOS 4, how you were wronged!). But now we seem to think we have to conquer the world with THE ONE OS. Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place?
As for Apple, I believe it's possible to generally support a company and like its products without agreeing with every single thing it does. And I really can't blame any company (even Microsoft) for working the system. The system's what's broken here.
Leave a 'translucent' thing over a window with updating contents (i.e. a make), and if the contents covered by the thing don't update.....
That is my beef with the 'translucent' windows in KDE and the like, it is useless because you can't leverage it to monitor something in the background while working on something else. You just see whatever the widget set grabbed at the time the widget was created. Granted, without hardware support accessible, it will be impossible to properly do it.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
be just about making a window transparent?
'Graduated visual and manipulative translucency for windows.'
It could mean that when the window is translucent you could affect objects behind it. Which I think would be pretty cool. Has anyone else seen apps or an OS that does that?
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
I think it's interesting, all these people throwing their hands up in righteous indignation at the mere thought of a company trying to patent one of its innovations. Whether you think it's evil, or petty, or just plain lame, you need to remember that these companies are not in business to make friends, or give shit away. They're in business to make a profit. Period. And patenting things - be they real or intangible is the way they protect their profits. Apparently you think you hold some sort of moral high ground because you feel patenting somthing is a somehow base and wholly evil practice. You probably think that these companies should give away free software updates as well. Well I hate to be the one to break it to you, Sparkies, but comapnies who don't get paid for their products, CEASE TO MAKE THEM. Put the stinky shoe on the other foot for a second here. If you were a small software developer who created a killer app and that app had unique features you innovated, you'd want to protect YOUR rights to it. RIGHT? Otherwise, if you hadn't, when IBM or Microsoft came down with their winged, monkey lawyers and filed patent, effectively stealing food out of your very mouth, you'd raise holy hell to try to keep them from screwing you out of what you put long hours of your blood sweat and tears into. And you'd be lying if you said otherwise. Self-righteous, high ideals only go so far, and they go right out the window when the bottom line is at stake. Especially when you have the most to lose. Business is business, and it is frequently ugly. When you get past the shiny products and the fancy ad campaigns, the basic rule of business is "fsck your competitors out of their (ability to make) money before they fsck you out of yours." I defy you to prove otherwise. Businesses who don't go for the throats of their competitors don't get to hang around to see how it works out. Take a look at the wake of twisted wreckage and destroyed lives IBM and Microsoft have left in their wakes, and then realize it's nothing compared to Mobil Oil, Union Carbide, DuPont, AT&T, Bell Corp, GM, Ford, any tobacco company you care to name... I could go on and on and on. Once you get past the touchie-feelie marketing and spin-doctoring, it's STILL only about making money for the stockholders. Always has been, always will be. Just because you might like a company's product, or their "public persona", or image, doesn't mean they won't expend their dying breath to try to screw you out of a buck. Time to take off the rose-colored glasses. Business is a bloody, uncaring world. And much like a few Chinese protesters have found out, if you try to get in the way of the tank, you will likely end up tomorrow's dog food.
Pop quiz:
Q: How can you tell when a (car salesman, lawyer, marketer, businessman, advertising executive, etc. - you pick) is trying to separate you from your money?
A:They breathe.
Flush out your headgear, it's only about the money.
- Que profuturus est maeror causa sententia Caelestis
If I'm not très wrong, SIM, the Simple Instant Messenger, does this.
Who the hell moderated parent as insightful? Arlene Mc Carthy herself?
They are trying to patent the ability to turn one window transparent, and manipulate the windows under it, without the transparent window 'dropping' below the ones you are manipulating.
I dont think that type of thing has ever been done before...
Perhaps software patents should have a much shorter life span? (say, 3 years?) it would give the company that 'discovered' it time to develop the 'technology' first, but wouldent blanket the whole computing industry for too long
microsoft patented apples.
You can by cars that are much cheaper and faster than a Rolls Royce. You can probably save even more money buy building cars out of stuff you pick up at the junkyard, and I'm sure those could also go very fast.
So fine, you do that, and commute to work every day in your uncomfortable, ugly, but very fast and inexpensive vehicle, going nowhere near its maximum speed and spending much of its time idling at stoplights or sitting in traffic. I'll be the guy in the Rolls Royce with the hot chick. And I'm not just talking style here, I'm talking comfort and enjoyment.
