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Apple Sued For Using Tabs In OS X Tiger
rizzo320 writes "AppleInsider is reporting that an Illinois-based company and its Nevada partner have filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., alleging that Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' infringes an interface patent relating to the OS's nearly universal use of tabs. The suit was filed in the patent troll's and forum shopper's favorite venue: Marshall, TX. The patent in question is 5072412, which was originally issued to Xerox in 1987, but is now owned or licensed to IP Innovation LLC and its parent Technology Licensing Corporation. 'Category dividers triggered by Spotlight searches, as well as page tabs in the Safari web browser, bear the closest similarity to the now 20-year-old description' of the patent, according to the article. IP Innovation is requesting damages in excess of $20 million and an injunction against future sales and distribution of Mac OS X 10.4. Software patent reform can't come soon enough!"
Apple's got money.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why not against IE7/Microsoft ? :)
They certainly got more cash
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
It's gotta be said that Xerox is responsible for most of the GUI's we see nowadays, and if anyone has a right to tabs or anything else in that area, they do, they did a hell of a lot of innovation. But the terms for patents in IT are far too long, and it is kinda unfair that Apple is singled out as well.
They've got too much money (for lawyers).
Im as much for patent reform as the next guy, but can we please have story summaries that state the NEWS ONLY?
Leave the comments ("patent troll", etc) for the, uh, comments.
The only reason you are right about that, is because patents are horribly broken in lots of fields - pharmaceuticals, for example.
They often do not work anything like as well as they are supposed to in advancing technology, and they do a lot to impose extra costs and barriers to entry.
People on Slashdot dislike software patents in particular, partly because they are particularly bad, and partly because that is what they know most about. There is also very good evidence that software patents do not work because software only recently became patentable. Technology did not advance any faster after this, therefore software patents do not work. We do not have as solid evidence on other types of patents.
See my past Slashdot comments and my blog for more.
IANAL, so let me rephrase that in layman's terms.
The patent basically looks like it covers anthing resembling a modern user interface.
The patent more specifically stresses mechanics like the Opera/IE/Mozilla browser tabs, spreadsheet "workbooks", the Windows taskbar, you name it.
So, in other words, just about any software on the market today.
Well, that's what I seemed to gather from the passing glance I gate the patent text. So I might be wrong. Please correct me if that's the case.
Assuming I'm right, this is a "blanket patent" that can be sicced on anybody they chose to.
One would expect them to go after several small companies at once, with several lesser damage claims, companies that might not afford to pay a lawyer.
Instead, they go after a rather large company (again, correct me if I'm wrong, but Apple is a pretty big company), and claim a relatively unimpressive sum (20+ mil).
I could only suppose again that damage claims must be related to number of users that the product was sold to (or somesuch).
Still, going after Microsoft and claiming damage for... heh... EVERYTHING Windows and Windows-based Microsoft ever made and sold, now that would be a huge sum we're talking about.
Claiming Apple wouldn't have the money to go into court for this is pretty ridiculous... well, unless, maybe they're counting on Apple settling out of court for such a paltry sum ?
I can only hope they get smashed in court, and smashed good.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
And that concludes my conspiracy theory...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Fortunately, you mean. Having a useless title bar consume one of the four extremely valuable screen edges and parking the menu under it is one of the most horrendously stupid violations of Fitts' law in the history of user interfaces.
It seems to me that venue shopping is the thing that needs to go here. The idea that it is possible to pick and choose who gets to decide on the lawsuit based upon how easy it will be to win simply boggles the mind.
Whoa, wait a minute. You think the "framers of the Constitution" set up the current system of trademarks, copyrights and patent law?
Do you also think the "framers" are responsible for the current IRS tax law?
Career bureaucrats and smarmy politicians have corrupted much of our legal system beyond all recognition by the sainted "framers".
You are welcome on my lawn.
To put it another way, this is like being able to patent the gasoline engine.
