Lawsuit targets time-based sorting in Apple's iPods, Time Machine

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
A Texas-based lawsuit claims that virtually all of Apple's product line infringes on a system for organizing data by time, but draws its closest connection with the Time Machine backup feature in Mac OS X Leopard.



Submitted late last week to a Tyler Division court in the southern US state, the seven-page complaint by Mirror Worlds Technologies accuses Apple of violating four distinct but related patents that touch on creating "streams" of documents that are automatically sorted according to time stamps, including future dates assigned to calendars and other reminders.



Dating back as early as 1999, the patents (1, 2, 3, 4) describe a highly visual system that displays a line of documents and other items dating back (or forward) in time along with the option of searching these items to retrieve and edit them.



Users of the system could also set up personalized versions of these feeds, or "lifestreams," as well as separate "substreams" that cover more focused topics. The approach is similarly billed as useful for searching an enterprise database.



In images accompanying the patents, Mirror Worlds portrays a system with more than a passing resemblance to Time Machine, Apple's automated backup utility in Mac OS X.







The plaintiff stops short of drawing a direct connection between the operating system feature and its patent claims but argues that both Macs and Mac OS X infringe on all four patents. However, for all but one of the patents, the company alleges that iPods and iPhones are also guilty of the infringement.



The Mac maker doesn't use a visually identical system on any of its handheld devices but often sorts podcasts and similar material by the date it was received.



Apple has been aware of the patents' existence starting from late 2001 and so is responsible for "willful and deliberate" violations, according to the plaintiff, which argues that Apple is damaging Mirror Worlds' business. The lawsuit would have an injunction issued against any Apple products found infringing on the patents and asks for triple damages.



As is the company's usual practice, Apple has not commented on the lawsuit.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 40
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Sounds like there should be massive amounts of prior art on this one.
  • Reply 2 of 40
    chris cuillachris cuilla Posts: 4,825member
    Indeed. Sorting or organizing data by time stamp (last changed or updated) is completely original an unique.







    Goodness.
  • Reply 3 of 40
    msnlymsnly Posts: 378member
    Doesn't Apple license the interface for the Classic and Nano?
  • Reply 4 of 40
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Sounds like there should be massive amounts of prior art on this one.



    Agreed.



    That type of sorting predates computing by several thousand years.
  • Reply 5 of 40
    Source: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=603242



    "According to the company?s web page as shown by the Internet Archive

    Wayback Machine, Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. ceased operations

    effective May 15, 2004 and all of its products, including Scopeware,

    were discontinued."
  • Reply 6 of 40
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Agreed.



    That type of sorting predates computing by several thousand years.



    That's not really very relevant. If they had truly invented a new process to use a computer to do something which people had been doing manually for 5,000 years, they would be entitled to a patent.



    Of course, even with computers, this is old news - unless I'm imagining the work I've done with relational databases for 20 years.
  • Reply 7 of 40
    doroteadorotea Posts: 323member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    A Texas-based lawsuit claims that virtually all of Apple's product line infringes on a system for organizing data by time, but draws its closest connection with the Time Machine backup feature in Mac OS X Leopard.



    Hmmm. In the 1980's I worked with text weather data that was sorted by time and displayed by time. Displays of satellite and radar data are loops of pictures based on time. And then there are source control systems that store revisions of files based on time of check-in. Aren't these all examples of data being stored/displayed/organized by time.???? I think there is plenty of prior art here.
  • Reply 8 of 40
    stevetimstevetim Posts: 482member
    Wow I bet apple is losing sleep over this one



    Reminds me of Phil Hendrie's Ted Bell patenting the foiled bake potato.
  • Reply 9 of 40
    right now, im giving them the finger.



    now, im giving the patent office the finger.



    now, im questioning the meaning of life



  • Reply 10 of 40
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    No shot in hell of this passing the smell test.
  • Reply 11 of 40
    Out of the past 20 or so claims I've seen here during the past year or two, I'd say this one actually has some merit. Obviously sorting by time has no intellectual value, but the perspective view going back into time is a lot like time machine. To the extent that such a display configuration can be patented, this company does have a claim. Unlike other patents we've seen here that are over broad (for example "a system for retrieving music over a network"), this is both specific and detailed.



    By no means do I believe Apple copied these people, but patent law does not require that. If you independently develop something somebody else already patented, you still need to come to an agreement.



    If I were Apple I'd argue that the concept is "obvious" (or however you say obvious in legalize). I'd look for footage in movies that show this kind of sequence with newspapers or magazines, for example. There may even be some prior art for this time sequence display, but I can't recall anything off the top of my head.



