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Steve Jobs Patents "The Dock"
theodp writes "If you're a PC, you may be unfamiliar with The Dock, the bar of icons that sits at the bottom or side of a Mac and provides easy access to Apple applications. But don't count on it becoming a standard on the PC. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded Apple — and inventor Steve Jobs — a patent for their User Interface for Providing Consolidation and Access, aka 'The Dock,' after a rather lengthy nine-year wait."
you have to be kidding.. CDE has had this for years, if not decades..
for Rocket Dock?
I don't think this was covered on Slashdot and I wish I could find a better citation than this but it's been said that Apple has threatened makers of "docks" for PCs with lawsuits. I can't verify that but I do know that I downloaded and installed a beta program called Y'z Dock which was developed by a now defunct crew.
... but my default response to software patents is that they're broken. Those of you that use Windows will never know the dock because Steve Jobs doesn't want it that way. Also, I'm kind of pissed that "a PC" means Windows ... it means personal computer, does it not? Isn't my Linux machine a personal computer? I hate that. But that's a totally offtopic rant triggered by marketing from all camps.
The Y'z Dock software was really really slick and very comparable to Apple's. You can still find the beta distros on pages like Fileforum and other third party hosters (I won't link because you will have to use those at your own risk).
I don't think anyone in the community ever thought they could get away with mimicking the dock
My work here is dung.
You know, that area on the windows tool bar that gives you quick access to applications? Been there since Windows95 I think..
but what's the difference between this and the quick launch bar in Windows?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
So is the patent more like the windows "start" menu, which collects icons for frequently used programs, the "tray" which collects icons for frequently used programs which are loaded into memory, or the "quicklaunch" bar (which I know nothing about since I use the start menu for such things)?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Then you've been knowing 'the dock' for a very, very long time now.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
OS2 Had the Dock as well !
As much as Apple fans extol the "dock", if you leave the 3d graphics out of the equation, its just a baked over version of the "taskbar" like thing that came with OS/2 Warp, and honestly, its not as good.
This is my sig.
Another example of prior art is HP's Dashboard. (It was a 'Program Manager' replacement for Windows 3.1. It's main design hurdle was that it was in the middle of the screen and thus you had to either keep minimizing apps, or resize them around the center program launcher if you wanted to quickly swap around to different applications. Once you got around it's quirks if was a very fine piece of software for its time.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
This is an interesting call. It really hinges on whether there was an "expanding" dock before OSX/Nextstep. If you accept Software Patents at all this one is relatively sane, but I like RocketDock and would be sad if it went bye bye.
This is the Dock's icon magnification effect when the cursor hovers over it.
I've had a 'dock' in XP for years now... On my desktop my Start menu is at the top of the screen and I have a toolbar at the bottom (and I can just as easily move it to the side), it's set to auto-hide. I have shortcuts to my most frequently used applications there. If I want to run a program I just move my mouse to the bottom of the screen, the toolbar pops up just like Apple's dock and I click an icon. Hey presto, my app opens. AFAIK that capability has been available since Windows 98.
I think the justification for the patent is the magnification feature. Everything else in there seems pretty obvious and was covered by prior art.
I get why, but I can't believe he would pull a move like this. If I want a mac-looking PC I can't download a program to have a dock like appearance. Unless he has something up his sleeve on October 14th.... Seriously. This was a bad move and makes apple look, to me, like a selfish company who doesn't car about getting more people. If I had a program like the dock on my PC, and I said "Gee, this is great. I want a Mac now," I can't do that because I can't download a dock-like program.
Are they down and out now ? This is ridiculous - patenting a general desktop-GUI-thingy like that. I hope Apple/Steve don't enforce the patent.
How specific is the patent? Between Windows' Quick Start Bar, Google Desktop, Vista's desktop startbar, it seems like this has the possibility to stamp on a few related applications.
How specific is this patent?
Does it cover only docks at the bottom of the screen?
How would you distinguish between the Quick Launch bar in Windows, Google Desktop, and a dock? They're similar mechanisms which allow similar behaviors. The difference is primarily in the presentation: OSX's dock doesn't span the screen and has animated icons.
--
CDE was introduced in 1993. NeXT Introduced a Dock like function in 1988. I havn't read the patent application but it might be a continuation of the Dock like functions in NeXT Step
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Since when does the comma take precedence over the semicolon? Normally, that would be read as a list of four items: Ording, Jobs Bas, Lindsay Steven P., and Donald J. The fact that such vile abuse of punctuation is standard as the USPTO is irrefutable proof that the entire institution is corrupt.
Can you even bother to read the abstract?
