Google, Apple, Microsoft Sued Over File Preview

ClaraBow writes with this excerpt from MacWorld: "A small Indiana company has sued tech heavyweights Microsoft, Apple, and Google, claiming that it holds the patent on a common file preview feature used by browsers and operating systems to show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened. ... Cygnus's owner and president Gregory Swartz developed the technology laid out in the patent while working on IT consulting projects, McAndrews said. The company is looking for 'a reasonable royalty' as well as a court injunction preventing further infringement, he said. ... Cygnus applied for its patent (#7346850) in 2001. It covers a 'System and method for iconic software environment management' and was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office in March of this year."

Comments

Two words:

[GrahamCox]

Two words: prior art.

And plenty of it. We had live preview icons in an app in 1989.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

What you dismiss so glibly in two words is actually hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars worth of highly technical legal arguments.

Re:Two words:

[McFadden]

Why not surprise those you around you with a lawsuit this Christmas? The gift that just keeps on giving.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as bullshit wastes of time and money for everyone besides the lawyers.

Two good things that would prevent cases like this from wasting people's time:

1. Patent reform.
2. Loser pays.

Re:Two words:

[sgbett]

Weight of money does not necessarily add credance to a particular viewpoint.

What they are patenting is now considered obvious, perhaps not at the time, but given that it was only granted recently (ie after several independant parties had made this discovery, thus making it "obvious" in its field) its hard not to see this as just another patent troll.

Re:Two words:

[ralphdaugherty]

It's going to be expensive to fight these patents one by one that were rubberstamped for years. We need to throw out all software patents and return to copyright protection like we had.

  rd

Re:Two words:

[oDDmON oUT]

What can be easily said, or thought to be intuitively known, may not have been legally codified, and therein lies the rub.

You can cite the Lexmark patent, elements of Apple's HIG, peruse the citations in one of Jakob Nielson's papers that would seem to support prior art, or just search Patent Storm for "iconic systems" and seeing results dating back more than a decade figure this is a wash. Right?

While IANAL, what seems to make this patent different is that it is for a *system* involving multiple icons at one go (select a bunch of icons at one time, peform an operation on them, and automagically they're re-iconified or something like that).

If other patents dealt with singular icons or methods thereof, and if no one has lined out, in writing, a similar system prior to 2001 (the date of submission), then, well... maybe it's time to pass out the Pepto Bismol©.

Re:Two words:

[hairyfeet]

Win98SE-Pick you picture folder-right click-properties-enable thumbnail view. And I seem to remember using apps even before that time that had that. Didn't some of the "Commander" style file managers that were the rage in the early 90's have thumbnail preview? I seem to remember using something like that back then but it has been too long for me to remember the apps name. But I'm pretty sure it was one of the "Commander" style file managers that everybody always seemed to have back then. Maybe someone here remembers which one?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Two good things that would prevent cases like this from wasting people's time:

1. Patent reform.
2. Loser pays.

Patent reform only works if unfair cases are being brought to court, argued, and won in a way that is contrary to the intent of the system. It is premature to say that this suit is anything more than a paper tiger. Bring up the patent on the Patent Application Information Retrieval system. Look at the rejections, amendments, and arguments. Significant changes were made to the patent claims, gutting much of their scope. The company bringing these suits is delusional if they think they have a case that can settle for anything more than nuisance tribute, especially from such high profile veterans of more balanced legal battles. What kind of patent reform would keep someone from trying to enforce a weak and narrow patent? Would they be less likely to try to enforce it if it was even weaker and narrower? Should we only allow patents that are strong and broad? Should it matter that many patent applicants only want very narrow patents, and many dont' really care if they would have much valuable in litigation?

As for loser pays...what makes you think that is such a good idea? Record companies use the threat of attorney fees to press defendants into early settlements. Would it be alright for Google or Microsoft to sue smaller companies, or individuals, based on flimsy patent claims, but win because their potential attorneys fees could be astronomical...perhaps significantly more than any reasonable royalty for the patent? How about if they faced smaller companies with strong patents and potentially good cases, but those smaller companies decided not to try to enforce their rights because of the possibility of being bankrupted if the suits failed?

There are advocates of loser-pay, but loser-pay skeptics seem to be well-versed in the pros and cons of loser-pay systems. While loser-pay could have a positive effect on the American legal system, it is by no means a common-sense no-brainer.

Re:Two words:

[Schemat1c]

Weight of money does not necessarily add credance to a particular viewpoint.

You're from Earth right?

Re:Two words:

[Daengbo]

It was originally applied for in 1998, which might make it less obvious. It seems like NeXT was going in this direction in the late 80s, though.

Re:Two words:

[walterbays]

And I imagine the abstract was invented around the time of Gutenburg.

Re:Two words:

[r7]

It was originally applied for in 1998

That'd be at least 5 years after Lotus Magellin did it, and IMO, did it better than anything MS or Apple does today.

Lotus dropped Magellin when Windows 3 came along, so most of today's techs don't know about it, but it is still
surprising their legal research overlooked it.

Re:Two words:

[mysidia]

Just because they spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to seize ownership from the public domain of a concept for which there is ample prior art, doesn't mean the two words are wrong.

Or rather... that they hope to get hundreds of millions of dollars.

Excuse me while I go get my patent on the concept of an online hypertext-based page that permits viewers from the public to preview comments before appending them.

Re:Two words:

[larry bagina]

If MicroSoft, or Apple, or anyone else snuck into this company's office and stole their files or source code, I think most of us would call that wrong. If Apple saw a screenshot or description of their software and decided to implement similar functionality, it might still be wrong, but it's not so black and white. But if MicroSoft engineers are sitting around thinking up new ways to waste CPU cycles and independently come up with the same idea, maybe it wasn't so obvious after all.

If this company can prove that someone stole their ideas, then by all means they should be compensated. If they lost revenue, then let them be compensated. But the only revenue they could have lost is the revenue from licensing the patent, which is to say, they haven't lost any revenue because Apple or Microsoft are implementing this functionality.

Re:Two words:

[BuddyJesus]

Right, because the solution to a ridiculously expensive problem is another problem that is equally ridiculously expensive and far more likely to result in hazardous filings.

Re:Two words:

[catwh0re]

It's a gift for the lawyers really... who is dumb enough to go against three litigiously-experienced heavy weights with a frivolous patent lawsuit.

Re:Two words:

[kimvette]

It was a feature in SGI's Irix (the Indigo Magic Desktop) well before 2001 (pre-1995 even!), and was present in Windows 95 for bitmap images if you enable it via a registry key.

Re:Two words:

[Score Whore]

Reading the patent, what they have patented is a third party application that grabs a screen shot and allows you to select the document you desire to work on via that screen shot. One aspect that doesn't seem to exist anywhere in Windows or Mac OS X:

The present invention provides an improved method and system for storing, navigating and retrieving files and documents in a computer system. A method by which this is accomplished includes the following: the use of graphical representations of the documents and applications as viewed on the screen at the time of `capture`, a Snapshot Navigator Menu that automatically appears when the mouse pointer is directed to the edge of the screen and disappears when the mouse leaves the visible area of the Snapshot Navigator Menu.

To me this sounds like they patented a computer program.

However, if their argument is that any kind of preview for file browsing is covered, then they are a number of years late to the party. In 1994 xv was doing this with it's visual schnauzer, providing thumbnails of all your images, etc.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto on Magellan, that's what I was thinking when I read TFS. Prior art circa 1990 if not earlier.

Re:Two words:

[CarpetShark]

What you dismiss so glibly in two words is actually hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars worth of highly technical legal arguments.

Of course, "dollars" is the operative word in this statement.

Re:Two words:

[poetmatt]

Bilski being overturned would highly disagree.

Re:Two words:

[lysergic.acid]

you're missing the point. these non-inventions should never have been granted in the first place. that is what needs to be reformed about the current system.

things like file previews are currently patentable, and it's within the patent holder's rights to sue. whether you think it's contrary to the intent of the system or not, it's how the system works. right now the USPTO is wasting millions of dollars of tax payers' money each year by granting patents on trivial/obvious software features, which inevitably leads to frivolous lawsuits by patent trolls--who often win.

just look at the case between Creative and Apple regarding file menus. the only thing that's different this time is that the defendants have much more legal muscle than the claimant (which is a separate problem with the legal system). so even if Cygnus loses this suit, that doesn't mean that when a corporate juggernaut like Apple/Microsoft file similar claims of patent infringement that they will lose.

Re:Two words:

[GNT]

Yep. That's the piece of software that did it. I was trying to remember and for the life of me I couldn't. But yes, Lotus did that in the early 90's....

Re:Two words:

[Runaway1956]

PowerDesk. I'm quite certain that it had the same features, at least before the year 2000, probably before 1998. It was, and remains, my file manager of choice, when I have to use a Windows operating system. ;)

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's some funny shit right there!

Re:Two words:

[Max Threshold]

You think they conducted legal research? More likely, they expect the defendants to pay for that.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then the law is too expensive. Can we revolution now?

Re:Two words:

[jmyers]

This reminds me of the Lotus vs Quattro Pro and SCO professional lawsuit http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFD7113EF930A35754C0A966958260.

Lotus sued and won over keystroke commands. Quattro and SCO Pro could both emulate Lotus 123 keystrokes and had to be taken off the market. At the time many people were moving from Lotus 123 to Quattro Pro, I thought it would be the next big thing. SCO Professional was great because it was a Lotus 123 clone that ran on Unix and worked great on dumb terminals (or telnet).

