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Apple Patents Page Turn Animation
An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times Bits blog:
"If you want to know just how broken the patent system is, just look at patent D670,713, filed by Apple and approved this week by the United States Patent Office. This design patent, titled, 'Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,' gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application. ... Apple argued that its patented page turn was unique in that it had a special type of animation other page-turn applications had been unable to create."
The article doesn't really make it clear, but this is for the UI design of showing a page being turned, not the actual function of moving from one page to another. That said, the patent itself cites similar animations in Flash from 2004.
There are an insufficient number of Picards to adequately supply the amount of facepalm this requires and deserves.
So how does the US patent system actually work? You apply and automatically get a patent then it's up to the courts to decide whether it's legitimate or not latter? Why bother having a patent office at all if they don't knock down crap like this?
BeOS had a 3d demo program with this exact functionality in the late 1990's!
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This one even cheerfully tells us how to think, calling us to see the patent system as broken because of one particular patent. The sensationalism really adds something to Slashdot... It's not like I come here for actual news or anything.
Yeah, it's hard to imagine how a broken patent system, the traditional means by which inventors protected themselves from large businesses' simply taking their idea and adding it to their product line, thus eliminating any monentary incentive for innovation, would be of interest to a site that caters to inventors, tinkerers, engineers, etc. We should probably just drop any discussion about the trend of rising illiteracy, the "brain drain" to other countries, how many entrepreneurs are starting up in China to cut through the exorbinantly high costs of doing business here, all due to legal fees, and how small businesses here often now have to hire more lawyers than engineers. Discussing a pervasive and growing problem in our industry isn't thinking really, it's just repeating dogma, and nothing good has ever come from a group of like-minded citizens getting together to discuss the common problems of their community.
I'll just be over here now, reading the "actual news" then. Things that matter like sex scandals, new hair-styles for this winter, and what ring-tone best fits my personality...
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It's a design patent, not a utility patent. That means it's all about the artistic properties. For example, the BeOS page turning looks very different, so it doesn't apply. Coke has a design patent on the shape of the Coke bottle. It doesn't seem so unreasonable that Apple's artwork is different and distinctive.
Why, oh why, do coders think it's a good idea to waste time pretending that every computer page is a paper page by making the corner flip up and move over? It's slow and distracting and adds nothing to the user experience except aggravation.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
I frequently hear here that algorithms were explicitly excluded from patent protection.
Another brilliant thinker who can't tell cause from effect. The patent system is not broken because of this patent. This patent was approved by the patent office BECAUSE the system is broken.
The article doesn't tell us what to think or how to think. It's just a wake-up for those who are already capable of thinking.
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Circus Ponies' Notebook.app has had a very similar animation from the beginning and has been continuously available on the NeXT/OSX platform for about twenty years. It was announced for iPad on 2011-08-11, three months before Apple filed.
It's a design patent. If the other animation that you mention is very similar, then an exact copy of that other animation is not infringing (on Apple's design patent); an exact copy of Apple's animation is infringing, and something that is close would be difficult to judge.
Guys, remember that this is a _design_ patent. And it protects the design of _one_ way to animate turning over a simulated page in an eBook reader. There are gazillions of ways to do such an animation. Some look better, some look less good. One of them is now covered by a design patent, that's all.
Didn't this game have page turning animations in it back in '83?
Quite possibly. I don't know it. However, this isn't a "patent on page turning animations". It is a _design patent_ (which is a totally different kind of thing than a _utility patent_), and it covers the design of one specific animation, that means how this specific animation looks. You could even use the exact some algorithm that Apple uses, changing some parameters to make the animation look different, and it wouldn't be covered by this patent. Unless the animation in this game looks _exactly_ the same, it doesn't invalidate this design patent. And if you create a new animation, unless it looks _exactly_ the same, it is not infringing on this design patent. What you are _not_ allowed to do now is to make an exact copy of this animation.
Come on guys, the ignorance being displayed here is embarassing. Apple has not patented the general concept of turning a page. They've just claimed the rights to their specific page turn animation, that's all.
A lot of people here clearly don't understand what a "design patent" is, and how it differs from a utility patent and copyright. Here's an example of what they all mean:
Copyright: would apply to the code that implements the animation.
Design patent: would apply to the animation itself.
Utility patents: would apply to the general idea of turning of a page in an ebook.
This is the claim from the design patent:
The ornamental design for a display screen or portion thereof with animated-graphical user interface, as shown and described.
Note that it only covers the animation as shown and described. If you use a different animation, you're not infringing.
So calm down everyone. The patent system may be broken, but this is not an example of it.
Basically prior art has been thrown out by the US patent office in favour of, if it hasn't been patented yet patent it and let them sort it out in court.
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