To provide greater access and consolidation to frequently used items in the graphical user interface, a userbar is established which includes a plurality of item representations.
Not the patentable part...
To permit a greater number of items to reside in the userbar, a magnification function can be provided which magnifies items within the userbar when they are proximate the cursor associated with the graphical user interface.
Ah, yes, there we go. The patent is for rollover magnification of the items in the dock.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Look at the NeXT windowing OS. It has a dock, and AFAIK, it was NAMED dock.
Heck, even the NeXT-like window manager for *nix (WindowMaker) had a dock, and the most impressively functional one I have ever seen, at that...
The Apple dock wastes far more screen real estate? Or is designed for people who are bad with mice?
I wonder if it was the inspiration for the Microsoft ribbons. Big fucking huge toolbars with giant monster buttons.
The Stacks also remind me of the Places bar in Gnome...but with a thumbnail feature and again, supersized.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
watch them twist and turn in their attempts to validate this one. gui's had this for over a decade... but they won't let facts get in the way of steve's glory!!!
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I thought it said he patented the cock when I looked at the title quickly. Good thing I was wrong. Hate to have to pay a fee to use my junk.
This works in Windows, Linux, or any icon-based GUI.
1. Make a new folder (or directory).
2. Drag the icons for your applications (or shortcuts/links to them) into that folder.
3. Size and customize that folder to your liking. I suggest the height of the screen and one icon wide, stuck against the right side of the desktop. You can make it horizontal, make it a text list, adjust 'magnification' by adjusting icon size, etc.
4. Leave that folder open on your desktop.
I've been doing this on Windows machines for years. It's superior to the Start Menu list or the task bar because you can drag documents onto the icons and the applications will open them.
I suppose someone should patent task bars, desktop icon grids, and digital clocks next.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
This *is* the NeXTstep Dock. The current release of the NeXT OS is known as Mac OS X.
Are you saying they're their own prior art?
Is kooldoc now illegal?
This is insanity.
Did you RTFP? It references those things itself.
The patent is for the magnification effect.
Well, yes, Steve Jobs (ever heard of him?) introduced the Dock at NeXT almost 20 years ago.
This patent is for the annoying magnification effect that was added in OS X only 10 years ago.
Good! That row of icons that I never liked will be relegated to the Apple desktop and won't clutter anymore the screens of any other OS :-)
/. story here
Wasn't there an add-on TSR for Norton Commander that would store short-cuts (but they weren't called that) in a small frame at the bottom of the screen?
1. A computer system comprising: a display; a cursor for pointing to a position within said display; a bar rendered on said display and having a plurality of tiles associated therewith; and a processor for varying a size of at least one of said plurality of tiles on said display when said cursor is proximate said bar on said display and for repositioning others of said plurality of tiles along said bar to accommodate the varied size of said one tile.
Roughly, increasing the size of the icon which the mouse is over, and repositioning icons around it.
36. A computer system comprising: a display; a cursor for pointing to a position within said display; a userbar rendered on said display and having a plurality of tiles associated therewith; and a processor for varying a position of at least one of said plurality of tiles on said display when said cursor is proximate said bar on said display, in accordance with a predefined relationship between an effect width W, a default height h of said at least one of said plurality of tiles and a selected maximum height H of said at least one of said plurality of tiles wherein said predefined relationship includes a function S defined as: S=((H-h)/2)/sine(.pi..times.(h+2)/(W.times.2)).
Roughly, a bar in a gui where the position of icons nearby the mouse is modified according to the formula given.
65. A computer system comprising: a display; a cursor for pointing to a position within said display; a userbar rendered on said display and having a plurality of tiles associated therewith; and a processor for varying a position of at least one of said plurality of tiles on said display when said cursor is proximate said bar on said display, wherein said processor displays a label associated with said at least one of said plurality of tiles with a first predetermined fade-in rate when said cursor moves proximate said at least one of said plurality of tiles from another of said plurality of tiles, and with a second predetermined fade-in rate when said cursor moves proximate said at least one of said plurality of tiles from outside a region associated with said userbar.
Roughly, displaying the name of a program (by fading it in) when you run the mouse over the associated icon from outside the dock.
67. A computer system comprising: a display; a cursor for pointing to a position within said display; a userbar rendered on said display and having a plurality of tiles associated therewith; and a processor for varying a position of at least one of said plurality of tiles on said display when said cursor is proximate said bar on said display, wherein said processor displays a label associated with said at least one of said plurality of tiles with a first predetermined fade-in rate when said cursor moves proximate said at least one of said plurality of tiles from another of said plurality of tiles, and wherein said processor fades out said label when said cursor moves away from said at least one of said plurality of tiles using a first fade out rate when said cursor moves into another of said at least one of said plurality of tiles, and using a second fade out rate when said cursor moves out of a region associated with said bar.