Re:Two words:

[someone1234]

If they are so lame to burn their money this way. Who am i to deny them their right?
File previews are definitely predating 2001.

Re:Two words:

[noidentity]

Hell, we've had previews even before computers. For example, the outside cover of a book giving a preview of its entire contents, or the filename giving a summary of its contents.

Re:Two words:

[yttrstein]

Who had live preview icons in an app in 1989 exactly? Source please.

Re:Two words:

[Arancaytar]

What you dismiss so glibly in two words is actually hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars worth of highly technical legal arguments.

And we wouldn't want the lawyers to go hungry. ;)

Re:Two words:

[jafiwam]

Hundreds of years of man-hours were wasted researching the epicyclical theory of the solar system too. And it was all garbage.

Only a stinking lawyer would think that spending more money on a point of view makes it right.

Get off slashdot you scum.

Re:Two words:

[revoldub]

First use of the icon preview I can remember coming across was Adobe Illustrator...something 5 or 6 I don't know but that had to be around 1996 or so, Windows 95.

Re:Two words:

[BoRegardless]

It is possible to file a document with prior art you have found to challenge an issued patent for a small filing fee to the US Patent & Trademark office.

Re:Two words:

[jcuervo]

The word is "revolt", and, yes, we can.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

And all of that amazing and very expensive legal documentation can be re-summed in two more words which succinctly and accurately describe it. Bull Shit.

Re:Two words:

[Digital Vomit]

I guess that just goes to show how overvalued lawyers are in our society, and how our legal system is little more than a litigation industry.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a stinking lawyer would think that making more money on a point of view makes it right.

that's better.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just more evidence that the USPATO has lost contact with reality and gone utterly batshit insane.

Re:Two words:

[theillien2]

Cygnus's owner and president Gregory Swartz

Re:Two words:

[syntap]

Actually the PTO is fee-funded, so in this case we aren't paying for wasteful activities unless we're inventors.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

court cases aren't handled by the PTO.

Re:Two words:

[hairyfeet]

Thank you! I used Powerdesk in the 90's so that is probably it. I knew it had to be one of the "Commanders". Man, does anybody else remember when you just HAD to have a "Commander" style file manager to deal with Windows? I use Xplorer2 now as it works on everything from Win95 to Vista and I can just drag the folder onto my flash and carry it with me. After using the "Commander" style interface for so many years I just can't go back to the lousy Windows file management interface. I swear whoever designed the file manager in Windows should be fired. Anyone who has ever used a Commander will look at the Windows file manager like something from the dark ages.

Re:Two words:

[terminalhype]

We, here on slashdot, are always revolting.

Re:Two words:

[earlymon]

The travesty being that Lotus was using the art developed by VisiCalc.

Re:Two words:

[PsiCTO]

Therein lies a serious problem. Take a look at the number of patents granted before and after the gov't had the USPTO change their financial underpinnings. Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon in which the boss offers the programmers a dollar for each bug they uncover. The punchline is Wally saying "I'm gonna code me a mini-van." or something like that. The USPTO has a "supposed" mandate contrary to its own best interests. Start by disallowing all (I mean ALL) business model patents. Then get serious about differentiating physically realizable patents from software, just to establish some kind of box around software. For physically realizable patents, we may want to go back to the way it was in the 1800s and require (within some period) a working model of the invention. Suitably documented lab experiments may also suffice. For software, there should be a caveat that if credible prior art is found within N years of the filing, the patent is automatically dismissed and the onus put on the inventor to counter the argument. Of course, all these ideas are surely repeated elsewhere above/below...

Re:Two words:

[jedidiah]

This sounds like a classic example of the painfully obvious
waiting for technology to catch up. A realtime visual
schnauser for all your different file types on a 10 year old
machine would have been a real resource pig. Even current
versions of this idea allow you to shut off previews for
potentially high latency network sources. ...this sounds more like "ideas" being patented rather than
"the solution to difficult problems".

Re:Two words:

[jedidiah]

Who would want to?

You would spend all of your CPU cycles on 8mhz machines managing real-time previews.

Basically everything that's not nailed down is being stolen by patent trolls.

They would patent the mouse if there wasn't a 40 year old video tape of it.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, this sounds like you have NO FUCKING CLUE how to read a patent. READ THE FUCKING CLAIMS. The claims define the metes and bounds.

It's like you picked up your god damned DEED on your HOUSE and saw that it said "This property is located in Colorado" and thought to yourself "HOLY SHIT! I JUST BOUGHT THE ENTIRE FUCKING STATE OF COLORADO!"

No, numbnuts. NO. Just NO.

Why is Slashdot so full of fucking idiots?

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that's what the patent ends up meaning when it's used by a litigious entity.

Re:Two words:

[Nursie]

Loser pays as a default, with the judge having final say on what he considers reasonable costs, is the only way to go. As in the UK system, where there is far better access. It is a no brainer.

It stops people being forced to roll over because they can't afford a lawyer, an absolutely disgusting facet of the US legal system.

Re:Two words:

[bhiestand]

We can fix the whole software patent problem by handling software patents JUST LIKE mechanical ones. Require thoroughly documented code showing exactly how it works, with the other protections you provided. If someone manages to do the same thing with different code, it's not a patent violation. If it's impossible to do the same thing with different code, it's probably obvious.

Re:Two words:

[bhiestand]

The word is "revolt", and, yes, we can.

No, he's right, it's revolution. We're right back where we started. That was a fun trip!

Re:Two words:

[perpetualmisfit]

... who is dumb enough to go against three litigiously-experienced heavy weights with a frivolous patent lawsuit.

A company that is might be going bust in the recession might resort to this as a last-ditch effort to get some cash..

Re:Two words:

[David Gould]

Yup, Irix was my first thought. Dunno how far back it went, but I know it was there in '98. As I recall, it worked pretty much the same as how the "major" OSes do it now. Now if only I could get my hands on some Irix ~6.5 install CDs for that Octane (working but OS-less) I've got lying around.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you are a Douche.

Re:Two words:

[gevantry]

Loser Pays, and loser goes to prison for patent fraud.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

They are wasting consumers' money not taxpayers'.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Coward]

One aspect that doesn't seem to exist anywhere in Windows or Mac OS X...

Actually, that sounds exactly the way Expose works in OS X using screen corners for activation.

Re:Two words:

[Score Whore]

To me, this sounds like you have NO FUCKING CLUE how to read a patent. READ THE FUCKING CLAIMS. The claims define the metes and bounds.

I read the claims. When they got to "the method in claim 2 where the user input command is a keyboard command", I pretty much had it figured out. Nobody does exactly what they claim. Since they went forward with litigation anyway they must have some theory. Looking at their targets (Apple, Google, & Microsoft) their theory apparently covers previews. Which is why I bring up their technique of acquiring a preview and, absent their technique other people were doing previews long before they applied.

However, the basic invention is a method of grabbing a screenshot of the running program. Everything else is just puffery. Without claim 1 the rest of their claims are meaningless. Particularly since many of the claims, for example claim 4:

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of storing information related to the application for manipulating the one or more computer files in the memory along with the icon.

Are things that have been done for literally decades prior to the filing. Apple's been doing that since the mid eighties (custom icons & file type/application associations). Without the take a picture of what the document looks like step, it means nothing.

And the make the icon look like what the document looks like step? Xv was doing that in 1994.

And even ignoring the prior art aspect, the phrase "...wherein the icon is created while the application was manipulating the icon's corresponding one or more computer files..." makes the patent ridiculously specific. Rendering a file falls far short of manipulating that file. If you throw out "manipulation" as being not terribly important, then you're back to what John Bradley was doing with xv.

And to answer your last question, well, it's because they haven't figured out how to block assholes like yourself. You thought you learned some terms of art and you suddenly figured you were Einstein or something.

Re:Two words:

[Score Whore]

Only expose is for locating open windows. Not activating a file system browsing application.

Re:Two words:

[Seriousity]

Doubtlessly, the company is aware that the lawsuit it has made is frivolous, but as the economy spirals closer to the drain morals become less important in the eyes of many - corporations are animals, and animals are dangerous when cornered.

So once the big guys are down...

[oDDmON oUT]

will they kick the sh*t out of Gnome, KDE and other GUIs next?

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because they don't have mountains of "easy" cash to go after.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Kent Recal]

Interestingly if this would pass (which I strongly doubt) and MS, Apple etc. were required to remove the previews - then Gnome, KDE would benefit from that.

It kinda works like this:

1. Idiot sues Apple
2. Apple must remove the previews

1. Idiot sues MS
2. MS must remove the previews

1. Idiot sues Gnome Foundation etc.
2. Gnome, KDE etc. must remove the previews
3. One day later an unofficial patch pops up somewhere
4. Two days later that same patch is wrapped up into RPMs, Debs etc. for one-click install
5. Due to popular demand this patch is continuously maintained

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[JTorres176]

And then immediately lawsuits are pressed against Canonical, Debian, Novell, and anyone else who allows patented material to be added to their distributions.

Free software still has to follow the law.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Kent Recal]

Step 3, 4 and 5 do not involve Canonical, Debian or any other distro.
The DEBs and RPMs could be hosted anywhere and if they sue the hosters then the packages will just move to bittorrent and p2p.

That's the beauty of OSS at work here. You cannot effectively ban a piece of software that many people find useful.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if its not distributed by anyone in the US. Sure, they have to follow the law, but whos law is the question.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[rpgdude]

I am pretty sure that Gnome and KDE's use of this technology constitutes fair use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as fair use for patented subject matter.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[absoluteflatness]

One would think that if you posted a Wikipedia link, you'd at least have had time to read the first sentence of the article: "Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law..."

