Apple's interface held to the fire in dubious suit

[AppleInsider]

An Illinois-based company and its Nevada partner have filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., alleging that Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" treads on an interface patent that affects the operating system's nearly universal use of tabs.

Little-known intellectual property agency IP Innovation LLC and its parent Technology Licensing Corporation this week became the latest to claim that Apple had abused a patent they hold.

Filed April 18th in a US district court in Marshall, Texas -- a town frequently recognized as the preferred home for lawsuits by companies that hoard property claims -- the four-page formal complaint purports that Apple has engaged in "willful and deliberate" infringement of a computer control patent by selling its current Tiger operating system.

IP Innovation is demanding a jury trial and asks for reparations for perceived damages which "exceed $20 million," according to the suit. It also seeks an injunction that would prevent the California-based defendant from infringing on the patent, essentially blocking Apple from continuing to sell its current edition of Mac OS X and any future editions that might draw on the supposed infringements.

The reported violation is an exceptionally specific one. It refers to a single US Patent Office filing originally made by Xerox researchers for a "User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects" -- and, in turn, a lone claim within that patent.

The disputed section refers to the technique of creating a window on a computer's screen with controls that switch between views of multiple associated display objects within the window, erasing one view as the user selects another while still giving a spatial frame of reference and the same general interface during the switch.

While IP Innovation doesn't refer to any one feature of the Mac OS as copying the interface technique, the central claim may potentially apply to any of several approaches to navigating software used by Apple in Finder and its companion program. Category dividers triggered by Spotlight searches, as well as page tabs in the Safari web browser, bear the closest similarity to the now 20-year-old description.

Apple's Spaces virtual desktop feature set to arrive in Mac OS X Leopard would not be affected by the conditions of the immediate lawsuit.

Numerous questions remain unanswered in the legal motion and the associated patent, including subjects of prior art, ownership, and timing. Originally filed in 1987, the patent was last updated in December of 1991 with Xerox as the lone corporate owner -- nearly 14 years before the allegedly infringing software was released. The plaintiff in the new case has also chosen to make its case almost exactly two years after Tiger's April 2005 introduction and just months before the projected October release of Leopard, which should phase Tiger out of the market.

Regardless of the individual merits of the case, Apple has so far chosen to remain silent on the matter after having received notice of the impending court case earlier this week.[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ] (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2685)

[SpamSandwich]

No link to said patent?

[digitalclips]

One flew over the Cupertino nest?

[crees!]

Tabs.. give me a break. FireFox, IE7, etc... This really is ridiculous. Can we have someone patent the checkbox, radio button, and log in form too?

[MauiMac]

I like how AppleInsider posted the story on Fri. (its 5:59 here in Hawaii. 11:59 New York) and dates it as if it were Sat.:???:

[Wally]

I am so sick of these g**damned gold-digging a**hole companies! I hope someone shoots the ****ers in front of the courthouse! :devil:

[kungming2]

I am so sick of these g**damned gold-digging a**hole companies! I hope someone shoots the ****ers in front of the courthouse! :devil:

Lol... :lol:

[Zweben]

The patent system needs major reform. Software patents need to be stopped, and all current software patents should be nullified. Patents are supposed to encourage innovation, all software patents do is stiffle it.

[bauch]

Give me a break. Tiger has been out over a year and they're just *now* enforcing this so called patent? I don't think they'll win this one.

[Shadow Slayer 26]

Ummm...doesn't Windows use tabs? Firefox? Almost every new piece of software coming out? Give me a break here, why does everyone come after Apple in these crazy stupid patent infringments?

[Ronbo]

Whew. Thank God.

Nearly ten minutes had gone by without a pack of lawyers trying to make a wad of cash off the success of others. I was beginning to worry the whole world had gone crazy!

But that ten minutes is over. I can relax now. Musta just been a fluke.

[bdkennedy1]

Apple took an idea that's 20 years old and probably never been used, and innovated on it. Apple didn't win against Microsoft so I don't see LLC winning anything.

[JDW]

I have to agree with the poster who is angered by frivilous lawsuits like this. It's so infuriating I cannot put it into words. "Yes, but they have the right to..." is what the defenders of so-called American Liberty claim as their basis to allow such foolishness to continue. But the fact is, we need to create a law to ban all "intellectual property companies." If you don't sell products or build a business around a patented idea, then you should have no claim in court. To exist or make most of your money simply from patenting a billion ideas should by no means be legalized. This is a huge failure of the US court system in general. Patents should serve to protect concepts inherent to ACTUAL PRODUCTS that are actively being sold, promoted and continuing to be improved in the marketplace.

As an Apple shareholder, I can only hope Apple can get themselves out of this mess by spending the least amount of money.

[SpamSandwich]

Ummm...doesn't Windows use tabs? Firefox? Almost every new piece of software coming out? Give me a break here, why does everyone come after Apple in these crazy stupid patent infringments?

Oh, I suppose there's a chance Apple might have to settle with this company on this one... stranger things have happened. If the patent owner were to win, they'd probably file suit against every and all companies infringing.

I'm of two minds about this subject, since I believe that if Apple had a smart enough team of patent lawyers, and a team dedicated to acquiring and enforcing their own patents, they'd get in far fewer tussles with patent trolls.

[Maciver]

Cliveat5 is the best poster, he needs to shed some knowledge on this topic. Clive, are you listening? Shed some knowledge

[BrandonAllan]

I ain't sayin' it's a frivolous suit. But they ain't messin' with no broke fruit.