Roughly, displaying the name of a program (by fading it in) when you run the mouse over the associated icon from another icon.
69. A method for displaying items in a graphical user interface comprising the steps of: providing a plurality of said items in a region of said graphical user interface, each of said items having a default height associated therewith; moving a cursor along said region; and selectively magnifying at least one of said items closest to said cursor to a first level and magnifying items proximate to said one item to other levels less than said first level.
What about gOS?
The dock is such a random piece of UI design. It sits in the middle of the screen and overlaps anything that is displayed. There's no way to make windows not go behind it (not that I know of) and they are always resizing windows manually so they don't get covered up.
The dock is a piece of shit (along with most of Apple's UI "improvements"). They can keep it for all I care.
-SaNo
If I recall correctly, it has been a while...
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
I was just getting the hang of my cairo dock. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CairoDock
But thanks to Steve Jobs I need to switch to MacOS for that.
What the hell, software patents aren't recognized on my continent. Neither is Apple.
at the constant perpetuation of the PC/Mac false dichotomy?
Key pieces of this story:
It's Apple.
It's Jobs.
It's therefore NOT eligible for scrutiny.
Move along...
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Oh shit! This means we can't have icons both showing a task that can be opened and one that already is in one icon!
Oh well! I'm not sure how we'll survive, but those crazy developers are pretty resourceful, I'm sure we'll find some other way to launch applications and check if they're still open later.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I guess they're patenting the dynamically-sized bar. Acorn's RISC OS came out in 1989, and it had an icon bar for applications and devices. Arthur before it (1987) had one too. The only difference is that they were always full-screen-width.
dock is awful. i rarely touch it.
I'm not uninstalling AWN or giving Apple any money to use it.
Mac needs to spread its wings to give the illusion of being bigger than it really is.
Good job on patenting, something with no innovation, thats a big messy clutter on most computers.
BRB have to give a cat an award for peeing inside the litter box.
And this has been another installament of Captain Obvious!
In 3.1 you had open "windows" that held within them a set of links to applicaitons. You could drag this around. It would not 'dock' to any adjacent objects though.
HP had it inhouse on their unix in 89-90
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I wonder why Jobs did not patent the Trashcan/recycle bin utility?
Probably because patents on user interface elements weren't as widely recognized in 1983 when Mac OS 1 was in development as they are now. (As far as I can tell, that's the same reason Elorg never patented Tetris.) But Apple does own US Patent D470,860 on the appearance of Mac OS X's trashcan.
People used to say "IBM PC-compatible" or more simply "IBM PC" in casual chatting. I don't know why that went out of style
Because "Lenovo compatible" is the correct term since 2005, when Lenovo bought IBM's PC division.
It completely went out of style when:
Hi, I'm a Mac.
And I'm a PC.
"PC" meant a PC running Windows even before that, when Apple ran its "un-PC" ad campaign for iMac in 1998.
Face it, Steve Jobs does not want anyone else to have a dock. By eliminating all other docks, he will officially have the biggest dock of them all. He will wave his dock in your face every chance he gets just to show off his massive dock.
Is this a problem for AWN?
(Avant Window Manager)
Since when does the comma take precedence over the semicolon?
It's also that way in HTTP/1.1 Accept headers.
Is it just me, or does the title of the summary make it sound like Steve Jobs just patented some manner of torture/execution method?
"So, you won't talk, eh, Johnson? *sigh* Such a shame. And I thought we were on such good terms. Larry! Bring out... 'The Dock'!"
(insert pre-emptive joke about how using the OS X dock is already torture)
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
That's an awfully trivial difference.
Which is exactly what makes it patentable in the United States.
I don't know but there was a 3rd party program for the Amiga back around 1993 that provided a dock. That would go back as far as 15 years ago and I know that THEY got the idea from something that was out before that.
A docking station
http://www.patents.com/Docking-station/USD578110/en-US/
A Clasp
http://www.patents.com/Clasp/USD577990/en-US/
A user interface (the dock)
http://www.patents.com/User-interface-providing-consolidation-access/US7434177/en-US/
Method of controlling clock signals
http://www.patents.com/Method-apparatus-generation-control-clock-signals/US7434083/en-US/
Image Scaling Arrangement
http://www.patents.com/Image-scaling-arrangement/US7433546/en-US/
Thermal contact arrangment
http://www.patents.com/Thermal-contact-arrangement/US7433191/en-US/
And a Method for displaying pixels on a user interface
http://www.patents.com/Method-apparatus-displaying-pixel-images-a-graphical-user-interface/US7432939/en-US/
Apple gets several new patents a week :
http://www.patents.com/patents-by-company/Apple/0/50/
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Not any old plain dock, but one in which the icons resize depending on how close the mouse cursor is.