Anyway, patent trolls rarely go after free software projects because they lack the money to dole out a big settlement. The various media standards and many other fairly standard features of Linux distros are patent-encumbered up the wazoo. Some projects actually have some fear of litigation and disable features or distribute source-only (FreeType's bytecode interpreter comes to mind), but that's fairly rare.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[rpgdude]

Patents are for preventing others from making money off of your IP. Since Gnome and KDE are free, the patent is working as it should.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents are for preventing others from making money off of your IP.

Wrong-o. Patents are for preventing others from benefiting from your ideas without acceptable reciprocal benefits determined at the discretion of the patent holder, e.g., royalties.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[absoluteflatness]

An AC already covered this somewhat, but patents are meant to combat more than just others making money off of the patented invention.

Licensing is by far the most common route, but you can completely block the use of the invention by others for the duration of the patent if you so choose. Drug companies often choose this option, so you'll still have to wait a few more years for generic Viagra to hit the market.

Staying in the software realm, say you hold some software patent, and you actually make and sell a product using it. Now, Microsoft or Apple starts giving away a product that does essentially the same thing. The rights conferred to you by the patent still allow you to stop them from distributing the product, or force them to license the technology, despite the fact that they're not actually making any money off of it.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[JohnBailey]

And then immediately lawsuits are pressed against Canonical, Debian, Novell, and anyone else who allows patented material to be added to their distributions.

Which would be immediately laughed out of court. They would only have a case if the distro was offering the software themselves. Anybody can set up a repository anywhere in the world. Just like anybody can offer a Windows based DVD ripper. So why have the MPAA not sued Microsoft? The same reason. They can only control what they offer themselves. If Microsoft included a DVD ripper in Windows 7, then the MPAA might have a case.

Free software still has to follow the law.

Absolutely... So what law are they breaking?

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Sebastian Reichelt]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but actually, if they are successful, it works more like this:

1. Idiot sues Apple
2. Apple pays money

1. Idiot sues MS
2. MS pays money

1. Idiot sues Gnome Foundation etc.
2. Gnome, KDE etc. must remove the previews
3. One day later an unofficial patch pops up somewhere
4. One month later it becomes apparent that nobody except a few techies uses that patch, and people start to blame "Linux" for lacking an essential feature

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Kent Recal]

Sure, that option is also possible but I tend to believe that for a feature as popular as thumbnail previews, word of mouth would work quite well.
The information about how to install the required patches would quickly propagate across all the newbie-forums, howtos and other resources.

Keep in mind how newbies are introduced to linux: Either through a friend or through some sort of "trying out linux"-article.
Both sources will likely introduce the step of "and then install X and Y for bling, because some asshole sued over it in 2008".

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[JTorres176]

Absolutely... So what law are they breaking?

Well, US law actually if it's found that they're violating a patent. If you want to download repositories from another country, you have the ability to take that legal liability on for yourself... however none of these organizations or companies would have any of these features that were found to be in violation available to download on their default distros because of those violations.

Think along the lines of getting your dvds to work in Ubuntu or debian. You can't use the normal US distro and have those features available automatically because of copyright issues. You have to download packages that aren't officially maintained and run a script which installs the software for you.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Knoeki]

Good, then we'll finally get rid of all the idiots who claim they are cool because they "use uh-ban-too". I pity da fool who cannot compile his own packages.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[funkatron]

Grr. Another broken feature to look up on the Ubuntu wiki. They really need to start making a special edition for the civilised parts of the world.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[jonadab]

> And then immediately lawsuits are pressed against Canonical, Debian, ...

Debian would never allow something like this into the distro in the first place. They're _very_ picky about such things. (You can't even get Firefox as such from an official Debian repository, because of obscure trademark licensing issues somehow related to the fact that the Debian security team releases security updates. Although what you do get is functionally equivalent until you run into some stupid websites that engages in egregious sniffing, e.g., Hotmail. Not that the average Debian user is tremendously likely to use Hotmail anwyay...)

So if you wanted to install something like that on a Debian system, you'd have to use an unofficial repository that the Debian folks don't have control over -- presumably operated by someone in a jurisdiction that doesn't enforce software patents. (China seems like an obvious place for someone to run such a repository...) You'd be in violation of the patent if you use such a repository and install anything from it, but for an individual user wanting icon previews on a single workstation this would probably not be perceived as a very large danger. (Deploying it across an enterprise would, of course, be potentially a whole different thing, and probably unwise.)

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[someone1234]

I doubt they will sue every single US citizen who would use that patch.
Heck, they will lose this against Apple/Google/M$.
They won't even reach the official linux distros.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[betterunixthanunix]

Still wrong. Patents are for preventing others from making use of your ideas without your permission. It has nothing at all to do with benefits, from a legal standpoint, and there are many cases of companies strategically patenting competing technology with no intention of allowing anyone to use that technology.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Patents are for encouraging innovation.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[im_thatoneguy]

There's nothing I enjoy more after installing an OS than finding and downloading 300 little patches and widgets that I frequently use!

There's a reason IE is bundled with Windows. There's a reason most people use IE. But I'm sure you're right. After installing Linux they'll happily go about downloading MP3 support, DVD support, gif support, thumbnail support... etc etc and not just complain and think less of the product.

Nope. I'm sure Grandma is going to go to all the "newbie" sites and read through the list of "missing features" that she can download off of a mirror of Sors Forg.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Hognoxious]

What you say is logically correct, but legally...? Anyone's guess.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[X0563511]

We are assuming that the servers and distros are US based.

Microsoft and Apple are in the US, but Canonical isn't. Debian isn't.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[X0563511]

I presume you've heard of Medibuntu, or the old Debian non-us repositories?

US Patent law is effective... in the US.

Re:So once the big guys are down...

[Kent Recal]

I didn't say that this is an ideal situation. I just said that this might be the situation that we're getting into if stupid lawsuits like this would succeed. And frankly, even if we end up there - it could be worse.

As you explained yourself, linux already *is* about downloading all the little extras individually and will probably stay that way anyways.
You get a robust core distro and powerful tools to customize and extend it according to your wishes. This is not necessarily a drawback against the commercial OS'es, in fact it's a big selling point to many of us.

Moreover the metaphorical Grandma is not the target audience, never will be.
The typical grandma doesn't go to a shop and buy a computer or thinks about things like "trying out a new operating system". She delegates all these tasks to a younger relative and if this relative chooses linux for her then he likely also knows how to make such a system usable.

Wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

claiming that it holds the patent on a common file preview feature used by browsers and operating systems to show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened

The page for this patent at patentstorm.com shows users a small snapshot of the patent before it is opened.

Re:Wonderful

[sgbett]

I worry about sites that have a 'preview' option before posting content, they must be next ...

Re:Wonderful

[MichaelSmith]

I worry about sites that have a 'preview' option before posting content, they must be next ...

We should all agree not to preview for the time being, lest sourceforge get sued.

Re:Wonderful

[earlymon]

We should all agree not to preview for the time being, lest sourceforge get sued.

Goo didea!

Wait a minute...

[Jason Pollock]

I thought Cygnus was bought by Red Hat? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions. Ah, this is "Cygnus Systems"... I can see where there might be a small bit of confusion there.

Re:Wait a minute...

[babernat]

Ah yes. I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly, had they chosen "Apple Systems", Apple Music would have sued them into the ground.

Re:Wait a minute...

[MrZaius]

Quite - Of all the news sites not to make the distinction....

Re:Wait a minute...

[TheRaven64]

My thoughts exactly. I wonder if RedHat would be justified in a trademark lawsuit - sounds like a pretty clear case of passing off to me...

Re:Wait a minute...

[jonadab]

> I wonder if RedHat would be justified in a trademark lawsuit

Not likely. Of all the kinds of words that it's normal to see in the names of multiple companies and products, stars and constellations are probably third on the list. (The top slot on the list, of course, goes to common surnames, and second is probably common given names.) The only other major contender I can think of that might beat out stars and constellations would be animals, but of course a cygnus is an animal as _well_ as a constellation, so there's no help there.

Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

Economy (not just US economy, but especially US) is in deep f.cking shit. This is a symptom. You see, very little is actually produced in the US at this point, but more regulations, lawsuits, patents, various copyrighted materials like movies/music are still made there (I live in Canada, we are not far away from this problem here also, except that our movies/music sucks even more.)

When there is nothing to produce except for more laws/regulations, meaningless, useless, obvious patents and lawsuits, and also the greenback, at this point you have to ask yourself a question: how is this economy, that borrows so much from the rest of the world and then buys the products from the rest of the world going to pay the freaking debt? What is it, 10 trillion in debt at least?

Anyway, I read TFPatent and thought to myself: holy shit. In 1998 I worked on a system for a purchase basket for a promotions company and I had to display thumbnails on the HTML page too.

In fact various stores and also porn sites would be great at showing prior art to this BS patent.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[RockMFR]

The patent troll in question, which won't win this suit, is based in Detroit. They are likely completely out of money and have nothing to lose.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[MichaelSmith]

In fact various stores and also porn sites would be great at showing prior art to this BS patent.

Yes I can confirm from personal experience that porn sites in the mid 1990's used thumbnails.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[Anonymous Coward]

this has nothing to do with the economy's state right now. not only has stupid shit like this been going on for a long time, slashdot has been pointing out how stupid it is for as long as I've been on here (going on 10 years.)

