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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.
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.
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...
See MacSlash for more of them
and the announcement that Longhorn will feature a heavily translucent interface -- Aero Glass?
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Translucency has been around for a while, but Apple is filing for time dependent translucency. E-term had that?
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I only briefly skimmed the article, but it seems to me that this isn't as broad as it initially seems.
:)
The translucency can be graduated so that, over time, if the window's contents remain unchanged, the window becomes more translucent. In addition to visual translucency, windows according to the present invention also have a manipulative translucent quality. Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window.
So, the windows fade with time (if they are not used much), and the windows below are phased above the fading window... Rather than just plain old tinted windows.
I personally have never experienced anything like this, it sounds like it could be useful... or maybe I'm just behind the times
Hey everybody, this is NOT a patent on translucent windows. It is a patent on fading windows. That's right, it covers windows that fade over time as their content remains static. Once their translucency reaches a certain point, they no longer receive focus from user input, instead it passes to the underlying UI elements.
Imagine if your console log was set to full screen, but behaved in this manner. As long as nothing is logged the window gradually fades out and you can use your other windows. As soon as something is logged it becomes more opaque and accepts user input again.
I suppose more people click on patent articles if they sound ridiculously easy to find prior art for or otherwise abusive, but this one actually sounds innovative.
Methods and systems for providing graphical user interfaces are described. overlaid, Information-bearing windows whose contents remain unchanged for a predetermined period of time become translucent. The translucency can be graduated so that, over time, if the window's contents remain unchanged, the window becomes more translucent. In addition to visual translucency, windows according to the present invention also have a manipulative translucent quality. Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window.
Yes, software patents are evil...so lets do the right thing and not claim that every transparent xterm hack qualifies as 'prior art'.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
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.
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).
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."
"Translucency has been around for a while, but Apple is filing for time dependent translucency."
Translucent windows?
(looks outdoors)
How are they new again?
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
Well atleast it updates when completely moved.
Perhaps (just guessing) Eterm doesnt qualify because of the way the "transparancy" was accieved. Afaik, every Eterm had in memory a copy of the background image, and just painted the approperiate part as it's (Eterms) backgroud. So it did NOT "read" the actual background imaging, it just painted the background picture.
As a result, if you had multiple windows on top of each other, all showed the background, while on "Terminal.app" (OS X), the transparancy shows underlying windows, apps, graphics et al.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
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.
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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.
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Nope, even if Apple had translucent windows before anyone else, they would have had to apply for a patent on the technique within 1 year of public release or even that is valid prior art for the current patent. Of course, as another poster said, they aren't simply patenting translucent windows (well, not entirely clause 26 is), but fading out windows over time. One of the comments on that page also pointed out that this is out virtually every On Screen Display menu works. And even that is bloody obvious to someone mildly skilled in the art.
And "spring loaded folders" I don't know how many times the topic has come up on the nautilus devel list by non-coders who have no idea that such a feature is implemented on the Mac. So not only is that particular patent obvious to a practitioner of the art, but to a complete novice in the art. Stupid USPTO.
Let's hope that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space 'Cause there's bugger-all down here on Earth.
Those programs actually manipluate a data structure in the Win32 API which was designed for transparency. The prior art for those apps could go back to the creation of that aspect of the API.
READ THE FUCKING PATENT. It's not enough just to be translucent. It has to allow stuff like becoming transparent to user input over time as well.
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.
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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?).
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.
Here it is - Vitrite
This isn't time-dependent, but it is very handy.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
...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.
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.
Nice. Someone who READ the patent instead of just commenting on the stupid summary. This is a VERY SPECIFIC method of USING translucent windows. Not just "a patent on translucent windows."
This is essentially a patent on a context-sensitive user interface, where windows become more or less opaque based on how many windows are open and how many are layered, and whether or not the user interfaces with them. I imagine this would look very cool and be fairly usable.
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.
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If slashdot was around when Edison was alive, someone here would claim that his lightbulb patents were invalid because the sun was prior art.
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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.
I am neither a patent agent nor a lawyer, but I have read about the patent process and learned the following:
U.S. patent applications always name one or more individual inventors, and they usually name an assignee. Engineers' employment contracts typically require an employee to name her employer as assignee in any patent on an invention developed with the employer's resources. The shorthand "Foo Corp filed a patent for the baz process" means "An employee of Foo Corp filed a patent for the baz process, using a patent lawyer retained by Foo Corp, naming Foo Corp as assignee."
It's not a patent on translucent windows, it's a patent for using graduated levels of translucency instead of active/inactive window coloring schemes. From what I've read, it appears that the longer you go without performing actions in the window, the more translucent it becomes, to the point where you can "click through" it and input into whatever object is underneath.
This particular interface feature would be incredibly annoying and confusing to people with less than perfect eyesight, so I hope that Apple defends its patent and that it never appears outside of Apple's software.
If it was simply an attempt to patent translucent windows, it would be easy to knock down. Some games use translucent pop-ups in their interfaces via D3D / OpenGL.
Fred
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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
Do you suppose Microsoft patented Transparent Government and that's why we can't have one?
You misunderstand what the "bad" behavior is. Holding the patent isn't it. It's what gets done with it.