The algorithm is supplied, so you could implement a different algorithm I guess to get around it.
The patent is clearly to stop another OS replicating exactly the behaviour of the Mac OS X dock, i.e., UI copycat situations.
I would feel ashamed of using this crap of an OS. Yeah! It's crap! I hate your stupid one button mouse, I hate your stupid cocoa and I hate all those things dancing on the screen while I try to do some work.
Now, get off my grass!!!
So, Apple continually barrages the patent office with things that already exist.
Typing this from Vista, with QuickLaunch bar activated. Doesn't seem much different than my Apple Mac sitting 8 feet away.
Except that Windows has had QuickLaunch for how many years? And GEOS before that?
I mean, C'mon Patent Ripping Fanbois, where are you now?
--Toll_Free
I fear what this could mean for other operating systems because Apple has a reputation for being rather zealous about their software patents; as Microsoft might remember.
I don't know if anybody else remembers Apple's patent frenzy on people who used a 'Recycle Bin', let alone an entire GUI.
On a side note; in KDE you can simulate a dock by sizing your taskbar to 50% and putting nothing but icons in it and then enabling the KDE menu on the top, it'll look just like a Mac desktop.
The patent is specific enough to not be abusive. IMHO including specifics like User Bar and Magnification separate the patent enough to avoid interfering with other products.
To permit a greater number of items to reside in the userbar, a magnification function can be provided which magnifies items within the userbar when they are proximate the cursor associated with the graphical user interface.
I still don't see why a decorative aspect of an interface is patentable but...
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Good Lord, Steve. Just patent PURE SHINY EVIL and be done with it.
Authentic Apple iEvil! Not that ersatz Zune Evil, hahahahaha! Get only the best evil!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
AWN is a similar "dock" for Linux with lots of applets and launchers. A great bit of open source that probably doesn't stand a chance against a patent like this.
Frankly they can patent and have it... I find the docks, task bars, gagdets etc so much desktop clutter that is more annoying than anything else. Largely I find such things appeal to the same people who used to download comet cursors and such... I deactive such things I know everyone has to sell computers to "ordinary" folk, but does it have to be through candy floss interfaces?
I have just had a look at the patent and it seems to be *how* the "dock" is *presented*.
E.g. the patent constantly mentions things like *fading-in* the program name over a "tile" (icon?), *magnification* of a tile and it uses the term "bar" instead of "dock". The patent even specifies formulas!
Does this mean that a "dock" can be implemented by using different "effects" and formulas?
Also, the "magnification" seems to be specifically defined in the patent. I'm sure there are other ways this can be done without "violating" the patent.
Certain parts of the patent seem very narrow. It seems to cover direct clones of the Mac "dock".
If this is the case then this seems to be an expensive patent for a trivial issue.
I remember when the Dock was what you plugged your PowerBook Duo into to make it a desktop machine.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I do wonder how this will affect the AWN project https://launchpad.net/awn personally I stopped using AWN because they could never get full screen windowing to work to my satisfaction, but I would hate to see a productive and lively OSS project shut down because of Job's intellectual greed.
putting a bunch of shortcuts and folders in another folder on the desktop, and dragging it to the side of the screen where it becomes a toolbar, right clicking on it and choosing autohide and always on top? Then setting the folder to hidden? Gee, I can't remember when I started doing that, but now I'll be breaking the law for using a twist on something that was there as long as I can remember? Busted!
The system tray is by far *not* the closest Windows equivalent to the dock. First, the Quick Launch toolbar (detachable from the taskbar) is closer in function. More importantly, however, Windows allows any folder to be represented as a toolbar, docked to any edge of the screen or combined with the taskbar. This is particularly easy in Vista where you can just drag a folder icon to the edge of the screen and have it turn into a toolbar on its own. In XP, you need to right-click on the taskbar and create a new toolbar, navigating to the folder you wish to use for its contents. Such toolbars allow not only app shortcuts, but folders, drive icons and so forth. I use 3, stacked above one another on the left edge of my screen. The topmost one is System icons, such as Computer, each drive, and quick access to the actual folders containing the icons contents of my Start Menu/Programs menu. Below that is a toolbar of my own commonly-accessed personal account folders. Finally, below this are my app icons. I almost never use the Start button for anything common.
the DOCK, as in look at Ksmoothdock, and kxdock:
http://ksmoothdock.sourceforge.net/ksmoothdock-manual.html
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=6585
http://www.vivaolinux.com.br/screenshot/KDE-OpenSUSE-10.3-com-kxdock-geekzen
http://www.xiaprojects.com/index.php?find=kxdocker
http://xqde.xiaprojects.com/
But, even in 1992, there was "Killer Windows Utilities", and in it was a floating, apps-customizable dock:
I still have my old book, but i cannot find it on the internets.
