Slashdot Mirror
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.
BeOS had a 3d demo program with this exact functionality in the late 1990's!
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
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...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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.
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.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
There was a time when parts of the federal government actually did an honest job - most of the time. Drug regulators actually blocked marketing of drugs that were dangerous to your health. The SEC kept crooks from selling dishonest investments. The Bureau of Land Management kept people from buying horses and selling them to slaughterhouses.
Some time in the last thirty or so years, large parts of government (and private enterprise) became thoroughly corrupt.
The patent office is just one more example where a bought-and-paid-for-congress (along with the patent office bureaucracy) modified the rules so they no longer protect the public interest - they protect Corporate America.
If you have a valid patent, you can't afford to defend it. If some corporation has a completely bogus patent, you can't afford to challenge it.
Read up on the Enclosure acts of the early 18th Century. At this time the aristocracy essentially invented our modern form of private property. Intellectual property is a modern day way of inventing something new - Intellectual property rights that didn't really exist until someone bought the right politicians. Much of it is a form of governmental theft covered up by a concept (patents) that was once honest and a benefit to everyone.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
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.