[Brian Green]

I am so sick of these g**damned gold-digging a**hole companies! I hope someone shoots the ****ers in front of the courthouse! :devil:

I actually agree with you on this one. While they are at it, why not have a guy come out and say he patented the Shift key? I'd love to be on that jury; I'd happily tell the guy to go fsck himself! There has to be a limit to what people can claim. What about a guy claiming a patent on the scroll bar? How about one claiming infringement on the Quit command?

[scotty321]

I have to agree with the poster who is angered by frivilous lawsuits like this. It's so infuriating I cannot put it into words. "Yes, but they have the right to..." is what the defenders of so-called American Liberty claim as their basis to allow such foolishness to continue. But the fact is, we need to create a law to ban all "intellectual property companies." If you don't sell products are build a business around a patented idea, then you should have no claim in court. To exist or make most of your money simply from patenting a billion ideas should by no means be legalized. This is a huge failure of the US court system in general. Patents should serve to protect concepts inherent to ACTUAL PRODUCTS that are actively being sold, promoted and continuing to be improved in the marketplace.

I could not agree with you more. If there is one thing I would stand up & fight for in this country, this has gotta be it. There is absolutely NO WAY IN HELL you should be able to patent an idea if you don't have a business around it. These companies should all be shut down. These IP companies are nothing more than a bunch of greedy motherfu**ers who suck the marrow out of other people's innovative ideas. Talk about trying to get a fu*king free ride. Absolutely infuriating.

[carltaute]

If, on the verge of bankruptcy, there is one out. Sue someone.

[khamil5]

I have to agree with the poster who is angered by frivilous lawsuits like this. It's so infuriating I cannot put it into words. "Yes, but they have the right to..." is what the defenders of so-called American Liberty claim as their basis to allow such foolishness to continue. But the fact is, we need to create a law to ban all "intellectual property companies." If you don't sell products or build a business around a patented idea, then you should have no claim in court. To exist or make most of your money simply from patenting a billion ideas should by no means be legalized. This is a huge failure of the US court system in general. Patents should serve to protect concepts inherent to ACTUAL PRODUCTS that are actively being sold, promoted and continuing to be improved in the marketplace.

As an Apple shareholder, I can only hope Apple can get themselves out of this mess by spending the least amount of money.

I could not agree with you more. If there is one thing I would stand up & fight for in this country, this has gotta be it. There is absolutely NO WAY IN HELL you should be able to patent an idea if you don't have a business around it. These companies should all be shut down. These IP companies are nothing more than a bunch of greedy motherfu**ers who suck the marrow out of other people's innovative ideas. Talk about trying to get a fu*king free ride. Absolutely infuriating.


:smokey: Happy belated 4 20

I have got to agree with these to quotes even though I am totally Under the In and its 6:40 the next morning and I haven't slept but hey I can't sleep so why not start posting on Apple Insider lol.


Ok back to the article! I agree I am an entrepreneur or aspire to be a successful one and a business provides a service to it's customers and when I say service I mean retail, marketing, rental,... ect. I don't mean suing companies based on some patent that you came up with, Because that has nothing to do with business other than being a bitch **food break**.

No I understand that companies come up with ideas and another company may use it for their own, and a law suit in that case is understandable, but this company has no service or product with any relation to the patent it is just an intellectual property company. What do they do sue people as a service. Well maybe they do but I personally don't believe that a business that collects patents and sues other companies over them is a legitimate business. And lets just say thats what they are well like others brought up why are they not suing Microsoft, Fire Fox, Adium, and every other company under the sun? So what are they they are a bunch of dicks like my ex neighbor who moved in and sued everyone from other neighbors, to the previous house owners, to the golf corse across the street, but it came back to bite him in the ars because he went to jail for tax fraud evasion because people became so pissed they decided to poke around and dig up some dirt and turn him in in order to give him a big taste of the bull shit he has been slinging. So on one hand this company pisses me off because its not like it is even the programer suing instead it is an LLC so that way if they fuck up and lose or do some thing stupid it can't come back to the stupid owners of the business (which in most cases is good but in this case well I kinda want the owners of the IP LLC to get bit in the ass).

LOL That was a bit of a rant. and now its like 7:10 so I am going to head on over to facebook.

bbye!

[lkrupp]

Give me a break. Tiger has been out over a year and they're just *now* enforcing this so called patent? I don't think they'll win this one.

Winning is not the objective. The objective is to get some money out of Apple. As with any corporation Apple's lawyers will look at the risks and the costs of litigation. Whether there's merit in the case is irrelevant. If it will cost more to litigate than to just pay some extortion money to the parasite that's suing them they'll pay the extortion money. My bet is Apple will give 'em a few million to buy the patents and make 'em go away. Companies don't spend money on ethical principals or to do what's right. It's all about the bottom line.

Yes we need patent law reform but tort and patent lawyers are a powerful lobby. They make their living by sucking blood out of the host victim. Again it's not about justice for their client, it's about making money from the situation. :no:

[Hattig]

If Apple settle with them for $20 million, with a license to use it in the future, and a requirement that the company sue other companies abusing the patent, then Apple could come out of it reasonably cheaply and know that Microsoft will also get hassled.

Yes, despite the claim being overly generic and stifling innovation, and the fact that damages should be based upon how much the patent holder loses because of the infringement (i.e., if you're a patent troll, you have no losses because you have no products) it is probably better for Apple to settle this one.

Unless they have solid proof of prior art - any form of tabbed interface should do. But the US patent office takes WAY TOO LONG to rule on prior art submissions for patents, and the law system doesn't allow for the patent to be reviewed by the patent office before ruling (hence why RIM had to pay NTP last year despite NTP's patents being crap). So a court case would not be to decide on the validity of the patent, but on whether it was violated or not. The system is broken, but the people who could fix it have a vested interest in it remaining broken.

This is a great example of why I hope that Europe never allows software patents.

