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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!"
So... Why did they suddenly decide to go after Apple now when Mozilla has been in, urm, flagrant violation of this supposed patent for much longer than Apple?
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
So why is Marshall, Texas such a great venue for patent extortion? The city's web pages don't seem to have an answer, but it does seem to be a nice place.
One wonders if this boils down to a single judge, who might appreciate a free MacBook.
#!
What a joke. Maybe they should go and get the manilla folder people in on this too, because of their ingenious system of tabbed browsing.
Or, to put it another way, you have no idea what you're talking about. Software patents are totally different from normal patents because they protect ideas instead of implimentations. This is inevitable since software is almost always translated from a source language, which is often a trade secret. If software patents were the same as normal ones it would be the details of this source code which is protected (as it is by copyright law already). Allowing patents on software extends the protection to any implimentation in any language and often with any algorithm. This is vastly more protection than a normal patent which covers only one, clearly defined, method and effectively allows a software patent to lock up an entire idea or concept.
Additionally, this patent covers something which is as old as the hills. Tabs for organising pages are almost as old as paper itself. Putting that onto a computer simulation of paper is not something that should be patentable at all.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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.
Tabbed UI, Apple Lisa, circa 1980. Screenshots, story.
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.
i think all software patents should be banned, whos next? Opera or mozilla/firefox web browser? fluxbox?
maybe even closed source software should be outlawed and make ALL software mandatory opensource...
this is getting ridiculous...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This patent issued in 10 Dec 1991. At that time in the US, a patent was in force 17 years after issue - so that patent becomes public domain in Dec 2008 giving it another 20 months. Since then, when the US changed its rules a few years ago to get closer to the practice in the rest of the world, new patents are now in force for 20 years from the date of application.
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.
Oh wait, I guess it took them 2 years to learn how to write a letter.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
A month or so after the one programmer left at apple finishes the iPhone.
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.
It will not be until
a) Big companies are hurt badly by ludicrous patent claims.
b) They buy, I mean, lobby politicians to kill software patents in the US
that we will have something resembling sanity.
Companies can use copyright to protect what is theirs and shoulder the fact that other people will copy their good ideas, that would benefit everybody.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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
The thing is that "four wheeled vehicle with engine" at one time would have been truly novel and patentable. As technologies progress, they're supposed to be compressed and the initial patents lapse and society goes on.
The problem with software patents is that software moves a lot more quickly than most kinds of manufacturing and design; it is also more likely with software that good ideas will be emulated across the board as users begin to expect it--to the point that it becomes standardized. The steering wheel, after all, is not the only possible navigation interface for a car. However, car users have come to expect it.
Other companies are supposed to license the really good ideas and adopt and improve upon them. You get to a mature system in which US car manufacturers all hold a number of patents, and all license patents from each other. No one gets saddled with dramatically higher or lower costs, and the companies all continue to innovate.
The big difference with software is that lots of companies don't want to license patents from each other, and innovation/evolution has occurred so fast that it's quite difficult to keep up. In 1981, a tabbed visual interface would have been groundbreaking. In 2007, filing that same patent would be absurd. The USPTO would be served quite well to implement mandatory licensing of software patents; patent owners could continue to reap the legitimate benefits of patents, while having each company pay a "bulk licensing fee" would prevent these infringement suits as a profiteering business model. It would lessen pressure on the courts and leave room for actual patent infringement suits to be heard LESS than two years after filing.
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.
Patent coverage is effective on date of filing; but only actionable after the patent is issued. That is, if you file in 1987, you have to wait until the patent is issued (1991) until you can start enforcing it---even against those who started using the patented idea in 1990. But, the patent coverage runs for 20 years from filing date (even then).[1] The patent was filed in March, 1987, which means the patent should have expired by now.
What we appear to have here is a patent troll who waited until the last minute to file, hoping to grab as much infringing money as possible. However, the doctrine of laches prevents this sort of behavior. Laches means that you cannot sit on your rights and constructively encourage infringement only to later sue. Think of it as entrapment or inducement.
More importantly, this idea has been mainstream for years. Visual Basic (et al.) allow for this sort of tabbing behavior. The question is whether M$ is licensed, or whether the troll has been sitting on his rights. Beyond that, we can't know all of the ins and outs of the case at this point.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
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.
Like when you buy a house you get title insurance just in case all the lawyers missed some old title to your house somewhere. Is there a patent insurance that protects the company from the person who patented the idea?
Can I bum a sig?
Also, as the previous poster noted, the term of United States patents changed after this patent was granted. For patents in force before 1995, the patent lasts the greater of 20 years after filing or 17 years after grant. Thus, this patent is in force until 2008.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Now I understand what people mean when they say "Software patents fuel innovation"..