Don't get me wrong, if you really need every ounce of processing power you can get per dollar then more power to you and you're right, the Mac is probably not your best choice. But if that's the case then you are not like most of the market. Most of the market doesn't want to build computers out of parts. Believe it or not, some of us know how to do this, are quite good at it, and don't want to do it anyway. There's a lot to be said for not having to fuck around with something.
There are probably a lot of reasons why Apple sales could be better: inertia, lack of mindshare, poor products in the past, not enough games for people who care about that, and who knows what else. While slower CPU might be one of them I doubt it's a very big one. Most people think the CPU is the big box with the CD drive in it. Not being able to build a Mac out of parts from the discount bin doesn't even register. Don't assume your reason for making a particular choice is the same as everyone else's.
If a patent can be granted for a mere idea, shouldn't it be sufficient to find a discussion of the idea in print for prior art? Why should we have to find an implementation when a specific implementation is not what is being patented?
Well, KDE's had them for a while.
But the videogame Abuse had them - considerably before Apple released that 'feature'.
Perhaps that counts?
and the funny thing is, Microsoft is already using transparent windows in the new Office for Mac ...
m l? src=/images/news/2004/20040511officeships/office_s creen.jpg
http://www.macobserver.com/images/viewimage.sht
CVB
free ipod and free gmail!
SmartMoney MarketMap
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Aren't patents unavailable to trivial and obvious inventions? And mere ideas? Transparent GIFs and Sprites have been around for decades. What about the semi transparent layers in Photoshop, etc? Design patents for look and feel aesthetics (transperancy being trivial prior art) and copyrights for code is OK, but basically I believe software ideas should not be patentable...
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
flamebait me all you want, you know Im right, and my Karma has been excellent :-D Like my sig says, you manke a valid point about how little the slashdot crowd reads articles and assumes the worst and you get labled a troll.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
It's a challenge to find a non-Apple translucent window that isn't just a snippet of desktop wallpaper pasted in the background.
Window translucency is hardly original. Not even gradiated transparency - the MMO game EVE allows you to set your window transparency to anywhere from 0% to 100% on a 10% graduation. That's just the first example I could think of (I've been on an EVE binge lately), there's at least a dozen more.
Follow links for screen shots of translucent windows: http://www.directfb.org/gtk.xml http://www.directfb.org/screenshots/index.xml and doesn't microsofts win32 api provide alpha blending now? I mean aren't those shadows I see in my menus a form of translucent windows? so what kind of patent is this from apple? do patents really mean anything or are they just a waste in legal fees hurting the economy?
And the whole reason I should have to do that is, what now? So companies like Apple can monopolize things that other people have done before/could easily come up with themselves/is so fucking obvious the patent examiner should be shot...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I think that's the first time I've ever heard (apart from Final Cut Pro) an arguement that Apple has more applications than another system. If there's one thing that has been a thorn in Apple's side for so long it is the lack of software
Actually, it's true. Really. Think about it. Two things:
(1) With the underlying UNIX/Posix-ness of OS X, well, it's been a long time since I've seen a Makefile that doesn't have an OS X/darwin target. So, in essence, "all" linux apps are also OS X apps. But it is not so in the reverse direction. Which leads on to:
(2) you mention Final Cut Pro - and I guess you are targeting the "i-Apps" that apple makes, don't exist on linux, yes, and what you are trying to imply, I believe, is that these apps don't count. Alright. But I don't see Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver etc. available for Linux.
It's true there's a thorn in apple's side in terms fo lack of software, but it's not a matter of lack-of-GNU/FSF software, it's lack of software to compete with *Windows*.
If open-source foundations begin embracing software patents and allow there use for free software with no restrictions and also collect fees from comercial software houses using these patents the open-source community benefits by having the right to use all these software patents without worrying about the corporate monsters prosecuting them and in addition creating an additional revenue stream to continue the development of open-source technology. This seems like an interesting prospect, what does the community think the pros and cons of this scenario are?
Later,
Phil
if you're using OS X to read this, and have a keyboard with volume up/down keys on it, this is for you:
press one of the volume buttons on your keyboard.
note the translucent display element indicating the current system volume - a gray, lozenge-shaped "window" to use the generic term for such things. notice that you can interact with the other interface elements behind it with the mouse/keyboard. note that, after a period of inactivity (after you let go of the volume adjustment key) the interface element indicating the current volume slowly fades to transparent.
ta. da.
if you're not, however, using OS X and/or have never seen this in the wild, this patent will pretty much assure you that the same thing won't show up on a windows box near you any time soon.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Do you suppose Microsoft patented Transparent Government and that's why we can't have one?
Well, besides prior art.. this patent seems to fail a more basic requirement.