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

it has everything to do with economy, except that it is not only economy right now. The way economy is now did not happen in the last year. It happened over the course of he last 15 year, as manufacturing was moved out of the US, people speculated more and more on things they didn't understand (first the internet bubble, now the mortgage bubble, both of which are really just credit bubbles) and the fact that the interest rates in the US were artificially pushed down to prevent the real cost of getting into debt from stopping people from making really stupid and bad decisions.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[jabithew]

You see, very little is actually produced in the US at this point

Don't be so ignorant. A quick wikipedia search would have disabused you of this foolish notion. The United States export more now than they have ever before (well, perhaps not this year...). Things exported include corn, steal, machinery and aircraft.

Total US exports in 2007 amounted to $1.145trillion. China's exports were worth $1.22trillion in the same year.[1] Services remain a fairly small part of that.[2]

People think that because we see massive container ships coming from overseas the West does nothing. But the West works on a value-added basis. A classic example is a Boeing 747. Sure the wheels may have been imported from Indonesia and the engines from Britain and the seat fabric from China. But the valuable bit is the bit where it's made into a plane, which takes place in Washington, US.

Sure the US has a balance of trade problem, but that's not because nothing is made there, it's because a lot more is used.

[1]CIA world factbook.
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USexportsgs1960-2004.gif

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[Frozen Void]

There is no reason to not assemble them outside US. The process is "security by obscurity".

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[MyHair]

Yes I can confirm from personal experience that porn sites in the mid 1990's used thumbnails.

Sorry, this patent is for right-handed previews only.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[jabithew]

No it's not. Boeing spent years developing know-how and the expertise to make these planes.

Boeing themselves could shift outside the US, but I'm not sure what would be in it for them. They need the kind of highly skilled workforce only available in the West (Japan, Australia and New Zealand honorably included). They sell a lot of planes in America itself too. And even if they could get the labour outside the US, it would remain expensive.

The American worker is still good value for money if you look at labour costs/dollar profit.[1]

[1]Tim Harford-The Undercover Economist

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[digitalchinky]

I'm Australian, I now live in Asia (not Japan), have done for a lot of years so I can safely call bullshit on the skilled labour thing. You can buy quality research, manufacturing, and brains anywhere in the world. You may wish to pull your head out of your own anal passage good man. The rest of the world actually can build some pretty shit hot stuff, all on their own.

Don't get me wrong, like I said, I'm from the west and I'm as fucking smart as all hell (It's a joke! I'm not really that smart, bottom two percent, tops), but enough with the arrogance already, the state of the art doesn't just exist in the 'west', it's everywhere.

You really think the American worker is value for money? Here's a clue for you, good value for money is a bunch of low paid men and women (sometimes children) working the sewing machines and industrial fires for 12 hours a day 6 days a week, all for the lofty sum of $150 USD a month. On the backs of all this one can then sell those wares and gain quite a few orders of magnitude back in pure profit. In comparison the American worker is high maintenance and very expensive from an economic perspective.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[budword]

How are we going to pay the debt ? As a last resort, we print the money. If the other countries push us too hard, we COULD print enough to pay them off, and the next month, introduce the new and improved AMERICAN PESO !!. We won't though, because we don't need to. Slow steady inflation will take care of most of that debt.

Now, do we deliver ourselves into our enemies hands ? Not really. There is an old saying, borrow a little, and you have a debtor. Borrow a lot, and you have a partner.

They won't be able to screw us over without hurting themselves too badly. Also, if they really really try to screw us, we DO print the money. Hell, we could just jack up inflation for a decade and really screw them over, we wouldn't even need to abandon the dollar.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[jonadab]

> I live in Canada, we are not far away from this problem here also, except that our movies/music sucks even more.

Wait... Canada produces music and movies?

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[noidentity]

When there is nothing to produce except for more laws/regulations, meaningless, useless, obvious patents and lawsuits, and also the greenback, at this point you have to ask yourself a question: how is this economy, that borrows so much from the rest of the world and then buys the products from the rest of the world going to pay the freaking debt?

By encouraging the rest of the world to share our delusion, with force if necessary.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

Obviously this is what is happening right now, this uncontrollable infusion of cash by the guvmnt is going to cause the USD to plummet so low, and the interest rate will go sky high (who can trust anyone with a loan anymore?) the property values will dive. Lack of production capacity will guarantee that nobody will trust the States with being able to repay the debt. More fun to follow as the rest of the world will stop lending money to the US and thus the Americans will no longer be able to buy the goods they have so far enjoyed, unfortunately these goods include food, energy, clothing, machines and so on. Imagine shortages, line ups for food, food stamps for all, explosion of criminal incidents, introduction of state of emergency with the martial law, basically implementation of the Insurrection Act, things like travel restriction, various mandatory obligations for 'the good of the nation' etc. Think this is impossible?

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

By encouraging the rest of the world to share our delusion, with force if necessary. - highly unlikely. The sentiment is not the same, there is no resolve in the current US population to start yet another war, I don't believe. Even if they wanted to, who would they attack and for what purpose? I doubt anyone would want to be an ally, not in that kind of war, and whoever gets attacked will most likely get support from the rest, because in this case, there would be no guarantees at all that they wouldn't be next. No, this is very very unlikely, what you are implying now.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

not really, but they pretend that they do here.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[sketerpot]

Is there some way to make people suffer for patent trolling? Considering what a drain patent trolls are on the economy, there ought to be.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[BitZtream]

You know, if you actually knew anything about economics, and did something other than listen to journalists sensationalize the situation and try to scare everyone into watching their new info on how to survive, you might realize the economic situation isn't that bad.

We're experiencing a burst of a bubble. But that bubble is relatively small in the grand scheme of things. People aren't broke, the money is in the economy, the banks and lending institutions are broke. So we can't take out any more loans because we're over committed already, but there is no lack of cash flow, its in the enviroment moving, not tied up in some bank vault.

Now that SOX has forced all these lenders to list what they actually are worth rather than what they'd like everyone to think they are worth they are getting called on, and a run results, and well, thats whats happened.

If everyone would stop with this bullshit 'the economy is bad' then it wouldn't be, it really is that simple. We're on a fractional reserve system with no standard backing, FAITH in the economy is what controls the economy, so as long as idiots keeps saying 'omg its so fucking bad!!!!' it will be.

As for GM/Ford/Dodge needing money to survive. No, they don't. This is a GREAT fucking excuse to get a free ride on my tab. They didn't have 'problems' until they saw the lending industry getting a free ride. While that statement isn't entirely true, they've had problems for years because no one holds their management responsible for their actions, but their issues today are no different than they were last year, except now they've seen a great way to scam money from the goverment. Its awesome its like they get to sell cares with out actually producing the cars.

So while I realize that this post is about as far offtopic as they come, please, stop being a fucking complete tool of the media and stop talking about how bad the economy is.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[Hognoxious]

There is an old saying, borrow a little, and you have a debtor. Borrow a lot, and you have a partner.

Financial advice from someone who doesn't know what a creditor is. Priceless.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

You know, if you actually knew anything about economics, and did something other than listen to journalists sensationalize the situation and try to scare everyone into watching their new info on how to survive, you might realize the economic situation isn't that bad. - ok, let's start from this. You believe that you know something about economy and that my understanding that it is the fundamentals that are broken is flawed, let's go over your comment.

We're experiencing a burst of a bubble. But that bubble is relatively small in the grand scheme of things. People aren't broke, the money is in the economy, the banks and lending institutions are broke. So we can't take out any more loans because we're over committed already, but there is no lack of cash flow, its in the enviroment moving, not tied up in some bank vault. - you put many things into this paragraph.

1. Burst of a bubble. - this is true, but this is a credit bubble, not a housing bubble specifically, not even a stock bubble. This is a bubble created by the fed that forced the interest rates down artificially.
2. Certainly the bubble itself is not a big deal, the problem is not the bubble. Bursting this bubble is necessary, it will force the folks to stop spending and start saving.
3. People are broke though, this is where you are wrong. People don't have good jobs, they don't have any savings left either. Whatever capital they believed they had was in the inflated property values, which are crashing obviously and for a good reason. Lending institutions are broke because the fed pushed the interest rates down and so getting into debt was cheap. Mortgage sellers gave loans to too many people and to people who cannot pay the money back. So it would seem it's the mortgage sellers problem, but in reality where did these mortgages go? The banks don't hold them anymore, they 'securitize' them, repackage them, sell them, where are these mortgages, can anyone follow? They are now owned by pension funds, mutual funds, (for Canadians those are their RRSPs for example). Is it really the lending institutions that are broke? No, it's pensions.
4. You can't take loans anymore, loans will become expensive. This will cause reduction in purchases obviously, but more importantly is not this, it's the very close realization of the rest of the world and USA cannot be trusted to repay the debt. No debt will be repaid. USD will be worth nothing at this point. That's going to be the problem. With the USD worth nothing, with a huge debt to repay in some other ways, and without those means to repay the debt, nobody will lend money to America anymore. Realize that the money that US is using to purchase goods from the outside world are all borrowed.

You are correct, it's 'faith' that holds this economy together, but it's not subjective faith anymore. It's objective. US does not have enough exports to get currency of other countries, and the dollar is printed and discounted and will be worth nothing now. When the rest of the manufacturing world finally comes to its senses, it will stop lending real money to the States. Without those money, there will be no way buy anything. You are not seeing the big picture, USA will experience shortages of basic goods and even food.

You believe what you want to believe, my opinion does not change the simple fact: the trust to America is gone, it cannot repay its debt, it will not have any more real money to buy goods produced by other countries, because it can give nothing, absolutely nothing back in return. USD is paper, it's no longer even gold, but forget gold. It's not backed up by production.