[ajprice]

Have to agree with people here, where have they been for the last 2 years?

In other news, I am getting fingers patented, so that anyone who uses fingers has to pay me to do so :P .

[eAi]

Don't you have to continually enforce your patent during it's lifetime, or it'll be declared invalid - like trademarks? Tabs have been used in Microsoft products since at least Windows 3.1, and probably in early Macs too... If they're only enforcing it after 20 years, I think they'd find it hard to make it stick.

[wilco]

The only thing more predictable than these frivolous law suits are the knee-jerk reactions from AppleInsider's "legal experts".

In other news, I am getting fingers patented, so that anyone who uses fingers has to pay me to do so :P .


That is so funny! And original! :rolleyes:

[Bergermeister]

Give it a rest, Wilco.

Is there a "statute of limitations" or comparable thing in patent cases? Don't they have to show that they have used the same patent within a certain period? (What was that stuff about the iPhone?) What does this tiny company do, anyway?

What modern software doesn't use tabs? Are they going to also claim a patent on the tabs in my file drawers (the physical ones)? (Yep, that was a knee-jerk response, but one someone is gonna want to ask.)

Can we get a link to said suit?

Haven't Macs had folders (and thus tab images) since 1983, predating said patent? If so, why the hell didn't Apple patent the idea? I agree with whoever above said that Apple sure could avoid a lot of messes if they would just open teir eyes and look where they are walking.

[EagerDragon]

I would think that this would affect Microsoft also. They are a much bigger target and can get them a whole lot more mula.

A 20 year old patent comes to light now, wow.
Most items being patented are obvious IMHO, the whole idea was that they not be obvious, to be truely original thinking. This kind of stuff is preventing further innovation. Companies have to do to much research when they have an idea to see if anyone patented the idea before they can go ahead and develop the idea. The mass of spagetty that represents the patents today are very vague and hard to find if they apply or not.

Clicking a section of the screen and having some other content painted over the content currently being shown is very basic and obvious. Not that much difference between a button and a tab.

I know, some of you like patents, I dont mind them if they are clear and cheap to research. What is the life of a patent today 50 years?

In the world of computing that is like 500 years. I started in the industry back in 72 and I can tell you that I have seen a hell of a lot of changes and inovation over the last 34 years. IMHO in electronic, software, computing and comunication hardware it makes no sense to grant patents with a life of more than 10-15 years. After that they totaly get in the way.

[Dr. X]

Here is the link to the patent:

User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5072412&id=3tUkAAAAEBAJ&dq=User+Interface+with+Multiple+Workspaces+for+Sha ring+Display+System+Objects)

[wilco]

Give it a rest, Wilco.

Is there a "statute of limitations" or comparable thing in patent cases? Don't they have to show that they have used the same patent within a certain period? (What was that stuff about the iPhone?) What does this tiny company do, anyway?

What modern software doesn't use tabs? Are they going to also claim a patent on the tabs in my file drawers (the physical ones)? (Yep, that was a knee-jerk response, but one someone is gonna want to ask.)

Can we get a link to said suit?

Haven't Macs had folders (and thus tab images) since 1983, predating said patent? If so, why the hell didn't Apple patent the idea? I agree with whoever above said that Apple sure could avoid a lot of messes if they would just open teir eyes and look where they are walking.

zzzzzzzzzz

[u2mr2os2]

Unless this patent is much more specific than the article says such that Apple uniquely violating it in some way, then yes, this should have been brought up so many years ago.

And if so, then why not against Microsoft? It's a bigger fish. Perhaps they think MS has too much money, and would fight them, but that Apple would cave easily, giving them at least some money rather than a long court battle? I would not be surprised if we soon see an announcement that Microsoft has taken a license from these people, setting it up for them to go after Apple with the goal being to shut down Tiger shipments for a while. This would also mean they could not ship any computers unless they put Windows on them. Like I said, this one smells fishy.

But maybe Apple can have the last laugh. Seems like they might have some legal traction with whatever agreement they had with Xerox back in 1979, that let them use some of the Xerox PARC innovations to develop a commercial product. Xerox later sued Apple about it and lost.

[Bergermeister]

zzzzzzzzzz

Are you actually attempting humor for a change? It's never too late...

---


Are other sites picking up on the lawsuit, yet?

[Kasper]

No link to said patent?

Added.

-K

[ajprice]

That is so funny! And original! :rolleyes:

zzzzzzzzzz

Urmm, who crapped in your cornflakes this morning? Cheer up will ya.

[Macvault]

An Illinois-based company and its Nevada partner have filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., alleging that Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" treads on an interface patent that affects the operating system's nearly universal use of tabs....

Tabs? What "tabs"??? Would somebody enlighten me how Mac OS X Tiger makes use of tabs? Safari does, but this suit makes it sound like a system-wide thing, and I don't see tabs anywhere except in Safari. What are they talking about?

[dkrieb]

About a year ago Apple hired the chief legal counsel from IBM. This guy is good. His team will tear them apart.

[TashaG]

Apple took an idea that's 20 years old and probably never been used, and innovated on it. Apple didn't win against Microsoft so I don't see LLC winning anything.
Ummm you realize that while MS didn't "lose" they DID settle out of court. The "Look and feel" lawsuit was one reason that MS invested in Apple after the second coming of Steve.

[Clive At Five]

Cliveat5 is the best poster, he needs to shed some knowledge on this topic. Clive, are you listening? Shed some knowledge

Wow, okay, I'm flattered. :\

I don't have much to add to this conversation. I will say, however, that Apple's implementation of tabs isn't nearly as widespread as, say, Windows, or worse yet, the preferences for MS Word... three rows of tabs! Yikes! Thus I'd say that a victory for these cheapskates would mean a world of havoc for Microsoft.