The thing is that it is completely obvious and always has been once the concept of a window was there, that once it was technically feasable to make translucent and semi translucent window backgrounds, that it would be done.
Are they trying to get a patent on a specific way fo using that to dramatically enhance the way a user interacts with the computer? That might just be stuff for a valid patent, but at first glance, this isn't since it fails the non-obvious to a practiser of the field requirement.
...but they weren't dynamic as Apple's are.
Even so, X has had backing store for years. You can't tell me translucency isn't the "logical next step."
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Prior art? Glass2k under windows 2k. It works just fine. Maybe a little hard on older hardware.
I'm not sure how is it working under the hood, but my GAIM for Windows XP has a full blown transparency.
Prior art would be Eterm used primarily in the window manager enlightenment. This is the default setup for it. While it's annoying if you want to use things like syntax highlighting there are many people that use it, in fact other window managers have this feature too.
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It's a challenge to find a non-Apple translucent window that isn't just a snippet of desktop wallpaper pasted in the background.
It wouldn't matter if you did. The patent is not directed to just any translucent windows. The application acknowledges that there exist various prior art methods to draw objects, including windows, translucently, inlcuding methods they patented years ago.
The application appears to be directed more particularly to the user interface device of having a window's translucency be a function of the amount of time that has passed since the content most recently changed.
I'm sure I remember reading that somewhere, would this qualify as non-obvious ?
Weird but true. Outlook 2003 shows small windows in the bottom left corner of the screen with just the subject and sender when an e-mail arrives. That small window starts solid then goes increasingly translucent until it disappears. If you hover your mouse over it, it goes solid again and starts fading again if you move your mouse away.
S im pleDemo.html
Regardless, it's not worthy of a patent. For Apple or Microsoft.
But (unrelated) the real genius comes once more from PARC: magic lenses. Which isn't even new.
They do so much more than being translucent: they change visual properties of the data underneath.
It may not serve as prior art (because they don't fade over time), but certainly makes Apple look like a fool for trying to patent something so basic and stupid.
http://www2.parc.com/istl/projects/MagicLenses/
And there's a nice Java demo:
http://www2.parc.com/istl/projects/MagicLenses/
...I thought the whole point of windows is that they're supposed to be translucent. :)
If it weren't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate.
Seeing when that slashdotted web page finally loads in a backgrounded window. I don't need to be able to read it clearly to see that stuff has been drawn in it.
Seeing when long-running processes like compiling have finished. Ditto with not needing to read it to see whether it's still spewing.
Seeing the artist of the current itunes track without needing to shift windows. Sometimes reading even a few words is enough to be informative.
Watching movies or television behind terminal windows in which I'm getting work done. While text-over-text doesn't do much good, text-over-video works surprisingly well.
Obviously there are other window arrangement or notification methods that can be used to accomplish most of these. But they're all examples of transparency adding genuine functionality, not just ornamental eye-candy.
I mention Final Cut Pro and am kinda taking a half cooked swing at the iApps. I can only name iTunes and iMovie off the top of my head. iTunes has it's music store which I largely don't see the value of and I otherwise found nothing special about it. iMovie is fairly nice, but is superceded by both Premier and FCP on the Mac or Premier on Windows. Linux isn't, as far as I know, a contender in this area yet.
Lack of Adobe is a pain to Linux adoption for some, but that's changing in a hurry. Disney and some others have really pushed for Adobe on Linux and if I remember correctly have put some weight behind emulation for those apps. Macromedia is working to bring Flash and (I think) the whole studio to Linux, through emulation first and then native. Yeah yeah, it's a emulation or future native arguement, I know. It's also a point that's conceded in a Linux vs. Mac arguement everytime, and then apart from FCP there's no convincing arguement for Mac over Windows.
Apart from a few markets it comes down to having a very functional and usable system regardless of the OS you use. So if you're in graphics you can choose Windows or Mac, video editing you only have Mac if FCP means a lot to you. Games you're pretty much stuck on Windows. For most office stuff, coding, or almost anything else you have your pick. So it comes down to how much are you willing to pay for some glitter in those cases. Not that glitter like consistant menus and the like wouldn't be nice in some GNU software...
If not now, when?
Not too long after Commodore crashed-and-burned, I saw some stuff that was being done vis-a-vis the AmigaOS GUI that involved translucency. I have lost my archives from that time, unfortunately, but it is much as described here. IIRC, one aspect was that the translucency could vary with mouse movement as well, so as a user moved "off" a window with the mouse, the transparency could increase to make the partially-hidden underlying window more visible.