Sure, I am not an economist, but I am getting ready to move money out of dollars (Canadian, we are too tied to the States).
Cheers.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Roman you're so bright. Really, a purchase basket? wow. That means you must know all about the US and how it's doomed. Please monkey, you and I both know who will end up at the top as the dust settles here with the collapses around the world. Do you really think none of this was pre-ordained?

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[bwcbwc]

Except that if all the workers in the "west" are unemployed because their jobs have been taken by the impoverished masses of Asia, who is going to buy these wonderful products? Now that Americans can't charge things to their credit cards anymore, there is too much manufacturing capacity everywhere, including China.

We're in the "Midas Plague" years and we don't even know it.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

I don't know what any of this means, but I'll take it as a complement. Thanks then.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[Anonymous Coward]

An arrogant canadian, of all things, is amusing if not comical.

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[roman_mir]

you don't know the half of it, peasant, hope you enjoyed that dollar while it lasted. So far you've been able to fill in that 'purchase basket' of yours with those credit dollars, I wonder what you'll do when the supply is cut out...

Re:Economy is in deep shit, this is a symptom

[BitZtream]

3. People are broke though, this is where you are wrong. People don't have good jobs

I'm not sure what country you live in, but when millions of people enter the country illegally every year because America is about a billion times easier to work in than the shithole country they are coming from, THEN you can talk about America not having good jobs.

American workers are lazy spoiled slobs that think they deserve everything and shouldn't actually have to work to get it, thats someone elses job.

, they don't have any savings left either. Whatever capital they believed they had was in the inflated property values, which are crashing obviously and for a good reason.

The amount of property with inflated values accounts for less than 10% of the property in America, its constrained into rather small regions. Talk to anyone with any age on them and they problably can tell you a story about the 'housing bust of 19XX' in some area of the country, its only marginally higher than it is on average.

Lending institutions are broke because the fed pushed the interest rates down and so getting into debt was cheap. Mortgage sellers gave loans to too many people and to people who cannot pay the money back. So it would seem it's the mortgage sellers problem, but in reality where did these mortgages go? The banks don't hold them anymore, they 'securitize' them, repackage them, sell them, where are these mortgages, can anyone follow? They are now owned by pension funds, mutual funds, (for Canadians those are their RRSPs for example). Is it really the lending institutions that are broke? No, it's pensions.

Bullshit. The lending institutions are broke because SOX made them start doing accounting in a realistic way, which then proceeded to make it obvious that they were WAY over committed to anything that could be considered sane in a fractional reserve system. The smart people immediately started withdrawing their money into hard assets to avoid the RUN these institutions were about to experience, their actions of course caused those runs to start. People who were either realizing the bullshit their money was invested in, or just panicing with the rest of the herd all started to try to protect themselves. End result, lending institutions failed. Pure and simple.

4. You can't take loans anymore, loans will become expensive.

Funny, I just refinianced my home for a 5% fixed rate, I don't even have good credit. I guess reading and signing about 20 sheets of legal documents was a pain in the but, and 5% does kind of suck doesn't it. Oh well, guess I should move to Mexico and experience a truely great economy in action to make it easier. Its a good thing they and many others seems to still think America is the place to be, leaves more room for you and I in their country, I'll see you there ok?

This will cause reduction in purchases obviously,

That happens also when people already own everything they need to purchase with a loan.

but more importantly is not this, it's the very close realization of the rest of the world and USA cannot be trusted to repay the debt. No debt will be repaid. USD will be worth nothing at this point.

In reality, the USD will be worth something for a long time to come. A) because if everyone that owed the use money paid us back, we'd be able to pay back our debt. No one is going to call our debt because most of them owe someone that owes us, and when everyone calls you find out people really owe you a lot less than you think.

That's going to be the problem. With the USD worth nothing, with a huge debt to repay in some other ways, and without those means to repay the debt, nobody will lend money to America anymore. Realize that the money that US is using to purchase goods from the outside world are all borr

Redhat/Fedora has had this for years

[mwilliamson]

talk about prior art...if this survives the challenge I'm leaving.

Re:Redhat/Fedora has had this for years

[SpaceLifeForm]

Please don't. Mars is already crowded and resources are scarce.

Re:Redhat/Fedora has had this for years

[Anonymous Coward]

And where would you be going? Mars?

Re:Redhat/Fedora has had this for years

[Phoenix Rising]

And it's pretty easy to confirm: Nautilus 1.0 was released in March 2001. The patent application wasn't filed until June 2001. An article on Linux Planet confirms that v1.0 had preview capability.

patent troll patent

[phrostie]

doesn't this infringe on the patent troll patent?

Re:patent troll patent

[tobiasly]

Not only that... check out the screen mockup from the patent! Those are obviously representations of the MS Paint and Excel UIs, as well as shitty MS clipart... can't they sue them for copyright infringement in their patent claim??

Re:patent troll patent

[Anonymous Coward]

They should.

Apple Lisa

[WiiVault]

Apple and MS have had file previews since Mac OS 1 and Windows 1 back in the 80's. In fact I think the Apple Lisa OS may have been the first- at least for home users.

Re:Apple Lisa

[Rockoon]

Lisa was for home users? The thing cost $10,000 in 1983.

Re:Apple Lisa

[NeuroManson]

Considering the Apple Lisa came with a $10,000+ price tag, I seriously doubt there were many, if any, home users.

KDE prior art

[fishyfool]

Take a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KDE_1.0.jpg see the view of the virtual desktops on the top right? KDE has had this feature since at least 98 and I think the beta's had even more. Gregory Swartz just patented someone elses work likely seen while working as a consultant in the working environments of his clients.

Re:KDE prior art

[Daengbo]

The original application was in 1998. Only the final application was in 2001.

Re:KDE prior art

[jrumney]

IIRC, Gnome added the feature around 2000 or early 2001 too - certainly Nautilus had been publicly demoed before this patent was filed.

Re:KDE prior art

[jrumney]

Legally, the earlier application has no significance now. It is abandoned, and the patent office did not think it was substantially enough similar to give the issued patent a priority date from the earlier application.

Re:KDE prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

This comes from XWindow, it was there way before KDE.
I add this on an Amiga/XWindow client years before.
It was in the CDE as well.

To say, it's as old as XEyes.

Re:KDE prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, the SGI desktop environment had an icon preview feature as early as 1995

Prior Art.

[bmo]

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-6.2-Manual/getting-started-guide/index.html

Copyright © 2000 by Red Hat, Inc.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-6.2-Manual/getting-started-guide/s1-managers-kfm.html

"Show Thumbnails -- If you have images in a directory, selecting this option will show you tiny representations of them. This view is useful if you keep family photos or artwork."

--
BMO

Re:Prior Art.

[Anonymous Coward]

yea, but it says nothing about non-image documents. I think patent talks about all types of documents. Come up with prior art that shows previews for text files, MS word, emails, etc.

Re:Prior Art.

[aztektum]

wouldn't it then be "obvious" if you can have a preview of one particular file type/document, others would follow?

Re:Prior Art.

[jrumney]

I wouldn't think so, images are well suited to being scaled down as thumbnails, and programs to produce thumbnailed versions had been around for years, so that was obvious. Scaling down a text document in a way that is still recognizable is not an obvious extension of that. But Gnome's Nautilus was publicly demonstrated some time in 2000, one of its major features over gnome-commander was preview icons of a wide range of file types that could be zoomed. Probably copied from an even older feature in a now dead OS, such as NextStep or BeOS.

Re:Prior Art.

[Kindaian]

Copyright applies to the manual, not to the source of the feature and the date where it was inserted into the code...

Re:Prior Art.

[Phroggy]

Copyright applies to the manual, not to the source of the feature and the date where it was inserted into the code...

Of course, but if it was in the manual in 2000, it probably already existed in the software at that point and it would be quite easy to dig up whatever was required to prove it... assuming, of course, that this image preview feature would actually count as prior art for this patent.

I'll testify ....

[mlwmohawk]

In the late 1980s I wrote the Windows version of Business & Professional Software's Trumpet Presentation program. In it, I showed iconic representations of presentations.

I'd call that prior art. Just contact me.

Prior art: head -10

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea's been around for awhile.

Date mis-post - should have been 4/1/2009

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this mis-posted? Should it have been 4/1/2009?

Claims

[Dachannien]

Since people are too lazy to click on the link and read the claims for themselves, I'll post the two independent claims here:

1. A method of accessing one or more computer files via a graphical icon, comprising the steps of:
capturing automatically one or more graphical representations of one ormore portions of information content of one or more computer files while an application is manipulating the one or more computer files;
creating automatically an icon including selected portions of the captured one or more graphical representations ofthe information content of the one or more computer files wherein the icon graphically depicts at least a portion of the information content from the one or more computer files and wherein the icon is created while the application was manipulating theicon's corresponding one or more computer files and includes selected portions of the captured one or more graphical representations of the information content;
linking the icon to the application and to the one or more computer files based on theability of the application to manipulate the information content of the one or more computer files corresponding to the icon;
storing the icon in a memory;
displaying the icon in a window on a display screen;
invoking the application for manipulatingthe information content of the one or more computer files upon selection of the icon by accessing the more or more computer files by reference to an underlying file system corresponding to the icon and opening the one or more computer files within theapplication.

