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."

Comments

The worst part is

[Shin-LaC]

Inventors: Ording; Bas (Sunnyvale, CA), Jobs; Steven P. (Palo Alto, CA), Lindsay; Donald J. (Mountain View, CA)

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.

Good!

[pmontra]

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 :-)

So what if it's trivial?

[tepples]

That's an awfully trivial difference.

Which is exactly what makes it patentable in the United States.

Re:CDE?

[spazdor]

You're choice really.

Why, you're right? I am choice!