Apple Patents 'Chameleon' Computer Case

Dave B writes "The Register has been fishing at the patent office again and found that Apple has a new patent for "a computing device [which] includes a housing having an illuminable portion. The computing device also includes a light device disposed inside the housing. The light device is configured to illuminate the illuminable portion". While this gives us the exciting prospect of an iMac that is all five fruit flavors at once surely the original iMac with its glowing power button, or indeed a-thousand-and-one other electronic gizmos represent prior art?" Update a couple of users noticed this Slashdot Story from 2002 which looks familiar.

Comments

Lasers?

[DarkMavis]

So do you suppose that these internal lights will actually be lasers like the ones found in laser pointers? how else would you be able to make the lights turn into dots or stripes?

Re:Lasers?

[krog]

probably by having multiple tri-color LEDs dimmed by pulse-width modulation.

I gotta say, it will be pretty neat having the entire case give me information about CPU/memory usage.

Re:Well...

[christor]

No. See here.

Interactive Illumination

[Lord Grey]

From the detailed description portion of the patent:

[0090] In some cases, the light system 14 is arranged to cooperate with the electrical components 18. For example, events associated with the electrical components 14 may be monitored, and the light system 14 may be controlled based on the monitored events. As such, an illumination effect corresponding to a specific event may be produced. For example, the housing 12 may be configured to exude a blinking red coloration when an event has been implemented.

It looks like Apple is extending the "illuminated case" theme by making it more interactive. The patent is purposely vague about what the illumination is, taking (what seems to be) pains to avoid calling the illumination static. I think they're looking at displaying color bars, logos, icons, etc. on the case from the inside. It would be cool to see an entire case shaded (for example) from blue to red to indicate processor activity. Imagine a rack full of server systems with that capability, in a dark server room....

Now, I'm not sure how a so-called "interactive illumination" is much different than LEDs you see on the mondo-cool multiprocessor boxes, but the patent does describe something a bit different than the run-of-the-mill case mod.

Re:Prior Art?

[anakin357]

The article says the case would be illuminated by R, G and B colored lights, so it could be any color of the spectrum. Very cool! Prior art? Not quite so sure.

I think it is more along the lines of "I'm feeling red today."
Click, click click... "Ahh, red illuminated case."

Blue? Click, click.

I like the idea.

Are patents stifling or restricting?

[erick99]

If people and companies viewed patents and copyrights 100 or more years ago the way we do now, we would have possibly had exactly one artist who did pointillit paintings, one who did impressionistic, one who did abstract, etc. I wonder if we really have a need to patent or copyright things that are somewhat "basic"? Well, in my mind they are basic. But, that is just one person's point of view.

Cheers,

Erick

Re:Prior Art?

[meringuoid]

Moreover, this isn't a silly software patent. It's hardware. It's a physical thing, a real invention. It's actual lights inside the case.

And it's a damn good idea. I wonder how programmable this is? Maybe the next xscreensaver will have options for controlling the case lights...

Re:THIS gets a patent?

[argent]

Read Richard Feynman's autobiography (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman):

"There are so many ideas about nuclear energy that are so perfectly obvious, that I'd be here all day telling you stuff, [...] Example: nuclear reactor...under water...water goes in...steam goes out the other side...Pshshshsht -- it's a submarine. Or: nuclear reactor...air comes rushing in the front...heated up by nuclear reaction...out the back it goes...Boom! Through the air -- it's an airplane. Or: nuclear reactor...you have hydrogen go through the thing...Zoom! -- it's a rocket....There's a million ideas!" I said, as I went out the door.

Next thing he knew they'd taken out three patents in his name from that conversation.

Re:Prior Art?

[FireFury03]

I must admit, the idea is cool... but I'm not sure if it constitutes a non-obvious idea and I'm sure the case modders must've done this already.

It would be kinda cool for your windows machine to turn red when you get a virus or have the computer go blue when you get new email though. :)

Prior art?

[pesc]

Is it like this?

Surely there is a computer inside that controls that case!

Re:Prior Art?

[SatanicPuppy]

You're thinking in terms of software patents. You can have a hundred hardware patents that do similar things as long as the mechanical stuff is different.

So toyota can still make a new 4 cylinder engine and patent it, even though there are dozens of patented 4 cylinder engines.

Too bad they aren't as liberal with software.

Re:THIS gets a patent?

[dasmegabyte]

Well, yeah. Water goes in, steam comes out, it's the submarine. That's obvious.

But how do you prevent the hot steam from raising the ambient temperature of the sub and killing everybody inside?

Through innovative cooling techniques that are not immediately obvious, that take a lot of thought, testing and research.

This is why patents are for SPECIFIC implementations. If Apple had just tried to patent coloured lights on cases, they'd have had no enforceable patent there. So they patented coloured lights, a system to get the light to the outside of the case, creating patterns, and software to control all this. Anybody who thinks a green neon tube is prior art for alternating coloured tiger stripes down the side of a case has a pretty imaginative definition of "non obvious."

Re:Prior Art?

[System.out.println()]

I wonder how programmable this is?

Personally, I hope it's accessible via Applescript, and/or via a CLI command. There are a number of things I would like to use with this with involving AS: new IM? flash yellow! someone mentioned me in IRC? flash green! Somone's accessing my webserver? blue!

I'm excited :)