16. A method for providing a user interface for accessing a file based on a corresponding icon comprising:
storing a plurality of icons in a memory along with a corresponding plurality of references to an underlying file system for storageinformation for a plurality of files, each icon having an appearance substantially depicting information content from its corresponding file, wherein the plurality of icons were created by capturing automatically one or more graphical representations ofone or more portions of information content of an icon's corresponding file while an application was manipulating an icon's corresponding file and include selected portions of the captured one or more graphical representations of the information content;
linking an application to each icon based utility on the ability of the application to manipulate the information content of the file corresponding to the icon;
providing a window on a display screen for displaying the plurality of icons;
invoking theapplication for manipulating the information content of the file corresponding to the selected icon upon selection of an icon from the plurality of icons in the window;
accessing the file designated by the reference to the underlying file systemcorresponding to the selected icon; and
opening the accessed file into the corresponding application.

In order for prior art to cover this, either one reference, showing that this was known before the patentee's invention, has to anticipate every one of the limitations in the claim; or, it must have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine multiple references which, when put together, cover every limitation in the claim.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how to parse, read, or make sense of the extensive, and perhaps unnecessary set of comma-spliced fragements, but:

Prior art does not need to address every detail of a patent. One instance (of prior art) can apply to a porttion of a claim. That prior art may be extended through reasonable extension by a person skilled in the art to further limit the validity of the patent.

To suggest otherwise is akin to suggesting that a law may not be invalid if any portion of it is valid.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to take a look at those claims as they were originally written back in 2001:

1. A method of accessing a computer file and application for manipulating the file comprising the steps of:
creating an icon corresponding to a file including information, the icon substantially depicting at least a portion of the information from the file;
storing the icon in a memory;
displaying the icon; and
invoking the file and an application for manipulating the file upon selection of the icon.

19. A method of providing a user interface for accessing a file based on a corresponding icon comprising:
storing a plurality of icons in a memory along with a corresponding plurality of references to an underlying file system for storage information for a plurality of files, each icon having an appearance substantially depicting information from its corresponding file;
providing a window on a display screen for displaying the plurality of icons;
invoking an application upon selection of an icon from the plurality of icons in the window; and
accessing a file designated by a reference to the underlying file system corresponding to the selected icon.

These claims appear to have been seriously narrows over the course of prosecution. And the claims may have been much broader in the parent application (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/097,283, filed Jun. 12, 1998). It may very well be unnecessary to seek out prior art that invalidates the patent. The patent is probably is going to be read so narrowly after all of these amendments that it will require a dedicated effort to create an infringing product. The patent holder either does not realize how narrow this patent is, or is merely bluffing in hopes of recouping the costs of securing the patent.

Re:Claims

[mpaque]

NeXTSTEP 4.0 Alpha; sometimes mis-called Beta on web sites.

The software featured tabs across the screen bottom for various window types. (We cribbed these for Mac OS 8.5 after the merger, as the tabbed window feature.) The Documents tab was a window which presented icons of documents, each of which could be a preview of the actual document, badged to indicate the associated application.

This implementation nicely meets all the claims, but predates the patent application by 5 years. I won't bother going through all the details, but Cygnus is boned. Software patent litigation as a business model is so last decade...

Re:Claims

[Dachannien]

and perhaps unnecessary set of comma-spliced fragements

Actually, it is necessary. Each claim has to be contained within in a single sentence.

Prior art does not need to address every detail of a patent. One instance (of prior art) can apply to a porttion of a claim. That prior art may be extended through reasonable extension by a person skilled in the art to further limit the validity of the patent.

There is a bit of wiggle room in making an obviousness rejection, but the more gaps you have, the harder it is to convincingly argue obviousness, and the more likely you are to get overturned on appeal if it goes that far. In any case, the logical leaps made by many /.'ers far exceed what any examiner would be allowed to make.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

So, they must have looked at the source of the offenders and found that this is precisely the algorithm they used to produce the preview icons....just giving them the benefit of the doubt....

Re:Claims

[dshadowwolf]

That actually does, quite nicely, compromise "Prior Art" that invalidates both the primary claim (claim 1) and the secondary claim (claim 16) — all other claims rely, either directly or indirectly, on those two.

In other words, this single piece of "prior art" — if it is validated during a re-examination of this patent — will cause the patent to disappear entirely.

Re:Claims

[Foobar of Borg]

In any case, the logical leaps made by many /.'ers far exceed what any examiner would be allowed to make.

The other thing (among many) that slashdotters don't get is that the Patent Office as a whole and patent examiners in particular must apply existing law as interpretted by the courts. They can't just say "It's obvious, fuckwit!" as much as some of them might want to. Plus, if you look at what is on PAIR, a lot of back and forth was done to limit the claims. It's not the sort of "rubber stamping" that a lot of slashbots always contend that it is.

Re:Claims

[Psychotria]

I guess I'd be able to develop a better response if the claims were written in legible English.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, the general opinion here is rather more like gawking at the idiocy of the whole patent system. And the idea that something which is obvious to an average slashbot would require significant economical incentive to develop is... certainly far from the general justification of the patent system.

Re:Claims

[Quothz]

Actually, it is necessary. Each claim has to be contained within in a single sentence.

Huh. Seems a lil' bit of an arbitrary requirement in my mind, although I reckon there needs to be a limit or some patent lawyers would write a book for every claim.

Even so, the parent's right about one thing: None of those claims are, in fact, sentences. You sort of have to have a predicate, no matter how many phrases you pile on top of a subject.

It's frankly a little worrisome that the combined efforts of an agency responsible for assigning rights for complex devices and methods and many highly-paid specialists who deal with these rights can't successfully construct a sentence. God help us if anyone tries to patent a method for writing complete sentences. That much irony could make a strong man weep.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

NeXTstep 4.0 Alpha was only ever released under NDA to select developers. Unless Cygnus developers were in the select group, they could not have seen the prior art.

If they could not have seen the prior art, it doesn't invalidate their patent.

Re:Claims

[3seas]

And my response is...... one or more "huh?"

I swear I've seen AI programs produce more concise, clear and fully descriptions text than this.

They must have been using an older version.

Re:Claims

[RightSaidFred99]

Yes, it does invalidate their patent. Having seen or not seen the prior art means nothing.

Re:Claims

[bovinewasteproduct]

In order for prior art to cover this, either one reference, showing that this was known before the patentee's invention, has to anticipate every one of the limitations in the claim; or, it must have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine multiple references which, when put together, cover every limitation in the claim.

INAL goes with saying.

Please see patent office http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7346850.PN.&OS=PN/7346850&RS=PN/7346850version for better information.

Can anyone tell me what the differences are between claims 1 and 16? Outside a rewording??? This patent describes a point and click filesystem interface. It provides a visual snapshot of the files, links applications to files based apon being able to manupulate them, and opens the application when that file is selected.

Claim 2/3 looks like screen capture to me.

Claim 4 is the loading of the application linkage with the icon into memory.

Claim 5/6 looks like focus follows mouse cursor.

Claim 7/8/9 is opening application when the icon is selected by unknown method, keyboard or mouse.

Claim 10 allows multiple invocations of the same application.

Claim 11 looks like autosave.

Claim 12 looks like it's trying to cover the bases by mentioning paths and handles for each file. MacOS anybody?

Claim 13 again looks like base covering by covering automatic printing instead of application invocation when selected.

Cliam 14 is copying the file instead of invocation of an application.

Claim 15 is bogus (like the rest). Instead of creating an icon of a "real" file, it a template file instead.

Claim 16 is claim 1 reworded as far as I can tell.

Claim 17 is claim 16's version of claim 4.

The weird part of this patent is the requirement that an application be manuplating the files in question when the snapshot is made. Most likely a restriction required by the examiner.

Now for a REAL laugh, they filed an another http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=09097283&OS=09097283&RS=09097283application for a NEW patent as a continuation-in-part of the granted application. I can't belive they spent the money. And BTW, it almost looks like the filed lawsuit assumes that THIS application has granted instead of 09/878,009 from which patent 7,346,850 was granted.

And remember that it is the language of the claims that matter, NOT the abstract or desciption.

BWP

   

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

Your claim is specious. If two random individuals invent something (lit. anything), the first person to invent it has the right to a patent, the second one does not. The first person is not the one who makes it to the patent office first, but the first one who has documentation that he, in fact, did invent it first.

So, Party B runs off to the patent office after creating his "work of genius" that Party A created years prior, Party A shoves it in a closet and forgets about it for those years. Later, Party B comes running to Party A's door with a lawsuit saying "You haven't licensed my patent, I'm suing you". All Party A needs to do is dig up his proof and he's golden. (And Party B's probably in for a world of hurt once his patent gets invalidatded).

Only in America, your country's laws may vary, prices are subject to change, etc. etc.

Re:Claims

[jbengt]

from the Patentstorm link in TFA:

What is claimed is:
1. A method of accessing . . .

The whole patent "Claims" seems to be a single sentence containing a long list.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 95 itself, in a reasonably standard configuration, was able to show at least bitmap images in a thumbnail format in Windows Explorer allowing you to click the generated-on-the-fly thumbnail of the actual image content and have it open up in the associated program.

I do believe that satisfies both conditions claimed above. As for how to do it, using explorer to open a file is obvious. To get the icon, you would just need to set the icon of the .bmp filetype to "%1" or something. I did this at the latest in 1998.

-5, patent-troll.

Re:Claims

[Hognoxious]

If two random individuals invent something (lit. anything), the first person to invent it has the right to a patent, the second one does not. The first person is not the one who makes it to the patent office first, but the first one who has documentation that he, in fact, did invent it first.

Under which country's laws? The USA's or Lalaland's?

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, a post by someone who seems to have a clue about what is involved in a patent.