I think you've hit a critical issue. Sadly many on Slashdot react favorably to convenience and entertainment at any price. So long as Apple provides something deemed worthy and wraps it up in a convenient package, we need not get into discussing more important issues of how business interests are not always compatible with social interests or scientific interests (put differently, we should all shoehorn our arguments into one that justifies and reifies the marketplace, never challenges it). Mention things like software freedom or not doing business with businesses that treat you poorly and suddenly you're taking issue with something sacrosanct. This also comes up when movies are discussed -- discuss a new movie coming out and how impressive the special effects are or how to get a copy of the ad (pardon me, "trailer") in a proprietary format and your contribution is moderated as informative. Bring up how that same studio works to stifle your ability to express yourself freely through increasing the scope or duration of copyright law (or exporting that copyright law internationally through trade agreements), and you're reminding people of the truth at a time they'd rather pretend the world was different.
Digital Citizen
The Miranda IM client does this. The contacts list goes transparent when you use it. Right now I'm typing this with a faint, transparent contact list hovering over my text. Its not a pasted background image, its real transparency, I can put anything behind it and it works, even video.
It even does the "over time" thing. Albeit very quickly, but when its active, its pretty solid, when i start doing other things, it fades away.
check out 5,651,107. Predates by a decade.
When did Nullsoft Winamp start doing the Translucent window thing.
Also, ATI Video cards do transulucency for the TV overlay, and vice versa.
Vitrite allows you to set the transparency level of (almost) any window using the interfaces that have existed in windows 2000 since its release in late 1999. I believe it was up to the programmer to use (or not to use) the transparency interface.
I wonder if this is enough to counter the claim that Apple has had transparency since Sept 2000.
-Happy vitrite user since 2002.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Stained glass windows typically aren't used for information technology. But I'll do you one better. OVERHEAD TRANSPERANCIES.
Plastic transparencies have been used for many many years for presentation and the animation industry.
I doubt that Apple's patent will hold up in court. But you have to remember the rules of the patent game. The idea is to have as many patents as possible so you can counter-sue on 10 patents for every patent someone sues YOU for.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
IM windows -- if you don't talk to 'l33td00d' for a predetermined amount of time, the window fades and you can work right through it, although you can still see it and thus respond to any further '3nc0d3d m3554g3s'. Dustin
I'd like to nominate this for most USELESS DISCUSSION in a slashdot thread. The first few posts post the normal 'software patents suck' deal (which i agree with, but anyway),
then i see FIFTY +5 posts, all with some variation of "RTFP, it really says bla bla bla bla bla bla bla".
Did the previous forty-nine posts miss some small nuance that just had to be posted?
has translucent menus. Does that count?
What?
Doesnt suns looking glass browser already do this
This allows them to command less money since their time is worth less to them.
I don't think it "allows" them anything; rather, they choose to do so, dependent on the level of their greed.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
I wonder if this will have an adverse effect on Sun's Project Looking Glass?
ATI, blended window for tv viewing on your desktop or program.... I've seen this for at least two years
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Stupid, stupid stupid. What a stupid thing to patent. At best this will just ANNOY consumers in my opinion. The ones that know of the patent at least.
http://freedesktop.org/Software/TranslucentWindows
Science has been an "intellectual commons" for hundreds if not thousands of years. Yes, all of science. Every serious advancement in human history is the result of science in some form. From the wheel to the computer in front of you. Without the shoulders of the giants we stand on every fucking day, we would be cavemen. Twirlip should be summarily ignored for eternity for being such an ass as to pretend the idea is so preposterous. What a fuck.
* No no, not really. Maybe I'll do something _really_ crazy instead, like not using the "f word" for a week or two.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
What is the basis of this? From what data or insight do you arrive at this conculsion? This statement is also ambigious - by what measure of success? Money? Fame? Ubiquity? All of the above? Something else? Expound!
Or temporary unemployment or disability or any number of reasons why you cannot blithely and naively equate time and money? If you're unemployed, you need to spend your time finding a source of income, not on counting angels on the head of a pin. And if you're disabled, I'm sure you're going to have enough trouble finding a way to pay for your medical needs.
What wonderful assumptions! Again, your predicates are not very clear - so I'll have to guess. Unemployment = absolute requirement for employment as a source of income, and Disabled = constantly in a state of medical need? Are these absolutes? Is it really that black and white, or are there exceptions? After all, everyone requires employment, right? And everyone who is disabled requires constant medical care, right? And by extension of this business owners, lottery winners, investors, and other owners of large fortunes are merely employees and my wife requires constant medical care, despite the fact she doesn't? You'll have to do better than that. Oh, that right...business owners, investors, lottery winners...all of them, they can be fired at any time, that's the ticket, yeah...