As MUCH as i applaud Apple for its design successes, i cannot back Jobs on this. At least not 100%. It's too obvious, hasn't been enforced, nor discouraged, and way too many Open Source implementations exist. Even IF the software DEVELOPERS cannot further deploy "finished" dockers, too much software capability exists such that nowadays, with a little finessing, end users can just "roll their own".
Use of IDE's and other exploiting well-available know-how will eventually tear down the onerous burden of software patents. The USPTO needs to STOP sucking up and the US needs to stop subsidizing its income stream from patents processing. After all, it's becoming all-too-easy to just do an end-run on the patents -- with a little creativity -- as go design patents, and maybe even *some* process patents that are dubious or outright *unworthy* of patent (artificial) protection.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This is bad news for Kiba dock (www.kiba-dock.org). Bah. Even if there is prior art, we'd need someone willing to go up against Apple's chihuahua lawyers in order to kill it.
I recently (within the past 8 months) switched to a Mac, and I hardly _ever_ use the dock. I can understand why it stays around: many users, especially Mac users, aren't comfortable with keyboard commands. For my computing habits, however, its utility is vastly overshadowed by Spotlight, which is an AutoComplete launcher for everything on your computer.
Wanna start Firefox? Command-Space, "fir", Enter.
Wanna open your resume? Command-Space, "my-re", Enter.
It's like the Windows Run dialog on crack, showing you a list of matches that shrinks as you type, with your most commonly used option highlighted. I think I use the mouse less on the Mac than I ever have with Windows.
Your brain is not a computer.
HP's NewWave had something like this didn't it?
Debut in 1989.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewWave
Apple Sued hP ovew NewWave and lost.
what kind of sickness is the USA in anyhow.
OMG windows 3.1 had it , os2 had it
heck any design of decent menu's has it.
google tooltips
Anybody know how this will effect projects like AWN and distros that feature a dock environment by default (e.g. gOS)?
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
Can you build a dock with the information given? No. Not specific enough.
Could you write a dock with the information given and get some code that was appreciably the same? No. Not specific enough.
And if you could do both, then it's far too easy to change it to not infringe.
I'm surprised no one has pointed out this link yet.
"The dock has been part of the Macintosh OS and user interface since its introduction in 1984."
Uh. No. The 1984 Mac (which I owned and for which I also wrote software) most certainly did NOT have a dock. It had menus and windows and desktop icons... but no dock.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
All the posters citing NeXT's dock/taskbar and CDE are not going back far enough.
The first dock/taskbar appeared in Windows 1.01 in 1985: http://toastytech.com/guis/bigw101.gif
It next appeared in Acorn's Arthur OS in 1987: http://toastytech.com/guis/bigw101.gif
Amidock anyone? When was that? 1991?
-- The Online Photo Editor - http://www.phixr.com
Once they publish it, they have at most a year to patent it. Afterwards, it's public domain and nobody can patent it.
Shouldn't this say "from the what's-NeXT? dept"? Patent: http://www.google.com/patents?id=wuMbAAAAEBAJ
This is the first claim:
It doesn't say anything about "Apple" applications. It describes what is basically a sticky fish-eye menu, which is itself a specialization of fisheye views from the 1980s.
There is nothing innovative there: it's a standard combination of standard techniques. Apple should have no right to claim this.
I was making links to unmounted network volumes and arranging them in a window on the OS 8 desktop ages ago. That's a "proto-dock"! Where's my untold billions? And why would some guvmint luser be so naive as to think such a blindingly obvious hack based on prior art would be patentable? The one I still use when I use Macs, is James Thomsen's DragThing , which is very old hat and still extremely useful.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Myabe those Mac-look-alike Linux distros will now get abandon it. And, yes, I am a Mac user - but the Dock, compared to OS9 launcher, is a really lousy UI idea in my opinion.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Pine, vi, links and ncurses forever!
Probably just means that Apple will somehow gain an patent on the letter 'A' when used in any form on a computing device...