In light of this, I almost hope they win... and decide to take on Big-Redmond. :devil:

-Clive

[ajmas]

Stacks in Hypercard already presented uses for the tab style interface, though the real large scale use of tabs I believe came from Microsoft. I first remember seeing the use of tabs in Microsoft Windows and then in MS-Office. They were also present in MacOS 9.

There is this Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_%28GUI%29

which suggests that tabs were introduced by IBM in 1987, though was this before or after the filing of the patent? Either way software patents are too long for the speed at which the IT field is progressing.

[craigd6861]

I know, some of you like patents, I dont mind them if they are clear and cheap to research. What is the life of a patent today 50 years?

A patent is good for 20 years from date of filing. The patent in question was filed March 25, 1987.

[the Beatles]

:smokey: Happy belated 4 20

I have got to agree with these to quotes even though I am totally Under the In and its 6:40 the next morning and I haven't slept but hey I can't sleep so why not start posting on Apple Insider lol.........................


LOL That was a bit of a rant. and now its like 7:10 so I am going to head on over to facebook.

bbye!



sounds like you celebrated properly. keep it up. :smokey: :err: :p :smokey:

[JeffDM]

A patent is good for 20 years from date of filing. The patent in question was filed March 25, 1987.

I thought it was twenty one years from filing, or twenty from approval. Details like that seem to change from time to time, I've forgotten important details, if I haven't, my information is probably old. If it's 20 from filing, then it's already expired.

[Beowulf]

I'm pretty clueless on patent stuff. But the article said that that patent was updated in 1991 by Xerox. Would that change anything? Or is it still 20 years from date of filing/approval? :???:

[dmber]

i hope we don't lose the tabs in finder windows......

[DCQ]

Whew. Thank God.

Nearly ten minutes had gone by without a pack of lawyers trying to make a wad of cash off the success of others. I was beginning to worry the whole world had gone crazy!

But that ten minutes is over. I can relax now. Musta just been a fluke.

If you counted 10 minutes, then you probably weren't paying attention. I'm sure someone was sued somewhere for violating some patent on..oh, I don't know..."a method for keeping warm by igniting a fuel source to release thermal energy stored in the chemical bonds of organic compounds."

Just a little nit-pick. This lawsuit isn't brought by lawyers per-se. It's is brought by a new breed of American parasite: the intellectual property patent holding company.

Of source, my guess is that these things would be most effective if they were staffed entirely by lawyers...not anyone who actually creates anything. So this is probably just a semantic difference...

I agree. We should ban software patents. Now.

But our current crop of money-grubbing politicians--from both parties--wouldn't dream of doing anything so common-sensical and principled. In fact, they are leading the charge to extend patents around the world, through things like the World Trade Organization, even if they cost people their lives (c.f., drug patents).

[Hiro]

Have to agree with people here, where have they been for the last 2 years?

In other news, I am getting fingers patented, so that anyone who uses fingers has to pay me to do so :P .

Longer than 2 years. There were "interface switching controls" as early as some of the System 7 and System 8 control panels, probably even before. May very well turn out to be an abandoned patent or even prior existing art superseding it on this one.

[ecking]

What's worse is that these companies don't come up with these ideas and patent them, they usually buy them from someone and sit on them. These people just go around buying ancient patents that they realize someone is sort of using so they can sue them. Complete BS.

[pomo]

Is that how you spell when you want to sue someone...oh well.

Come monday, I'm suing apple for the command key :lol: .

[philipm]

Here is the link to the patent:

User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5072412&id=3tUkAAAAEBAJ&dq=User+Interface+with+Multiple+Workspaces+for+Sha ring+Display+System+Objects)

If that's the correct patent the link with tabs is tenuous. Xerox Workspaces allows you to have a user interface element that links you to another set of windows -- kind of a merger of the idea of a tab and Apple's new Spaces feature -- but in a more sophisticated way. I don't think anyone has actually implemented this exact feature. It's a pity Xerox chose to patent it because that quite likely put a specific brake on its adoption.

If I understand the feature right, you could have a user interface element which switched to a different logical mix of windows (which could include some of the windows currently on the screen), a much more elegant feature than Spaces or the equivalent multiple workspaces features on X windowing systems, which are really just a mechanism for increasing your screen real estate with virtual screens.

For example, if you are using Photoshop in conjunction with a web editor, and are moving between the 2 sets of windows, you could make them into a logical group. You may also be using those same Photoshop pictures to add stills into a movie, and make them into a logical group with your movie editor. You could then have a user interface element which allowed you to toggle between the two groups of windows: Photoshop + web editor, or Photoshop + movie editor.

The user interface element is illustrated as a door in the pictures in the patent (a later version of the idea was called "Rooms" by the PARC researchers who invented it).

The only value in this lawsuit is in reminding us of the idea now that the patent has expired, so we can contemplate implementing it -- I have seen no evidence that anyone has actually implemented anything close to the actual Xerox PARC innovation. (A patent (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5533183&id=B7kjAAAAEBAJ&dq=Xerox+PARC+rooms+interface) for Rooms was filed on 27 February 1995, so maybe we will have to wait until 2015 before we can actually see this implemented anywhere ...)

A classic example of why software patents are idiotic even when they do protect a valid innovation. In this case, the patents have protected the idea from being used. Nice one, Xerox. Not only have you not been able to make anything of this (as usual) but you've sold it to a lawsuit factory. I see no chance that this lawsuit will succeed if Apple has halfway decent lawyers (a nice change for them to have to defend a meritless attack rather than taking on bloggers).

[macinthe408]

When your business plan sucks, sue.

[Digital Disasta]

wtf...they decided to do this now? lol what the hell took so long :lol:

[doh123]

if i read this patent right....