Re:Claims

[NeuroManson]

IIRC, other previous software would also give picture previews as icons, such as ACDSee, Thumbs Plus, Adobe Photoshop, tons more prior to 2001 AFAIK.

Re:Claims

[Dachannien]

It usually does form a sentence when combined with the claims heading, usually something like "I claim" or "What is claimed is". Still, drafting a patent application is an exercise in obfuscation on many levels, including grammatical.

Re:Claims

[Anonymous Coward]

I have not read TFA, and I will not read your posts!!

Maybe they're new to this but...

[jadedoto]

it's not April Fools day...

Re:Maybe they're new to this but...

[earlymon]

For patent trolls, every day is Fools Day!

Show me the patent!

[filesiteguy]

I would like to see this patented process. Can someone send me a copy of the process?

I have a older family friend who patented a tool for working on IBM Selectric typewrites back in the '60s. He could show me the tool and the designs.

Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[fibrewire]

The moment where patent trolls battle it out with large corporations is right around the corner. I feel that this is not only the beginning of a shitstorm, but when it's finished - software patents will be made illogical if not illegal in most countries, and people will realize that it was just a marketing scam that big corporations used to squash the little guys, and then differently designed little guys built to take advantage of an unfair law will take down the big corporations at their own game. Its the way of things, until balance is found. Same with licensing software, same with MPAA and RIAA, and other such BS. No unfair advantage cannot be exploited, which is why free enterprise & the internet kicks ass. Value through innovation will always win. Period.

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, without patents innovation and value do not go in the same sentence - especially when it comes to software. Once the word is out and it is easily duplicated/replicated/cloned there is no value for the original creator. What then?

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[wITTus]

This has nothing to do with innovation, they simply exploit the system - that's all. I had similar feelings like the parent about patents, but we need them anyway. And I don't think that large corporations spend so much money to fight about something which we'll drop later anyway.

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

> What then?

Then, the end of the world: Famine, death, war and pestilence.

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[nbates]

Hi... I'm the asshole who posted the comment about the four horsemen.

Let me give you an example of why I think patents are not necessary for innovation in software:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

When it comes to software, ideas are cheap and abundant. Patents make sense when they represent something that is difficult to come up with (a diesel engine for example) and that may involve years of R&D.

But if you read that list, you'll see that ideas (even good ones) cost almost nothing, and have no value on its own. People is willing to give the ideas for free for many reasons: Because they can benefit by having the idea implemented, because of personal pride, because of a sense of community.

So for example, a patent troll (person A) would patent a good but almost obvious idea like "Autoname screenshots to have date and time for hour, instead of just 'screenshot'". And then if he is successful he would sit on the patent and wait until person B comes up with the same idea in a context were person B can actually implement it. And then sue. That's holding back innovation, not encouraging.

On the other hand, you have that the idea is so simple and cheap that people is willing to give it for free: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/16850/

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two wrongs don't make a right. Still, I agree there's a silver lining.

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[cnettel]

The thing is that software can be one-click or autonaming of screenshots. It can also be clever lossy compression or speech recognition or even a strong AI. Lots of research have gone into those and we are certainly not there yet for the latter two. The thing is also that, just like for a diesel engine, or to some degree for a new medicine, it's easy to say "reduce particle emissions" or "target that receptor". It's a pain that popular compression algorithms are covered by patents, but I think it's quite fair to say that advances there are patentworthy, just like advances in analog techniques of bandwidth reduction for broadcast video.

Re:Patent Trolls are a GOOD thing...

[Wolfbone]

It's a pain that popular compression algorithms are covered by patents

Quite.

http://www.ross.net/compression/

but I think it's quite fair to say that advances there are patentworthy, just like advances in analog techniques of bandwidth reduction for broadcast video.

And as any student of the patent system will tell you, the patent system never has been and (for various reasons) cannot be made to issue patents only for "patentworthy" inventions. Unless there is good reason and evidence to believe that making patents available in some field/industry "promotes progress...", the economically (and ethically) rational thing to do is to not make them available. See e.g. Machlup's review http://www.mises.org/etexts/patentsystem.pdf and http://researchoninnovation.org/

I wonder if....

[s0litaire]

...I can copyright the procedure to engage in ludicrous legal actions on flimsy evidence between parties. 1) Read slashdot 2) Contact lawyers 3) Profit... 4) Sue myself 5) ... :D:D

I got dibs on malloc and free!

[babernat]

I'm going to run out and patent malloc and free separately. Of course I would make more money off of malloc than free. :)

Re:I got dibs on malloc and free!

[dosun88888]

I run gmake and gcc,
And I ain't never called malloc without calling free.
I'll beat your ass until it's colored like a red-black tree
'Cause there's so much drama in the PhD

Shit...

[shentino]

Doesn't KDE use this right now?

Re:Shit...

[Ant P.]

As posted above, if they sue Gnome/KDE for this, the first thing that'll happen is that it'll be split into an "unofficial" patch and then applied by every single distro out there. They'll go bankrupt just filing lawsuits.

One Word... Bilski

[Foofoobar]

Bilski sort of invalidates things that are obvious or not tied to hardware. So how do they expect to defend this patent while not getting it overturned?

Does this company even produce software?

[carlzum]

Cygnus Systems (not to be confused with the Cygwin guys) doesn't appear to produce any commercial software. They look like some kind of software/hardware reseller, providing some business application develop services at best. They applied for this patent in 2001, where's the product they were trying to protect? It's one thing to abuse the system to fight off competition, but registering vague patents with no intention of implementing them is patent trolling at its worst.

Re:Does this company even produce software?

[pammon]

It would be a big mistake for a company like this to produce any products. These companies exist only to license out IP they buy or otherwise "invent," and to sue non-licensees for patent infringement. If they were to produce a product, they would make themselves vulnerable to a countersuit.

Re:Does this company even produce software?

[RightSaidFred99]

They're just small-time pissants hoping for lottery-by-court. They think they can get a quick payoff or get lucky in the courts, and they probably have someone willing to give cheap legal services. There's nothing to see here - they are insignificant and will quickly be squashed like cockroaches.

Re:Does this company even produce software?

[Kindaian]

But 100% legal since the lift of the prototype obligation when registering a patent... Patent law in US has more holes then some cheese i know of...

Slashdot v. Patent Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

While the Slashdot crowd is content to read only the title of a patent and then make wild pronouncements, patent attorneys generally read the whole patent document.

Re:Slashdot v. Patent Lawyers

[Doctor_Jest]

And yet... patent trolls are still patent trolls. See a program Cygnus is pitching that is being "infringed"? No? PATENT TROLL. Sorry... time to call a spade a spade. Even if you read the "whole" document.

Re:Slashdot v. Patent Lawyers

[Hognoxious]

I suppose it's a start. Any estimate on when they'll understand it?

Re:Slashdot v. Patent Lawyers

[IgLou]

I couldn't agree more. When you file a patent I believe you have an obligation to bring a product to market. The patent is meant to protect you in doing so. Can't get a prototype in 7 years? Too bad, you're gaming the system, scrap the patent and take your licks for trying to stifle innovation. In my mind you shouldn't even be allowed to patent something unless you have some form of prototype... something, anything that shows your working towards getting a product to market. If you're not willing to do that step aside.

Re:Slashdot v. Patent Lawyers

[Doctor_Jest]

You've hit the nail on the head. Patents != copyright. Though these patent trolls seem to think it does. Which is a shame, and because of it, we've got to deal with this nonsense in the news and clogging up the courts. Suffice to say, the companies being sued are fat with cash, which is probably the reason Cygnus decided to have a go...

Patents do not allow you to "placehold" an idea indefinitely with nothing to show for it but a lawsuit. The fact that the courts don't force those attempting to defend their patent to produce a prototype or existing product is odd. It'd surely speed up the process. :)

Lotus Magellan

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotus Magellan didn't use icons, but did allow scrolling through the list of files, showed (instantly!) a preview of the file to the right, then allowed you to open it with the app of your choice. It handled almost any format in existence at the time (late 1980s) including archives such as ZIPs.

          This I think shows the idea of having a preview of files is not at all original; combining an app like this + icons is not at all original. Magellan alone wouldn't be enough to kill the whole patent but it sure doesn't help any.

Who needs it?

[martin-boundary]

Who needs file preview anyway? I just use less(1). You can get used to it. I don't even see the control codes. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead...

Re:Who needs it?

[hack slash]

Matrix jokes aside, the people I know who use file preview in windows are those that can only type with their index fingers whilst looking at the keyboard.

Re:Who needs it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just use less

Isn't that pretty ... useless?

*dodge*

Re:Perfect time to know what Obama's take

[jav1231]

Thank the O he became president!

It was bad enough that we couldn't have an obviously NON-political thread that didn't mention someone's personal loathing of Bush now we're going to have 4 years of latent, homo-erotic references to Obama in threads about..oh I dunno, patent trolls!?

Troll

[wshwe]

Just another greedy patent troll!

Re:Troll

[earlymon]

As opposed to non-greedy patent troll?

Abolish patents

[Anonymous Coward]

This yet another reason to abolish all patents.

See Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine for the arguments.

Please read their book for free at http://www.dklevine.com/

Re:Penetration Testin

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you bother?

Re:Perfect time to know what Obama's take

[Foobar of Borg]

now we're going to have 4 years of latent, homo-erotic references to Obama

Um, I think you're the only one that sees anything homo-erotic in the OP's post. I wonder what that could signify? (not that there's anything wrong with it)

I have no Idea!