Your flawed logic implies that everything worthwhile ever accomplished by any human being should be measured in dollars alone and that all intellectual works should be patentable too. Oh, please. "It's not about dollars, man! That's just your greed talking!" Whatever. The point is that time, tools, and intellect do not grow on trees. They are not free. There is an opportunity cost, and almost always a direct dollar cost, associated with each. Who's going to pay your mortgage while you take a year off to write the Next Big Thing in software?
Time doesn't grow on trees, it is merely an abstraction of the 4th dimension of my universe. Tools do not grow on trees, they are made by my own means. Intellect does not grow on trees, it is excercised by the challenges of my life. Time and intellect come free of charge - what are you going to do, sell me my time and intellect? At what price do I receive these things? Tools, well, that depends on weather or not you believe in public property, because I'll need resources to make tools, and the resources can't be taken from private property of someone else without theft, but could be taken from my own private property. If you don't believe in it, then free is impossible, because any form of free becomes theft (it requires that you take something that has a prior claim of ownership - that predicates theft as a result). If you DO believe in public property, then I am merely taking only what I need to make my own tools, but then you have already weakened your own arguements against the concept of non-free, haven't you? But if all forms of free are theft, then gift cease to exist? Oh, that's right, I would be robbing myself, but that is an oxymoron, isn't it, because theft means taking property from someone else, but I'm only taking from myself. You forgot one thing in your arguement - that I can give a gift, one that from your vantage point, is free to you (yes, there is cost to me - the very definition of a gift implies this - but why you are so concerned about my costs is unclear to me - so for clarification, cost doesn't enter into the picture when you are discussing a gift I give to you). Given that I have satisfied all three requirements for "free" (in a value/materialist sense), this last paragraph of yours, in my own opinion, is a large dungheap of broken ideas.
I for one have no non-free, commercial software and the fact that most people do is hardly a proof t
The difference is focus vs. time-based, which is enough to at least severely limit the extent of possible enforcement if Apple gets the patent.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I think we really must reconsider whether the benefits of patents from publication (as opposed to using trade secrets / NDAs instead) are high enough to keep the government involved in such a hard-to-get-right mess.
TRillian has had "transparency" for it's windows for 2+ years?
-- All That's Evil in the Geek Space
Windows has had this since at least Windows 2000, although it's not commonly used.
See SetLayeredWindowAttributes in the MS SDK.
This is my sig.
"...wherein said cursor operates on contents of said window when said window is in said opaque state, and said cursor operates on objects underlying said window when said window is in said first translucent state."
Using Netscape 7.1, (because my Logitech Elite Keyboard doesn't support Mozilla) I clicked on my current tab through my transparent TV window. I'm using an ATI A-I-W 7500 on WinXP.
How's that for prior art?
http://www.kaleidoscope.net/greg/PowerWindows.html
I was using it years before OS X had it. I love Apple. And would even support them protecting themselves with this patent. But there's prior art. No question.
Look at this claim:
9. The computer system of claim 8, wherein said first translucent state is 20% translucent and said second translucent state is 40% translucent.
Does that mean that something that steps up the translucency either more or less gradually would not be infringing?
I browse /. with +3 for funnies... and the whole topic had ONE, one fucking +4 funny! the other had +5 but was twenty lines long, what kind of +5 funny is more than twenty line long???
Anyway... I'm pretty sure there's prior art for it. I remember using it since i was 2! It was a device called wall that had a translucent window, that you used to look to the street, you know?
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/papers /Harrison/blh_txt.htmc hi95/Electronic/documnt s/papers/blh_bdy.htm
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/
This should be pretty prior. This work was done a long time ago. The video demo is pretty convincing too.
This
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/papers /Harrison/blh_txt.htm
t s/papers/blh_bdy.htm
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi95/Electronic/documn
I have no idea where that space came from.
This
You know, Trillian's been doing this for a while...
what are the odds someone hasn't already done this in Flash?
Hell, many flash sites use tweens bounds to user input to vary the alpha channel of a symbol. Flashkit.com should have some examples, I would imagine.
And macheads, don't be so goddam retarded. This is bad, plain and simple. Apple, I don't know if you've realised, is capable of just as much nasty proprietary behavior as M$ and has done so in the past. And you can't excuse it by saying "But they're not the monopoly!"