They need to sue a lot of people, because it sounds like even having a link on a webpage that you click and loads another webpage in the same window... is violating... I think they should just turn off the internet!

[Chris_jerome]

Ummm...doesn't Windows use tabs? Firefox? Almost every new piece of software coming out? Give me a break here, why does everyone come after Apple in these crazy stupid patent infringments?

They "come after" Apple because they are jealous, and think that people are stupid enough to enforce these. Ha!. These upstart ass**les havent got a leg to stand on!!

And another point: software patents are a load of crap. All they do is:
1. create monopolys.
2. and stiffle innovation!

[SpinDrift]

The only thing more predictable than these frivolous law suits are the knee-jerk reactions from AppleInsider's "legal experts".

In other news, I am getting fingers patented, so that anyone who uses fingers has to pay me to do so :P .


That is so funny! And original! :rolleyes:

Are you a tax man by any chance?

[inkswamp]

No worry about this one. If past lawsuits are any indication, Apple will end up paying the patent owner a pittance but in the process will gain partial ownership of the idea and will force the patent owner to go after others who have unlawfully used the idea (i.e., MS) and if they fail to do that then the patent owner will have to come over to Apple corporate campus every Friday to polish Steve's shoes and clean the employee cafeteria with a toothbrush.

After Creative and Apple Corp, I'm not sure why anyone would want to be on the "winning" end of a lawsuit against Apple.

[mdriftmeyer]

The Patent System should be revised that when one is filing a specific piece of IP it has to explicitly demonstrate all forseen applications of this IP, at the time of filing.

Any future applications not forseen should have to explicitly demonstrate their domain of applications as well. The first filer would only be capable of declaring infringement if those that follow explicitly utilize this IP within their domain of applications. The same goes for the second, third, so on and so forth.

The idea may expand with the ingenuity of its applicable domains and not hold any absolute power over all future potential applicable areas of business and advancement.

[CRHain88]

Ummm...doesn't Windows use tabs? Firefox? Almost every new piece of software coming out? Give me a break here, why does everyone come after Apple in these crazy stupid patent infringments?

Agreed, and I think I know what's going on.

Bill Gates dresses up in a brown trench coat with a matching hat. He then walks in the dark allies in the rain to drop of an anonymous paper package tied with tweed. Inside, paperwork pointing fingers at Apple with SUE THEM stamped in red on every sheet.

[pmjoe]

What's this? Xerox PARC traveling back in time to cash in on the ideas Steve Jobs borrowed from the Star on his visit back in the 1970's?

[OBJRA10]

The problem isn't with companies that invent ideas, patent them, but never produce a product. The problem is with companies whose whole business model is based on buying other companes patents and enforcing them. It's literally a litigation business model. It's really no better than opening shop as a personal injury lawyer.

Patent law is a very good thing. It DOES increase innovation because it gives the assurance that if you invent an idea, someone else can't just come along and profit off it without licensing it from you. That's a pretty big deal really.

That says nothing of the countless "trolls." I agree that these companies should be prohibited from collecting patents and litigating for a profit. I'm not sure the answer - or the best way to prevent it, but it is certainly disgusting.

[fenevad]

I'm going to agree that this lawsuit sound pretty frivolous, but I would point out that how obvious a development is now is irrelevant to the case at hand under patent law. Tabs are obvious now because that's the way we've done things and they seem natural. When they were first created they were not so obvious. (And no, tabbed physical folders are not a good analogue at all, despite what some folks here think. Any patent lawyer worth his beans would gut that one in, oh, about thirty seconds.)

Given ten years or so of practice, we lose the ability to see what was an innovation at the time. It should be obvious to folks that patents are not granted with foreknowledge of where technology will head, but these discussions inevitably turn into people blasting patents from the past for being so obvious now. If they really were so obvious then, why wasn't everyone already doing whatever was being patented? Give it ten years and a lot of what apple has done for the iPhone's interface will seem obvious and there will be people who will rant about how stupid it was to grant patent for some of its features, even though now we're blown away by the innovation...

There are real problems with IP law in the U.S. (the excessive term, the lack of competence in the Patent Office to evaluate innovation, a cumbersome process to assert prior art, the cottage industry of patent squatters who ram through patents that are excessively broad by the standards of the time and then wait for someone to infringe). This case points some of these problems out (such as selling patents to holding companies that exist for no reason other than law suits and provide no apparent service to the patent creators), but the argument that it was an "obvious" patent doesn't fly in court since the standard is whether it was an innovation at the time.

-Fenevad

[JeffDM]

I'm going to agree that this lawsuit sound pretty frivolous, but I would point out that how obvious a development is now is irrelevant to the case at hand under patent law. Tabs are obvious now because that's the way we've done things and they seem natural. When they were first created they were not so obvious. (And no, tabbed physical folders are not a good analogue at all, despite what some folks here think. Any patent lawyer worth his beans would gut that one in, oh, about thirty seconds.)

If you think that the analogy doesn't fit, please state your case. The only difference I see is added interactivity, but the basic concept is the same, store lots of information in a smaller area.

[lfmorrison]

Give it a rest, Wilco.

Is there a "statute of limitations" or comparable thing in patent cases? Don't they have to show that they have used the same patent within a certain period?

Nope. The patent holder is free to pick and choose which alleged infringements they want to go after.

(What was that stuff about the iPhone?)
That was a trademark on the combination of letters which come together to spell the word "iPhone", not a patent on the concept of a particular breed of wireless phone device.

There are different rules regarding the defence of trademarks as opposed to patents.

