Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google, Apple, Microsoft Sued Over File Preview

Posted by Soulskill on from the excellent-work,-patent-office dept.

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."

2 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Two words: by GrahamCox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Two words: prior art.

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

    1. Re:Two words: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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