    But this is one that IMHO cannot simply be dismissed out of hand as spurious.
  • Reply 12 of 40
    I knew I should have patented my idea for a device that does something for someone.



    I could have been suing everybody and their mom for everything.
  • Reply 13 of 40
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rptally View Post


    Source: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=603242



    "According to the company?s web page as shown by the Internet Archive

    Wayback Machine, Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc. ceased operations

    effective May 15, 2004 and all of its products, including Scopeware,

    were discontinued."



    Patents aren't invalidated if the company goes under.
  • Reply 14 of 40
    As for time based sorting:



    ls -ltr



    Hello UNIX, 1980.



    As for this streams thing... What's funny is I remember this vividly. There was a presentation about it on some TV show (The computer chronicles?) and it seemed really neat at the time.



    But as usual, the company never actually *DID* anything with it, and thus went under. Meanwhile, Apple may have used some of the same ideas, but was successful.



    Patents should be invalidated if the holding company doesn't generate a product during a reasonable amount of time. No product, no patent. No one should be able to sit on a patent for years and then sue the first company that happens to come up with the same idea and is successful.



    Better yet, lets get rid of software patents altogether. The world will be a better place!
  • Reply 15 of 40
    "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...." Look familiar?



    Does it for me.
  • Reply 16 of 40
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Ok all you true Mac gurus out there... Didn't apple have a conceptual 3-D file browser back in the 90s? I forget what they called it, but if I recall correctly you used the mouse to push deeper into your stack of documents. There are also many software programs that will arrange your open documents, one on top of the next, in a particular order.



    Also, Canon's digital camera software has a very similar view for browsing through your digital photo collection. It wouldn't pre-date the patent filing, but another example of how obvious the concept is. And how many times in movies have you seen newspapers floating in front of the camera with headlines to show the passage of time?



    EDIT: Ok, here is a link to a story that makes reference to Apple's technology:



    "Indeed, SpaceBrowser's 3D view is reminiscent of an Apple research project made public in the mid-1990s, which visualised the web as a fly-through 3D space. Connected websites were represented by linked page icons stacked into the screen, as it were. The code, separately dubbed Project X and HotSauce, was released in 1996 as a plug-in for a existing Mac and PC browsers."



    While it's not browsing files chronologically, it's using a 3D interface to navigate organized information, in this case a series of linked web pages.
  • Reply 17 of 40
    wheelhotwheelhot Posts: 465member
    Mirror World? Anyone heard of it before? I know I dont and I use the internet about 6 hours a day finding junks.
  • Reply 18 of 40
    retroneoretroneo Posts: 240member
    I normally disagree with these patent claims. However, looking at the screenshots of Scopeware Vision it certainly seems that they both have a pretty similar idea (cascading windows of search results through time).



    I haven't seen this interface idea anywhere except Time Machine or Scopeware.



    http://www.arnoldit.com/articles/iwr.../scopeware.gif

    http://www.infovis.net/imagenes/T1_N...WareStream.gif



    ScopeWare was a real product in 2001 (maybe earlier). It seems unique and was the results of real development, new ideas and independent research. It was a search tool for looking insider all file on your computer just like Spotlight and it presented the results like Time Machine. The reviews back then called it quite a revolutionary take on the desktop metaphor back then. I agree, and think Time Machine is such a clever interface for the same reasons.



    Quote:

    By dragging your cursor across the cascading cards in Scopeware Vision as though you're strumming a harp, you can rewind into the past and fast-forward into the future. The idea is to make searching easier, on the premise that files and messages for a certain project tend to enter your life at roughly the same time. When you find the file or message you want, you double-click it to open it as usual.



    Sound familiar? That's talking about it in 2003, http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/is...gelernter.html



    I can't see how it relates to the iPod interface at all.
  • Reply 19 of 40
    retroneoretroneo Posts: 240member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    While it's not browsing files chronologically, it's using a 3D interface to navigate organized information, in this case a series of linked web pages.



    Project X/ Hotsauce wasn't at all like Time Machine/Scopeware. Project X really didn't do anything particularly useful - I installed it, tried the demo links and never used it again.



    Project X let you look at maps of web sites. No searching, no files, nothing chronological - the three ideas in Scopeware. Certainly no rewinding through time, no searching through time, no cascading of windows through time - all basic ideas in Scopeware. I can't really see much similarity apart from vague 3D concepts.



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H...screenshot.jpg
  • Reply 20 of 40
    this lawsuit is so dumb... not the time machine one but the iphone and ipod one..

    if this is true, all cell phone makers should be sued for listing their txt messages in chronogical order

    and all email service providers and all and every companies that list anything in time order at all should be sued.

    MS should be sued too. Them themselves should be sued too because Mac had chronological ordering-_-
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