What does this tiny company do, anyway?
Apparently, it buys the rights to certain technologies, then sits around until it finds a lucrative opportunity to make some money off it, by waiting for others to commercialize the idea (and even waiting until it's so tightly integrated into the product that it would be crippling to remove it midstream) and then demanding compensation.

NTP recently did this with RIM's Blackberry. Despite the fact that all of the patents in question have been provisionally rejected (and two have been finally rejected) by the USPTO, RIM still decided it would be better business in the long run to just pay a licensing fee and be done with it. RIM is still actively litigating to have those patent rejections upheld on appeal, even though their settlement has protected them from further attacks by NTP.

Sometimes a patent is truly protecting a novel invention. If so, then the patent holder is fully within its rights to expect compensation for the use of their ideas.

Sometimes, as the USPTO has decided is the case in the NTP vs RIM case, the patent is later found to be invalid -- that is to say, if all the facts had been available to the examiner at the time the patent was originally being reviewed for acceptance, it probably wouldn't have been allowed in the first place. Even in that case, there's still no guarantee that the patent holder won't still get compensated.

[fenevad]

If you think that the analogy doesn't fit, please state your case. The only difference I see is added interactivity, but the basic concept is the same, store lots of information in a smaller area.

That “basic concept” ("store lots of information in a smaller area") is immensely broad and would apply to all kinds of things, like file compression, thumbnails of photos. I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but patent law is pedantic. Broad similarities don't matter because patents are to be narrowly tailored. The patent is for the application of an idea ot a particular medium and interface. You can put tabs on paper folders all day long, but that does not mean that the extension to an electronic user interface is intuititive or covered by prior art. Really, a good patent lawyer would gut that objection in less time than it takes him/her to blink.

Superficial similarity is not enough to invalidate a patent, and all the analogy to paper folders has is superficial similarity. Using tabs on a folder in a filing cabinet to locate a particular folder is much more like having names for folders sitting on your desktop. While having tabs on panes of information contained within a single display unit may be conceived as metaphorically like having tabs on folders, the metaphorical extension of an idea like that does not invalidate a patent. Again, it is obvious in retrospect, but legally there is no basis to invalidate a patent for something to do with panes in a window on a computer screen because people put tabs on folders. It may seem obvious to readers, but legally, there is no basis to invalidate on those grounds.

And again, if it were so obvious, why didn't everyone do it automatically? It is obvious and similar only in hindsight...

-Fenevad

[shamino]

Apple took an idea that's 20 years old and probably never been used, and innovated on it.
"never been used"? Only if you consider Microsoft to be the totality of "everything". IBM's OS/2 had tabs all over the place, starting in version 2.0. This was released in March, 1992.

OS/2 was, I think the first mainstream commercial product to use tabs.

If we want to go to a more generic concept of an on-screen control (like radio buttons) determining the content of a windows, that can be found in Sun's OpenLook window manager back in the late 80's. (Look at the desktop preferences dialog for an example - a drop-down menu selects each category of options, which are displayed in the remainder of the window.)

For that matter, the Mac OS control panel (http://www.headgap.com/~macstar/OS6-2.html) from System 6 (1988) probably counts. It was a single window with a vertical column of icons down the left side. Clicking an icon caused the right side of the window to be replaced with configuration controls.
Clicking a section of the screen and having some other content painted over the content currently being shown is very basic and obvious. Not that much difference between a button and a tab.
It's obvious today. It wasn't nearly so obvious in 1987.
Tabs? What "tabs"??? Would somebody enlighten me how Mac OS X Tiger makes use of tabs?
System Preferences -> Network. Two different kinds of the "tab" concept. You have the "Show" drop-down list for selecting multiple pages of content (Network Status, Network Port Configuration, and a page per port.) Each port-based page contains multiple tabbed-panels (TCP/IP, PPPoE, AppleTalk, Proxies, Ethernet).

There are many other examples.
A classic example of why software patents are idiotic even when they do protect a valid innovation. In this case, the patents have protected the idea from being used. Nice one, Xerox. Not only have you not been able to make anything of this (as usual) but you've sold it to a lawsuit factory.
Unfortunately, Xerox has a terrible history of inventing incredible stuff and then doing nothing with it.

They invented the GUI, and ignored it (leaving it to Apple, Microsoft and others to make mainstream products.) Ditto for Ethernet (made popular by Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com), PostScript (Adobe), object oriented programming, the SmallTalk language, etc., etc. About the only thing from PARC that they didn't ignore was the laser printer, because that fit within their business model of selling copiers.

[horvatic]

An Illinois-based company and its Nevada partner have filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., alleging that Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" treads on an interface patent that affects the operating system's nearly universal use of tabs.

Little-known intellectual property agency IP Innovation LLC and its parent Technology Licensing Corporation this week became the latest to claim that Apple had abused a patent they hold.

Filed April 18th in a US district court in Marshall, Texas -- a town frequently recognized as the preferred home for lawsuits by companies that hoard property claims -- the four-page formal complaint purports that Apple has engaged in "willful and deliberate" infringement of a computer control patent by selling its current Tiger operating system.

IP Innovation is demanding a jury trial and asks for reparations for perceived damages which "exceed $20 million," according to the suit. It also seeks an injunction that would prevent the California-based defendant from infringing on the patent, essentially blocking Apple from continuing to sell its current edition of Mac OS X and any future editions that might draw on the supposed infringements.

The reported violation is an exceptionally specific one. It refers to a single US Patent Office filing originally made by Xerox researchers for a "User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects" -- and, in turn, a lone claim within that patent.

The disputed section refers to the technique of creating a window on a computer's screen with controls that switch between views of multiple associated display objects within the window, erasing one view as the user selects another while still giving a spatial frame of reference and the same general interface during the switch.