[robbak]

The best they can hope for is being slapped down quickly, before Microsoft, Apple and Google incur much legal costs for them to pay.
This sounds like a quick way to bankruptcy.

Have a look at the Xerox Docutech machine gui

[Anonymous Coward]

Our office had a schoolbus-sized Xerox docutech machine for
producing on-demand, printed, bound documents. In 1989. Documents
were stored on disk in the machine and printed using a touch-screen
with icons consisting of thumbnail images of the documents contained
in the machine. The patent claims appear to be describing this
system.

Just guessing, but I'll bet Xerox has a mountain of patents covering
this sort of thing.

Are they in Indiana or Michigan?

[bigbigbison]

The website for Cygnus System, Inc. states: "ygnus Systems, Inc. focuses on the unique computing, networking and application needs of small to midsized businesses and offices in the southeastern Michigan area. " and the bottom of the website says they are in Taylor, MI http://www.cygnus-sys.com/AboutUs

If the article confuses Indiana with Michigan then maybe it is confused about the lawsuit as well?

Re:Are they in Indiana or Michigan?

[dosun88888]

If you're going to comment on Taylor, MI's redneck population by trying to imply that it's actually in Indiana then why not just stick with the terminology coined over 20 years ago? They already call it Taylor-tucky.

This lawsuit will get tossed out anyway

[Darkk]

As the judge gleams over his PC and noticed it too uses the preview thumbnails feature and started to realize...holy crap...if I pass judgment then how the hell am I gonna find my pictures?!?!

What bothers me tho as more and more of these silly lawsuits crop up it will stifle innovation. Eventually it will choke open source software as they lack funds to fight this. Apple and Microsoft have deep pockets so they will survive, just we will end up paying for it later.

I just hope I can continue to use Ubuntu without worry.

HTML prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't an HTML "A"nchor tag which links to an image be prior art, if an "img" tag with a thumbnail was automatically created by software? That's kind of obvious and thumbnailing was probably created pretty soon after graphical browsing was created.

Contact you? How?

[Mathinker]

If you're for real, I suggest that you take the initiative and contact them, considering that

• Your Slashdot account is not configured to reveal an email address or website
• It's not clear that the lawyers involved read Slashdot

Re:Contact you? How?

[mlwmohawk]

If you're for real, I suggest that you take the initiative and contact them, considering that

        * Your Slashdot account is not configured to reveal an email address or website
        * It's not clear that the lawyers involved read Slashdot

(1) I get enough spam, thank you very much.
(2) If someone wanted to find me, it shouldn't be very hard at all, the rudimentary obfuscation of my identity is only good enough to keep the complete morons away.

Re:Contact you? How?

[Anonymous Coward]

3) You're too lazy to spend a few minutes to contact the people involved.

In response to your second reason, the point the GP was making was that the lawyers likely have no idea that they might have a reason to contact you.

Thank you for your half-assed version of helping; if I see you flailing in an icy pool, I'll be sure to mention to a friend that I see a long branch that I could probably use to save you. If you don't contact me about the branch, it's not my problem.

Re:Contact you? How?

[mlwmohawk]

3) You're too lazy to spend a few minutes to contact the people involved.

Probably guilty as charged, but it isn't the easiest thing to do to be involved in a legal action. I'm certainly not going to volunteer unless it is necessary. That being said, if the various entities posted requests with contact information, for developers who may have prior art, I would absolutely send them and email. For instance, we've seen on grocklaw and slashdot lawyers asking for feedback or technical info. When I see them and can contribute, I do.

Thank you for your half-assed version of helping; if I see you flailing in an icy pool, I'll be sure to mention to a friend that I see a long branch that I could probably use to save you. If you don't contact me about the branch, it's not my problem.

It is hardly the same thing. None of these entities seem to be in any sort of jeopardy and can well manage this attack without my help. Combined they have BILLIONS of dollars, my paltry testimony identifies one of thousands of possible projects (some of which are the respective litigants own work).

If the KDE or GNOME guys were under suit, that would be a different story.

ob

[shentino]

In soviet russia, ass sucks you!

Creating Unity

[pingveno]

There's a least one benefit to patent trolls like these guys. They unify companies that normally are fierce competitors. Or, as Psycho Dave from Kuro5hin describe another group:

"...what common ground does pretty much every person regardless of their political or religious beliefs have? They all hate the Westboro Baptist Church."

Xerox Star has doc/file preview in late '70s

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox Star, followed by the (lisp) D machines based on them in the late '70's and early '80's had various file/document previews as well as symbolic scrolling used and patented by a number of modern systems.

NeXTSTEP had this probably earlier

[ImdatS]

I remember that NeXTstep had this in the Workspace Manager. ou could click a file and push CMD+3 to see a preview of the content of the file, if preview was supported. Preview worked for many file types (.tif, .snd, ...) and where it didn't work, you could write a "preview viewer" for the Workspace Manager as a plug-in.

Obviously, the preview was similar to a screenshot at the last edit stage of the file.

Software patents....

[gabrielex]

I really can't stand even the idea of this! Ideas shouldn't be patented, but the way you realize them! Everyone could just patent something already invented without even knowing how does it work and then sue the real inventor who has way more knowledge of how things work but that just didn't want to patent every single thing? Surely the code to show this preview is different in every application, so now go compare the code and see if there's still copyright infringement!

If only

[symbolset]

If only we could find a way to abolish these Copyright and Patent issues we might have progress, which is what copyrights and patents are supposed to provide.

Re:If only

[BountyX]

I will share with you how to do this. First step to abolishing copyright and patent issues is to ignore them. Here's a car analogy. You need to get to work, but your car is broken and it's been broken for the last 10 years becuase its an old peice of shit. Do you use your obviosuly broken car, or do you get another ride? So ignore the damn laws, and get another ride. Any IP you dont want the shit sued out of, establish an outsourced corporation in a country with sane copyright laws. The system will eat itself until it reaches a breaking point and reform happens. Until then enjoy your piratebay status.

Re:If only

[servognome]

If only we could find a way to abolish these Copyright and Patent issues we might have progress, which is what copyrights and patents are supposed to provide.

Because destroying incentives which lead to capital investment and collapsing industries based on intellectual property would clearly help progress. What is needed is massive reform, not complete abolition.

Re:If only

[Kindaian]

Not possible... The needed space when they created them... so the common sense was dumped in the trash bin... ;)

Quick! Patent a Pop-Under File Preview

[Anonymous Coward]

So there you are. Now run along to the uspto.

Oh boy...

[Sfing_ter]

From their website...:
Our Mission

To bring the power of computer technology to business through the use of advanced products and technical consulting services.

To provide computer technology solutions to our clients using our proven process of identifying, simplifying and comunicating a better way to get the most from their technology investments.

Committed to: Customer service, Individual ability and creativity, professional responsibility, human touch experience.

It also looks like their logo is prior art too. It must get REALLY lonely up there in Michigan. I wonder if their customers are automakers not paying their bills. Before the SpellingNazi begins, that is a direct quote from their "Corporate Mission" page http://www.cygnus-sys.com/OurCorporateMission.

Give some examples

[Werrismys]

Give some examples. Your schematic seems fabricated

In Re Bilsky

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone's not paying attention to in re Bilsky. This fails the "Machine or Transformation" Test set out by the Federal Circuit Court and will be dropkicked by the large companies at the same time they try and deal with Bilsky's effects on their own patents.

Cygnus? Where have I heard that name....

[bwcbwc]

Wasn't Cygnus the company that originally developed the Cygwin tools before Redhat bought them out? Or is this a different Cygnus? Perhaps they'll be facing a trademark lawsuit from Redhat while they're on the attack against MS and so on...

(Can't help myself here.) Wouldn't that be ...

[reiisi]

The gift that keeps on taking?

"3rd world sweatshops" and value for money

[reiisi]

First, your wage estimate is high for a large part of the world.

Second, it is not value for money. It's kind of like strip-mining -- cheap for now, and you hope you can get your golden parachute before the hidden costs catch up to your company..

It can actually be beneficial to society at large in some cases, however. Depends on how much of the technology being used gets transferred to the people doing the labor.

Right

[rofthorax]

WTF is the Unix File command? You associate a mime type with a image.. This has been around for ages..
Doesn't Cygnus make open source unix like interfaces?

Cygwin is a unix environment running on Windows.. You'd think a linux friendly company wouldn't use software patents, but I guess they are cruising fro the bruising.. Especially considering Microsoft has quite a few software patents and may find someone to take them to court for.. It's probably not worth it.

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Wait...

[cygnus]

I'm suing someon

Re:Perfect time to know what Obama's take

[jav1231]

:p You couldn't possibly know that...or that either!

I support this patent!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I think this is the first software patent I've ever seen that I support. (I've been a professional software developer since '98.)

Frankly, if they can "show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened", they deserve a patent. Fortunately Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all safe, because they open the file to create their previews.

What prevents a countersuit?

[proto]

I'm a computer geek so only know a little bit of law. What prevents the other party from issuing a countersuit? Are the rules different under Tort law? Civil law? Criminal law? If someone could expand on this topic it would be great.

Irrelevant patent because of claim 2...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick look at the patent shows this to be entirely frivolous... Once you get to claim number 2 which reads:

"2. The method of claim 1, wherein capturing a graphical representation is initiated by a user input command while the application manipulating the one or more computer files are active."

It seems apparent that Apple's preview function isn't infringing because capturing the graphical representation is not "initiated by a user input command while the application manipulating the one or more computer files are active" but instead generated on-the-fly when the folder is opened. Apple's implementation seems outside the scope of this patent, even before considering the prior art.