Hmmmm... CDE had the doc first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is crazy! I remember that this was implemented in OS/2 Warp back in the early 1990s, plus god-awful CDE also had it. There were also add-on products from companies like Stardock that vastly extended this too.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
That dock thingy on the left side of my taskbar is now illegal?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What does this do about Avant-Window-Navagator, Kiba-Dock, et all?
does patenting the magnifications etc on the osx dock give them the right to file lawsuits against other docks like say, cairo-dock? wouldn't that be like ms office trying to sue open office for using spell check?
the only viable reason why they'd try to patent it is so they can sell it to other os companies.. oh wait, it's a mac... so it'll be like 'you can only have this dock if you pay us an obscene amount of money' --please.
The OSX dock originated in NextStep, the OS for the Nextcube. I know jobs was involved.
OS/2 (an x86 operating system developed by IBM back in the 1990s) had the same thing on its desktop since Warp 3 came out back in 1994 with the "Toolbar." The toolbar put icons in a toolbar on the desktop and even had little 'drawers' that opened up with more icons under an icon in the main bar. It also had buttons for shutdown, lists of active programs, suspend mode, and file searching. The Toolbar was pretty good but IBM came out with something better in the form of their "Warpcenter" when they released Warp 4 in 1996. The Warpcenter had rows of icons across the top, bottom, or sides of the screen, allowed multiple 'trays' of additional icons, and also had controls for operation, graphical displays of the utilization of each disk drive, a cpu activity trace (dual trace for dual cpus), and battery charge indicator. It also had a feature that displayed active processes and allowed them to be terminated selectively.
The bottom line is there is absolutely nothing new or innovative in the Apple "Dock" and granting them a patent for it is ridiculous.
I had "The Dock" on my AMIGA 500! It wasn't raster-based scaling icons but it was "The Dock" regardless. AmiDock anyone?? Anyone??
As many comments say, and as is immediately clear for anybody who clicked on the link to the patent, this only covers strategies for magnifying items on the doc as the cursor moves over them, not the concept of the dock itself.
Think of how much human misery could have been avoided if the title of this posting had been "Apple patents zooming and rearranging dock items as cursor moves over them." Big freaking deal.
First I thought that it's sad that Apple patents such a good idea worth cloning... and then I realized it might not be so bad after all. It enforces Apples competitors to think of something that is even cooler.
Do not trust this signature.
In 1995, I had started up a corp building commercial websites (targeting Mosaic, before Netscape was even released). Our primary technique for offering navigation inside the site was a horizontal bar of icons for the site's major sections (each of the section's pages had its own vertical bar of subsections). We called these bars "navbars".
Jobs can buy my prior art for $1M, while supplies last.
--
make install -not war
I think the patent covers the general effect of producing a dock like, linear object and setting up the icons to magnify in a sinusoidal like fashion. This means my 2 ideas are still outside the scope of this patent!
Cube Dock - why restrict yourself to a line of icons when you can have a 3D grid where it magnifies space (opposite of a gravity field) .. darn, now that I said it, someone is going to patent them before me. At least I still have 20 years to use it.
president
And for drunk people...
Flee Dock - where it makes it harder for drunk people to click on the icons by shrinking them or making the icon move away form the cursor slowly.
I wonder what this will mean for avant-window-navigator.
It only appears under/beside running applications on the dock. That is how you can tell the application is running. Also any hidden window shows up at the bottom of the dock.
Hardly seems worth the effort of patenting it. It does seem to do a good job of doing what it does, but why on earth would you want to patent something so specific? If I were apple I'd patent the crazy touch pad keyboard thing they have on t he iphone, if they haven't already. It could work better, but its a step in the right direction where there aren't many other obvious choices with limited screen real estate.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I kinda don't like the OS X dock... maybe because I'm too used to menus and quicklaunch icons. I can't get over the fact that running applications look pretty much the same as quicklaunch icons. And to be honest, it doesn't really help me manage multiple windows or desktops or even see what my system is doing (other than when an icon is jumping up and down to say that something's loading, or the silly arrow that shows that an application is loaded in memory even though it has no windows open).
It is weird that I really like the WindowMaker dock, which almost works the same way. I like the paperclip dock that changes depending on which desktop you're on. I like having a different set of quicklaunch apps depending on whether I'm on my main workspace, or my graphics, network app, or sysadmin workspace.
I kinda wish someone would make the ultimate dock for Linux, though... I've played with AWN and don't like it pretty much for the same reasons I don't like the original Mac OS X dock. Right now I'm using a collection of separate apps to do what I want:
GKrellm : systems monitoring... I'm really interested in seeing if an app is racing, how many cpus are pegged, what my disk and network throughput are, and whether anything is overheating when it shouldn't be loaded. I haven't found any dockapps for any window manager that even comes close... they're always missing something I find essential like the disk I/O meter or a clock that shows both analog + digital, or multiple volume controls.