Apple & Microsoft both suck, live with it.
And patenting something as retarded as a multi-desktop or a transparent window(I don't give a shit about user input, it's a goddam transparent window.) What's next, patenting a room with white walls?
And I do believe the parent post was asking for prior art, not "Well, it's Apple, their cool!" and "No it's not".
Interfaces should arguably NOT be patentable. And "components" of that interface should DEFINITELY not be patented.
And finally, patenting does NOT drive innovation. Innovation drives it. The wheel is not patented. Pyramids are not patented. PCs grew because of a patent loophole let another company make em.
I didn't create my little custom pen holder because I wanted to patent it. I did it because it WORKED.
"Oh, but without patents, large companies will rip you off". They do anyway, dipshit. They just now use patents to do it. Go fig.
Given that SysV init levels are configurable, that's not even an OS issue.
You misunderstand what the "bad" behavior is. Holding the patent isn't it. It's what gets done with it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q= simgen+amiga
I wrote something for the Amiga Workbench that gave you an image behind your desktop making all your windows that used the default background color to show the image through them so it basically it looks like translucent windows.
just defensive, then why don't they just publish the "invention" and say "This invention is in the public domain"?
HAND.
http://www.fresco.org/data/screenshots/xggi-xchat. png
I think I have seen prior art for this. It was a Visual Basic (sigh...the things I do for experience) tutorial which used transparency to do the same thing. And what about the many applications which use a transparent region to make irregular shaped-windows? Wouldn't they also come under this patent? Anyway, I think that the author of the VB transparency code was Karl Moore, but I can't find his programming site anymore. Has anyone else here seen the transparency code?
From what i understand the Mac OS track recorder isnt so great, and im sick of Mac users stating that Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office makes the base of a system having real applications. If you want to compare functionality available and number of software, yes working software, titles... anytime.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Again, with emphasis, IANAL. I was under the assumption that during a patent dispute, trade secrets do NOT become public.
Defending a trade secret doesn't involve publicly disclosing the secret; that would nullify the point. I *thought* confidentiality in this area of the proceedings was kept. Could someone with more knowledge of this please clarify?
They bought NeXT?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The GUMMI interface sounds like its very similiar to what apple is doing. The Register has the story. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/15/bendable/
How about this? Or this? That took only about a minute of googling to find.
Apple don't have to patent it .. they can use defensive publication [*] (which will be alot cheaper than patenting). There are several established methods for doing this .. they could apply for a patent and not go beyond the publication stage of the patent or they could use a repository such as www.priorartdatabase.com .
Of course there are other options, patents with free (gratuit) licenses for example.
Then if anyone tries to haul Apple into court they can either point at the publication of the patent doc or some other date-verifiable publication to prove they have prior art.
The examiners job is not to produce 100% valid patents (which most companies probably don't want; democracy-s-mockery) but to produce patents that are _likely_ to be valid : the difference is a few hundred man-years of searching and high resources drain on the economy versus (at most) a couple of man-days of searching.
--
* defensive publication means producing the matter of an invention in such a way that the date of it's disclosure can be easily verified and preferably the disclosure can be readily accessed by patent searchers.
1) Let's say my trade is burglary. Are the fruits of my labour my property? Some burglaries are not easy, you know. You don't think burglary is a trade? What about those burglaries the government organises, that it chooses not to call by name?
2) If the fruits of my labour are my property, then my child is my property, and indeed you and I are both the property of the same individual if you go far enough back. Does this property right cease upon death? If so, what do you make of inheritance of more 'tangible' property?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Okay then, that's all perfectly accurate. Sorry I swore at you. Just mistook you for one of those 30 billion "one button mouse" trolls for a moment there.
You are very right that many great GUI concepts were invented elsewhere. It'd be silly to say they all came from Apple. The only claim I'd make about Apple is that they were the first to create a usable WIMP system, and provided the only usable such (usable) systems on the market from the Lisa's debut until 1995. (Sorry, Windows 3.x doesn't cut it. Compare it to DOS, and it's impressive, but compare it to System 7, its competitor on the Mac side, and it was a joke.)
Anyway, that last paragraph was pretty much a tangent. Oops.
So yes, while a lot of great stuff was and is co-opted from Mac OS, plenty was invented elsewhere too. Contextual menus are a good example.
whinge PPronunciation Key(hwnj, wnj)
:-)
intr.v. Chiefly British whinged, whinging, whinges
To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.
I types what I means and I means what I types.