If it transforms gasoline into motive force, it's in violation of the patent. You could build a gasoline powered steam engine and it'd be infringing. The patent could have been for a 2 stroke, then a company comes along and starts mareting a rotary engine and the patent holder sues.
Tabs have been used to assist in organizing and finding specific parts of paper-based information for ages. Desktops, filing cabinets, trash cans and many other objects have made appearances in GUIs, so why not tabs?
I don't read AC A human right
If they designed OS X around having 18 monitors available, the experience for the majority of users, who have onlye 1 monitor, would be a lot worse. Quite a few people do use 2 or even 3 though, so it's a valid criticism in those cases. IIRC, there are keyboard shortcuts to access the menu, so you could try those.
That's not strictly true. Patents protect methods. Whether that method involves a series of gears, a paintbrush's movement on canvas, or some lines of code isn't really relevant, generally.
Saying it's not patentable is a false conclusion based on hindsight. If someone put a computer in front of you with a text-based interface, you wouldn't immediately look at it and say "tabs!" That's the answer! Obviously, you wouldn't even immediately create the idea of a GUI. A basic graphical interface was possible long before it was actually implemented. In 1981, I wouldn't have been able to find a single reason to identify a tab patent as obvious. Just because an idea is simple doesn't mean it's not patentable. Adding flush rivets to planes is a very simple idea, but it took a tremendous amount of engineering and trial-and-error in manufacturing processes. The end result is patentable because they figured out how to make it happen. The method itself is a trade secret (just as the source code for implementing a software feature can be). You'll note that most patents say "a method where..." or something similar and the patent describes the results. This is why.
Organizing information to display in tabs is a method. At one time, it was novel and non-obvious. There was no reason to reject a patent for it ("I should have thought of that!" isn't one) in 1981. The problem is that software patents last too long (things which were groundbreaking even just 5 years ago are old news), and infringement suits have become a method for profiteering. In 2007, tabs and scroll bars are old hat. Patent infringement suits should have to be defended from day one. If you wait 15 years to sue (at which time, 99% of the industry has gradually adopted that method), you're profiteering. There is no legitimate excuse. If you have been defended your patent since the beginning, that's an entirely different story.
I don't have a problem with patents being granted for novel innovations. I do feel that the USPTO should insist on a uniform licensing model, though, and that patents should need to be defended as the holder becomes aware of the problem, not several years later when the fruit is ripe, so to speak. I also believe that once your idea has propagated to the point where no one can even pinpoint the source, it's too late to sue. It's the difference between holding a patent on a gasoline engine in 1800 and trying to sue for one in 2007.
Patents do expire in 20 years. You can sue for past enfringement after it expires, but not on-going infringement.
My guess is, this is one last attempt to make something from a vanishing asset, before it disappears completely later this year.
Maybe you should be entitled to a jury of peers. Even in tech cases. Meaning a jury of engineers and not a jury of joe stupid.
The original framers of the Constitution did not imagine patent trolls at all. At that time, one needed to demonstrate a working prototype of the invention. That prototype was also referred to to remove ambiguity as to what was being patented.
Not true any more.
I'd point out that the patent was filed for more than 20 years ago, but not granted until 1991.
I'd also point out that the patent implies an implementation much different than how such things are implemented today. The idea is not subject to patent, only the implementation -- which is demonstrably different.
We don't need a Software Patent reform, we need it to have a quite sudden early retirement.
If you have a nice glass broken in two halves, you can consider glueing it together again.
If it's broken in thousands of miniscule pieces... you simple throw it away.
Software Patents are like glass broken in thousands of dangerous miniscule shards that if ingested only hurt the industry by the inside.
Retire it. Now!
Patents provide the low-hanging fruit in this area, but the actual problem goes much deeper.
As we all know here, software patents are wholly inappropriate in software, as they undermine the very basis of computing. But as long as companies are free to engage lawyers to litigate as a business plan, no amount of patent reform will fix this issue, because lawyers can literally create a case out of nothing. And they do so regularly, as we've seen in hundreds of examples recently.