They REALLY MEAN "Software patents fuel IP Innovation LLC"
-- lol pwned
Now, if there is a patent system, then I can file a patent for my better mousetrap, and receive legal protection for the exclusive right to market it, for a limited time, and in exchange for disclosing the details of how my better mousetrap works to the general public. So now it's a win-win situation - I as the inventor get rewarded, and the general public gets the benefits of my invention.
There are, of course, many problems w/ our current patent system, and I would definitely like to see major reform; but I don't think patents are ridiculous.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
The patent of a "four weeled vehicle with engine" would be denied, just because it doesn't explain what sort of verhicle it is. The (very insightfull) gear that transmit power from the engine to a pair of weels while permiting them to have different velocities (and made a 4 weeled vehicle possible) was patented, and rightly so.
See, generic patent that applies to anything at the horizon despite the actual technology used -> denied. Specific patent that applies to well defined piece of technology -> granted. That's the way it was, and that is what doesn't happen with software patents.
And, by the way, everybody was after a four weeled vehicle by that time, but nobody had the means of building one. What do you think would happen if somebody was able to patent a "four weeled vehicle with engine" before the diferential gear was created? Do you think it would be developed?
Rethinking email
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!
Shouldn't have it expired by now?
Thanks,
Mike
What? Firefox has always had tabs, The very first release (back in the days when it was known as Phoenix) had this feature built in (i.e. not a plugin).
s -a-look-back-at-firefox-phoenix-01/
http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2006/07/26/cybernote
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
As many have pointed out, the patent was applied for in 1987, but only granted in 1991... thus, its in effect for 17 years from the date it was granted... that's the system prior to 1995.
However, it should be painfully obvious this is the illegal sort of submarine patent. Usually, companies used to attempt the legal sort -- they'd apply, they'd try to drag the process along as slowly as possible, counting on the 17 years they'd get once the patent was granted, the extra time before the patent is granted would hopefully get that patent into common use... particularly when the patent, such as this one, was so frickin' obvious that people re-created it continuously. The 1995 changes were designed to stop this as much as possible.
But tabbed interfaces have been around for quite some time. There were tabbed interfaces in AmigaOS programs... I can't swear they showed up before 1987 (AmigaOS 1.x), but this was the latest thing in the early 1990s. I know I've seen computer Rolodex-type programs using a tabbed interface (since that's basically the metaphore), very likely before 1987, though I can't think of the specific example. But obviously, this has been used in Windows and many other programs since then. They ought to lose enforcement rights on this patent due to the fact it hasn't been enforced for the last 15+ years.
-Dave Haynie
I'm pretty sure that Alan Kay invented the tabs concept at Xerox PARC when he invented Smalltalk (and the GUI) sometime in the 1970's.
- conception - the day someone came up with the invention
- reduction to pracice - the day someone figured out how to fully make the invention (after functional testing, etc)
- filing date - the actual day the patent application was filed
- publication date - the day the patent application is published (usually about 1 and 1/2 years after filing)
- grant date - the day when the patent comes into effect
Damages are only available back until the publication date at the earliest, and that is only if the patent claims didn't change during the time between publication and grant. Prior art has to be known either more than one year before filing, or before conception.Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
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.
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.
Look at all the tabs in this screenshot.
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.
I think there's a fallacy buried in here. You are implicitly assuming that one and only one person is capable of that particular "a-ha!" moment. The reality is that while the billions of humans on the whole may not have come up with your particular idea at the exact same moment as you did, the chances are very high that someone else will +/- a few years. Or in the software world, within a few months. When it's time to railroad, people railroad.
Bringing it back to software, sit a hundred good developers in front of a dev environment, and ask them to solve a problem, you will get 90% of them developing any solution at all, and there will be three or four different solutions. That means that on average, 25 or 30 people will have come up with the same idea.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
.....What? Firefox has always had tabs........
My Father's files in his file cabinet had tabs which he made from cardboard. Tabs are tabs after all, just as a wheel is a wheel. Whether the tabs are on a screen or the wheel is made of titanium, rather paper and wood respectively still doesn't change the basic idea of either one. Besides that, don't patents run out after 20 years?
Sounds like the SCO lawyers are realizing that they'll soon be out of work are scouting around for a new source of income.
All theory is gray
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
I think what the grandparent poster meant was that Mozilla didn't have tabs until long after Opera tried them... ironically, Opera was from their beginning a variant of tab-based, using the very old-school MDI interface style.
The ______ Agenda
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.