Gnome-panel : I don't like the default layout, but I shrink it down to a corner under GKrellm and have a few widgets that I use... mostly the menu system, a drawer with icons for my favorite apps, and a dedicated icon to launch a terminal. I wish there was a way to make the icons 1/4 of the size of the dock, like in the Gnome 1.4 days. I don't mind the notification area terribly much, but try to avoid apps that use / clutter it up. I leave the clock, but only because it pops up a calendar. I also like the workspace switcher (the tiny icon showing the currently focused app, and opens a menu to all running apps), but disable the window list thing that reminds me of the Windows-like taskbar.
Enlightenment desktop pagers : This is the only pager I like, in that the thumbnails of each application actually match what they're showing on screen. Actually the old Gnome 1.4 pager used to do this too, but they removed it from 2.x . Anyway, if WindowMaker had these little guys and supported compositing (I like translucent gnome-terminals), I'd be using WindowMaker instead of e16 with the NeXTStep-ish theme.
Enlightenment iconbox : I don't really iconify anything, thanks to multiple desktops... but if I did, the e16 compositing engine shows a thumbnail sized rendition of your app.
All my "dockapps" are basically pushed to the left edge of my desktop. I hate taskbars that span across the top and/or bottom of the screen - seems to waste more space, especially with all these new widescreen displays. The less vertical scrolling I have to do to read a page the better!
... there are no patents on "software implemented" inventions enforcable.
Yet.
The usual suspects when it comes to heavy patent grabbing have been pushing hard, for years, to no avail (legally).
Yet. :-(
FYI: Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) reads (cif 2 lit c is relevant here):
Patentable inventions ...
(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1:
(a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
(b) aesthetic creations;
(c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;
http://www.epo.org/patents/law/legal-texts/html/epc/2000/e/ar52.html
Not out of reach either.
http://www.rocketdock.com
If clicking that link isn't easy enough for you that you feel like making editorial complaints about not getting it standard in Windows... You're more than qualified for joining the iWorld.
OS/2 Presentation Manager.
...the year of Apple being the most evil on the desktop.
It's too obvious,
This is really all that needs to be said. While the icon zooming "feature" is admittedly a good function, I don't really think that Apple should be able to claim inventorship of something that could occur to, oh, any UI designer.
My mother is a patent lawyer and recently she's angry at the USPTO because they (presumably understaffed bureaucratic as usual) have rejected several of her clients' applications on the basis of originality, or obviousness, or specificity. Keep in mind that these are patents for like, chemical synthesis pathways and things. Things that required R&D at some point. I guess everyone, even the patent examiners, know who Apple, Inc. are though. And that's the difference I guess.
-- arstchnca
--
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just to set the record straight, the lawsuit you're alluding to was not hinged on patent law. The lawsuit was Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, and was a copyright infringement lawsuit. Apple was asserting a "Look and Feel copyright" over GUI elements found in Microsoft Windows and in HP's NewWave software. Apple lost on all claims, except for two icons in HP's software that were found to be infringing.
So no, historically, Apple hasn't historically tried to litigate with patents on UI elements -- at least, not in the examples you've cited. It's probably because of that court case that they've resorted to patenting GUI innovations (if you can call them innovations), in much the same way as Adobe has patented certain GUI elements (e.g., tabbed palettes) and sued Macromedia (and Macromedia had patented other elements and countersued Adobe). Clearly, copyright law won't do the job here because it didn't work for them in the past, so Apple probably feels it has a valid reason to go the patent route now.
I don't really think that Apple should be able to claim inventorship of something that could occur to, oh, any UI designer.
Other than NextStep (and by extension OS X), where did it occur to anyone else? It's more than just a bar of icons (like used in Arthur/RISC OS and BlackBerry OS), the application status is reported in the Dock and complex reporting can be done on the graphic region of the Dock icon.
UI designers are very good at copying, but rarely do I see innovation. Now I'm no big fan of patents, and I have plenty of arguments against Steve Jobs having a patent on the Dock. I think you are wrong that is something that is obvious.
Now here is the important bit that makes the patent invalid:
When did NeXT get the Dock, 1989 or so? I suspect having a patent on something that was published 18+ years ago is going to be a bit of a problem for Apple.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Remember a little insignificant software company named Quarterdeck Office Systems? I worked there for four years in the early Nineties. One of its products was called Sidebar, which was an "icon dock" that included icons for certain basic system functions as well as duplicates of all the app icons in Program Manager. It also allowed iconified subfolders to be created, etc. This would have been about '93 or '94, and even (IIRC) predated Windows 95.
I think that might count as prior evidence.
Patents in general are probably dumb and counter-productive to the claimed desired effect, but software patents require a descriptive adjective that even moronic doesn't quite address.