While IP Innovation doesn't refer to any one feature of the Mac OS as copying the interface technique, the central claim may potentially apply to any of several approaches to navigating software used by Apple in Finder and its companion program. Category dividers triggered by Spotlight searches, as well as page tabs in the Safari web browser, bear the closest similarity to the now 20-year-old description.

Apple's Spaces virtual desktop feature set to arrive in Mac OS X Leopard would not be affected by the conditions of the immediate lawsuit.

Numerous questions remain unanswered in the legal motion and the associated patent, including subjects of prior art, ownership, and timing. Originally filed in 1987, the patent was last updated in December of 1991 with Xerox as the lone corporate owner -- nearly 14 years before the allegedly infringing software was released. The plaintiff in the new case has also chosen to make its case almost exactly two years after Tiger's April 2005 introduction and just months before the projected October release of Leopard, which should phase Tiger out of the market.

Regardless of the individual merits of the case, Apple has so far chosen to remain silent on the matter after having received notice of the impending court case earlier this week.[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ] (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2685)


It seems that our patent system is not working anymore. Now it seems that anyone can get a patent for anything even though they don't use the technology or even create the technology and then use it for profit via the courts system. I think the patent system should only give a patent to the actual inventor/creator for a technology that will actually be used in a product. If not then it should not be given out and no legal profits can be made from it.

[fenevad]

If you think that the analogy doesn't fit, please state your case. The only difference I see is added interactivity, but the basic concept is the same, store lots of information in a smaller area.

To be a little more precise in my response, the problem is that tabs on folders are useful for locating physically discrete items that are physically arranged in some sequence, such as a stack or a drawer. Accessing the contents, however, requires that the folder then be pulled, opened, and items physically removed (or viewed inside the folder). Each folder can contain multiple documents. The precise analogy here is to the notion of named directories containing files in a filing system, not to tabbed UI panes, which deal with the display of information, but to the organization of information. The two are related, but not directly connected, i.e., data structures and data displays do not necessarily entail each other.

The comparison between UI tabs and tabbed folders would work if you touched the tab of the folder in some sort of system and the physical folder was brought to the front and its contents displayed to you without the need to physically displace anything. Simply having a named index marker on the exterior of a physical folder tells you nothing about how the contents of that folder are to be displayed or what is to be done with it. Tabbed UIs, on the other hand, rely on a very specific sequence of events if the pane contents are to be displayed, and those events have basically no connection to anything analogous to a physical system.

The closest thing I can think of as an analog to tabbed panes are those display systems that rotate sheets with ads in and out of a fixed display space, but even that is a rather poor analogy (albeit much closer in a display aspect than tabbed folders). The point is that we can see an apparent connection in hindsight, but if tabbed panes didn't exist already it is not a trivial leap to go from tabbed folders to tabbed panes.

[irobot2004]

"never been used"? Only if you consider Microsoft to be the totality of "everything". IBM's OS/2 had tabs all over the place, starting in version 2.0. This was released in March, 1992.

OS/2 was, I think the first mainstream commercial product to use tabs.

If we want to go to a more generic concept of an on-screen control (like radio buttons) determining the content of a windows, that can be found in Sun's OpenLook window manager back in the late 80's. (Look at the desktop preferences dialog for an example - a drop-down menu selects each category of options, which are displayed in the remainder of the window.)

For that matter, the Mac OS control panel (http://www.headgap.com/~macstar/OS6-2.html) from System 6 (1988) probably counts. It was a single window with a vertical column of icons down the left side. Clicking an icon caused the right side of the window to be replaced with configuration controls.
It's obvious today. It wasn't nearly so obvious in 1987.
[...]

There are many other examples.
Unfortunately, Xerox has a terrible history of inventing incredible stuff and then doing nothing with it.

[...]

According to wikipedia, Sun used tabs in their NeWS window manager... don't have first hand knowledge there, but SGI licensed NeWS and I have a fairly clear recollection of a tabbed application selector on a Personal Iris. This was in 1988.

The Xerox patent was filed in March of 1987, the IBM publication mentioned earlier was published in December of 1987 in conjunction with the release of OS/2. So fairly clearly IBM and Xerox, and Sun were all working on tabs as part of their interfaces in roughly the same time frame.

Hypercard was earlier than 1987, but I believe the "tabs" there were full width, so not as space efficient.

The patent doen't look like it is a trivial one.. as mentioned the main point is a way to manage multiple workspaces. One of the inventors, Stuart Card, is one of the big names in UI design and human factors research, which also inclines me to give them the benefit of the doubt, even though I haven't read through the entire patent.

I may be wrong, but I doubt that the original inventors intended to patent tabs in an interface generically... they were trying to protect the specific application though.

[irobot2004]

I thought it was twenty one years from filing, or twenty from approval. Details like that seem to change from time to time, I've forgotten important details, if I haven't, my information is probably old. If it's 20 from filing, then it's already expired.

It's currently 20 years... it was 17 years at the time of filing (changed in 1995). The 1991 date has to be the operative one then... so the thing will expire in a year.

[jarland]

Filed in Marshall, TX? Good, I can literally ride my bicycle (save gas) over there & slap them.

[suhail]

I smell a microsoft rat! :err:

[JeffDM]

I really don't know if this is directly applicable, but apparently the Apple Lisa had used something like what we know as tabs, and even used the manila folder tab shape:

http://www.folklore.org/projects/Macintosh/images/polaroids/polaroids.14.jpg

[lfe2211]

I really don't know if this is directly applicable, but apparently the Apple Lisa had used something like what we know as tabs, and even used the manila folder tab shape:

http://www.folklore.org/projects/Macintosh/images/polaroids/polaroids.14.jpg
Jeff,

Good archeologic find! Lisa with a tabbed display! You realise that Lisa is older than a lot of board members here.