The problem lies in part with lawyers (basically for being pricks without any moral standing, and happily taking money for their services regardless of purpose), and in part with judges and the judicial system as a whole, for not applying massive penalties to lawyers who use law merely to underpin a company business plan. Judges need to see through the purpose of a suit, and stomp heavily on lawsuits being used purely as a means of financial gain. The reason we've got into this mess is largely because lawyers benefit from all litigation, and judges have no interest in stopping that.
A complete ban on software patents would at least place that low-hanging fruit out of reach, but it won't solve the greater problem faced by corporate America, which is that it is at the mercy of a huge tier of parasites wearing suits, whose whole idea of worthwhile activity is to prevent worthwhile activity by others. Lawsuits are being used as an anti-competitive weapon by every man and his dog now, and that's the key problem here.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Shouldn't they have gone after Apple back in the 80's when Jobs was "inspired" by the work at Xerox Parc? Why haven't they sued Apple for using a mouse? Shouldn't patent suits happen before an innovation becomes the de facto industry standard interface?
or maybe Disney is getting ready to sue everyone over the mouse
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Each of these innovations builds from the previous in a new way. But each of them also was non-obvious when it was invented. The wheel seems utterly obvious to all of us alive today, but it obviously wasn't when it was invented (or it would have been invented sooner). Absurdly simple things like four-stroke engines or counter-sinking screws or using a visual desktop metaphor weren't always so.
how about for prior art they drag in a filing cabinet from the 60's and show the tabs on top of each folder that separates things by category *grin*
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
I know this will probably kill karma, but here goes.
"IP Innovation is requesting damages in excess of $20 million and an injunction against future sales and distribution of Mac OS X 10.4. Software patent reform can't come soon enough!"
I really have to wonder if the article summary would have just cheered wildly and forgotten about patent reform for a few minutes if it had been MS they were suing, or if all the fans of Apple and MS bashers would have taken a break to still support the bigger issue on this one.
Well, if you remember the early days of GUIs, (the 1980s) there were lots of attempts to create highly literal representations of familiar and useful real world objects: trapezoidal desktops that sat on top of file drawers to represent that the surface in question was, indeed a desktop; tabbed notebooks with spiral "bindings" to represent the fact that this was, indeed, a notebook.
Nobody patented these things because it was the obvious way to make a GUI. It was also the wrong way.
Very quickly, the interfaces became streamlined, losing literal aspects of the metaphor. Desktops became rectangular and filled the entire screen, maximizing the user's work space. Notebooks lost the spiral bindings but kept the tabs, leaving more room for notebook contents.
This process is also obvious: remove elements from the metaphor that perform no function other than to carry the metaphor to the user. This process is forced by constraints (users only have so much screen real estate and designers are always fighting that limitation). It works because the functional elements of the metaphor are sufficient to carry message of its usage to the users: the fact that things can be placed on the desktop is all the user need to know; the fact that clicking on a tab selects a different page carries the meaning of the tab to the user.
It is not the originality of the "inventor" which created tabs, it was an inevitable historical process of literalism and erosion of irrelevant detail; the same process that created alphabets from pictograms.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The GIMP uses several windows to contain an interface what is, semantically, one interface. That makes it totally unintuative and ugly, and I have no idea why they've not redesigned the interface yet. Do you?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I can see it now - "Your Honor, I'd like to request a jury made up of my fellow serial killers." "Is that a guilty plea I hear?"
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
The part I don't understand is that the patent has expired. Software pattents expire 14 years after they are granted http://www.clemson.edu/research/ottSite/ottStart_I ntelectPatents.htm#Duration. That is in 1991 according to the link that was provided in the summary. So I guess that they can sue for any infrigement before 2005. After that there is no protection on the idea. Going after the current version of OSX seems dumb because it is not covered by the patent.