KDE has had this for how long?
... but such patents would not benefit society in any way,...
That's why I contend that such patents are unconstitutional. Congress only has the right to "[secure] for limited times... the exclusive right to... writings and discoveries" if it will "promote the progress of science and useful arts". Nothing else is within their enumerated powers.
Article 1 Section 8
The Congress shall have power... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;...
Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
I can accept some allowances for IP in software, but it should be strongly curtailed. It should only be allowed for things that are otherwise unmarketable. Limited copyright would be fine (for example), but not what we have today. Most of us will be long dead before any current software enters the public domain. That is far beyond promoting science and useful arts. This abuse of power is disgusting.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Did the Sidebar have a "magnification function"?
As much as I hate design and software patents myself - your post is uncalled for. The patent is about the combination of features which in that combination does not exist elsewhere.
I used the Launchbar on OS/2 quite a lot. It did not have, for example, a magnification function. Also the Dock combines both the features of the Launchbar and the Minimized Windows window.
So, no, OS/2 did not have a Dock. It had two separate tools which provided some but not all of the functionality.
Did the navbars have a magnification function and an icon for all active applications and open documents as well?
The Dock is more then just a quick start icon list.
But did it have all the features of the Dock. Like a magnification function. The patent is about a combination of functions which is pretty unique.
I repeating my self - but there are repeated "prior art" claim from those who did not read the original article.
The patent is about a particular combination of features which includes for example a magnification function. Also the Dock captures running application - so it is a combination of Toolbar and Minimized Windows.
And this combination has not been there in OS/2. Or any other Dock-like tool. The closest I know of is:
A) The Window-Maker or Afterstep Docks - but they don't have a magnification function.
B) RocketDock - RocketDock does have a magnification function but does not approach the Dock in reliability when it comes to handling running applications.
Does it magnify?
Does it display and handle running applications?
Ok I should not read the threat bottom up. Anyway - search for OS/2 and read my other posts. Or I just copy it for you:
I used the Toolbar on OS/2 quite a lot. It did not have, for example, a magnification function. Also the Dock combines both the features of the Launchbar and the Minimized Windows window.
So, no, OS/2 did not have a Dock. It had two separate tools which provided some but not all of the functionality.
The Dock is from 1987 - so you loose.
Ok 1987 the Dock had not yet got it's famous magnification function, which is part of the patent. But then I doubt Amidock had/has a magnification function either. So you don't even play in the same liga.
... unless they have a magnification function as well.
I work on both PC and Mac (and some linux variant from time to time) and the dock and the task bar are quite different things. E.g., you can drag an application to the dock from anywhere and it will become a kind of shortcut there. Applications that are not by default in the dock appear there when launched. A little thingy under an application shows whether it is running or not. You can also drag documents, folders, etc. in the dock and they can do different things there (just open, or show a list of contents, or a hierarchical menu). You can click on a dock icon and get a menu of application specific commands (e.g. a browser can show the most visited urls, an e-mail app can offer get-new-mail/compose, etc.). And applications can update their icon with little badges to show progress, new mail received, the date, whatever. And you can change its position, size, and magnification. That's pretty different from the Windows task bar where every open document gets an icon+text entry, and which has a start button, clock, etc.
But is there any one Tool/Game which does all of them in one? It is not individual features which where patented but the combination of all of them in one single tool.
So in fact: apart from a few direct Dock clones (Rocketdock, Cairodock, etc) no other application or tool is affected.
But, even in 1992, there was "Killer Windows Utilities", and in it was a floating, apps-customizable dock
NextStep (made by Job's last company) has had a dock since 1989. Wikipedia says that the first "dock" was used by the Arthur operating system in 1987. My current window manager, WindowMaker, uses the same dock NextStep used all those years ago :-).
If the patent is on "the bar of icons that sits at the bottom or side of a Mac and provides easy access to Apple applications" then it will be hard to infringe on a PC. I don't run that many Apple applications on my PC. :-)
right click an empty quick launch area(unlock the taskbar if necessary) and choose view -> large icons. now drag the label area marked with :::: of the tasks underneath the quick launch. you'll have a long row with large icons for applications and underneath a long row for many tasks. far more usable and without any software installs.
It had definitely been a while since I finished the barbecue arm off. That's a lot of meat to eat, and it was GuyverDH's wanking arm too. Very muscular, thick and meaty from hours of stroking his cock. What would GuyverDH do now without his wanking arm? I guess he was going to need some help. I stuck my hand in the pan, which was filled with about a quarter inch of fat and barbecue sauce, and I started to slowly stroke GuyverDH's cock into rigidity...
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!