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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..
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.
Reading the patent, it specifices a magnification effect on the icon the mouse is over.
No, he means the 'system tray', which is the closest equivalent to 'the dock' that exists on Windows. 'The dock' has been part of the Macintosh OS and user interface since its introduction in 1984. There have been plenty of imitators, such as the GNOME System Notification Area and The Windows 9x System Tray and the 'dock area' in so many other environments -- KDE, NeXTStep, OpenStep/GNUStep, XFCE, CDE, etc., but I don't think any of them predate the Mac's 'dock'.
My blog
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.
So basically, CSS Dock is now illegal despite the fact that it is just JavaScript (written using jQuery) and CSS? Great. Now when I'm doing web development, I need to make sure I'm not stepping on the patents of people in completely different arenas.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Windows doesn't have any widget that gives you access to both running apps and common apps in the same place. A task bar combined with a quick launch bar is slightly different, as you'll end up with 2 icons for something launched from the quick launch bar, one representing the running app, and the other prepared to launch another instance. Mac's interface is different from windows.
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
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.
Actually, I base all my purchasing decisions on what John Hodgman tells me. Though this has led me astray many, many times; I still trust his judgment. He is an expert, after all.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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?"
That's an awfully trivial difference.
Which is exactly what makes it patentable in the United States.
Not in usability land either. It's those kind of small difference that are found throughout OSX make the difference between an average UI and a great one.
Yes I know OSX isn't perfect (I can rant for days about the awfulness of Safari) but to paraphrase Winston Churchill: OSX is the worst operating system, except for all of the others.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
You've never actually seen OSX have you? The OSX dock has short cuts to apps, shows running apps and can also show/browse folders (by default Documents and Downloads). Running apps can even show information through their icon (eg iPulse).
All in one place.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Actually, in 3.1 you could have 'MOM' the Microsoft Office Manager, that was a bar that sat at the top of the screen with icons to launch Office apps. It was part of Office, not Windows, but it's been around for a while. In Office 95 they replace it with a bar that could dock with the side of the screen like another task bar.
Thanks for the flashbacks. I forget how long I've been doing this sometimes.
If I glance at the KDE bar under the browser window right now, I can see a couple of PDFs, my Thunderbird Inbox, and Firefox open to Slashdot. In a separate area, I can see commonly used stuff that could be open but isn't right now (Konsole, Ktorrent, KVpnc, and Amarok).
Tell me, why is it better to have these bunched together into a single menu where you can't differentiate what's open and what isn't?
P.S. I bet I hit -1, Flamebait in less than 2 minutes for this, but I'm asking an honest question and would appreciate an well-thought-out answer from someone.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
I don't mean to pick on you in particular in this story, but you're the first post I ran across I could reply about this to.
Every single person on here talking about prior art, prior patents, the quick start bar or any of a dozen other things among the responses to this story clearly have never written, or had to read or evaluate a patent before.
If you don't know how to read a patent (and there are *very* specific ways that the description relates to both independent and dependent claims), then you really have no idea what you're talking about when you start talking about prior art.
And FYI, the quick start bar is not prior art for the independent claims being made in this patent.
Its one thing to criticize software patents in general, but you shouldn't get specific with criticisms unless you know what you're talking about... it weakens the arguments you may be making.
I personally think that this is just a good example of how patents and copyrights passed the offramp to sanity a few miles back. You have MSFT patenting the double click(or as my home users call it "Clicky Clicky") you have Amazon patenting the single click,and now Apple has jumped on the crazy train. It has already gotten to be a minefield when it comes to patents and copyrights and I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that either promotes the arts and encourages innovation. What we need is serious reform or the USA is going to be left out of the 21st century as all the innovation goes to countries that don't have the minefields of patents and copyrights to navigate.
And for those on Windows who wouldn't mind a quick,easy,low resource dock of their own I'd suggest they snatch a copy of Rocketdock before Apple ends up killing it over this patent. They have plenty of addons and icons and skins to customize it your way and it runs really nice.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Tell me, why is it better to have these bunched together into a single menu where you can't differentiate what's open and what isn't?
In many ways, it doesn't matter whether an application is currently running or not.
You want to use it? You click on it.
The advantage is that it's in the same place every time, whether running or not. Sure, if it needs to launch the application then you might have a delay for a few seconds first, but otherwise the resulting behaviour should be pretty similar in both cases. (i.e. if a text editing application is running but has no windows open, then clicking on it in the dock will open a new window - just as opening the application would. The HIG documents mandate this.)
If background applications are intelligent about not using CPU time, and the OS is clever about paging out unused code - then there's little reason you should ever need to quit an application. It therefore makes little sense of Apple to optimize their UI for two different cases, when a simplified version will handle both adequately.
Ugh, I hated that Office toolbar, and how everyone would put it on the right side, hidden. Go to scroll on someone else's PC: Surprise! Office Toolbar! Go to the upper right hand to close an application: Surprise! Office Toolbar!