[Lightandshadow]

While it doesn't use "tabs" the Control Panel in System 4.0 used a list of icons to switch between a series of options grouped by type. These options kept their state when the user switched back and forth between them. I'd say this would most certainly qualify for prior art.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/macos42

The screenshots are from version 4.2, which was released in October of 87. However, the GUIdebook says 4.0 was released in, you guessed it, March of 87.

However, I've also found documentation that says March date was the hardware release. The 4.0 system software was released on 1/87. The URL is here...

http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/earlymacs/

The question becomes when was 4.0 really released and did it have the same Control Panel interface as 4.2?

If this Control Panel UI was released in 1/87, it appears that Apple has this covered.

[Hiro]

While it doesn't use "tabs" the Control Panel in System 4.0 used a list of icons to switch between a series of options grouped by type. These options kept their state when the user switched back and forth between them. I'd say this would most certainly qualify for prior art.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/macos42

The screenshots are from version 4.2, which was released in October of 87. However, the GUIdebook says 4.0 was released in, you guessed it, March of 87.

However, I've also found documentation that says March date was the hardware release. The 4.0 system software was released on 1/87. The URL is here...

http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/earlymacs/

The question becomes when was 4.0 really released and did it have the same Control Panel interface as 4.2?

If this Control Panel UI was released in 1/87, it appears that Apple has this covered.

The date of software release isn't the magic date. The date the applicable files were first coded is and that is necessarily before the release date. That will show when the that particular art was no longer "non-obvious" and into the realm of the obvious.

[shamino]

While it doesn't use "tabs" the Control Panel in System 4.0 used a list of icons to switch between a series of options grouped by type. These options kept their state when the user switched back and forth between them. I'd say this would most certainly qualify for prior art.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/macos42

The screenshots are from version 4.2, which was released in October of 87. However, the GUIdebook says 4.0 was released in, you guessed it, March of 87.
Thanks for this info. I knew System 6 used this style control panel, because I used to use System 6 on a regular basis, but I never worked with older versions of the system.

The original mac OS control panel (see screen-shot on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_panel_(Mac_OS))) was a single panel. I don't know precisely when the system switched from that to the System 6-like control panel (which, as you point out, was in 4.2).

I remember an old Apple developer CD that contained floppy images for all of the legacy (pre-6) system software images. None of them will boot on a modern Mac (most wouldn't boot on an SE, which is what I had when I saw that CD, years ago), but if anybody here has that CD, it should be possible to browse around those old system folders with ResEdit to see when the control panel changed.

[Lightandshadow]

None of them will boot on a modern Mac (most wouldn't boot on an SE, which is what I had when I saw that CD, years ago), but if anybody here has that CD, it should be possible to browse around those old system folders with ResEdit to see when the control panel changed.

However, It's likely that you could boot them inside an emulator.

[shamino]

However, It's likely that you could boot them inside an emulator.
Depends on what's being emulated. I haven't seen anything that emulates a Mac older than the Plus.

The earliest systems will only boot on a 128K Mac.

[Hiro]

You don't think there are plenty of those siting around still? All it takes is one operable Fat Mac and all can be answered. But even better will be Apples source archives and internal documentation.

[shamino]

You don't think there are plenty of those siting around still? All it takes is one operable Fat Mac and all can be answered. But even better will be Apples source archives and internal documentation.
128's? Most of them were landfilled a long time ago.

But you don't need source code to prove this. You just need a copy of ResEdit (still a free download from Apple) to open the resource forks of the various System Folder files and look for the GUI elements that comprise the control panel.

[Hiro]

128's? Most of them were landfilled a long time ago.

But you don't need source code to prove this. You just need a copy of ResEdit (still a free download from Apple) to open the resource forks of the various System Folder files and look for the GUI elements that comprise the control panel.

There's an operable Fat Mac (512) right downstairs from me (not mine). Sits on the shelf except for oohh ahhh time but it works. I'm sure Apple has a couple and there are several other places I'm sure a lawyer can get use of one. Maybe not touch it himself, but get a docent to run it.

[retiarius]

A patent is good for 20 years from date of filing. The patent in question was filed March 25, 1987.

Technicality -- some patents (e.g. this one) are good for 17 years from the issue date:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_States

This would bring it out to 2008. However, the concept of "laches" enters the
fray if there is no attempt to enforce a patent for six years.

[JDW]

It's is brought by a new breed of American parasite: the intellectual property patent holding company. We should ban software patents. Now.
I agree about the ban on "software" patents, but to stop there would be foolish. "Intellectual property companies" are what need to be banned along side "software patents."

You want an example of a non-software company that is nothing more than a patent holding company, now suing virtually everyone in the automative products aftermarket? Omega Research/Ken Flick (caralarm.com). These nuts put up a website that advertises products that aren't selling to give the appearance they are a legitimate company, but they are actually nothing more than a patent holding company. They have numerous patents on "databus" applications, some of which that, if you read through the patent, would even come to haunt car makers for continuing to use database technology to roll up car windows! Nutty Flick even patented car alarm "light flash" years after it had been on the market and sold by big companies such as Directed Electronics (makers of Hornet, Viper, Python, AutoMate, etc.). Most other countries will not grant you a patent for something has been openly sold in the market for years prior to your filing! Anyway, I don't work for Omega or Directed, but I do work in their industry and know of the legal battles between Omega and its rivals like Directed. And yes, big companies like Directed are building up their patent portfolio as their business takes a turn for the worse, in hopes of making money off the patents in the future (even after their primary business has failed). It's pathetic.

These cases I am presented here are not an illustration of "American, the land of the free." They are case examples showing America to be the land of legalized extortion.