Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Noel — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:14:34 -0000

Yes, thanks. Always nice talking to you Doug:)

Tim should put a disclaimer on this post: "only rant in approval, but don't ask critical questions."

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Doug Lay — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:34:14 -0000

Noel, I hate to break it to you but you're not a professor and Tim isn't your student. I think he has better things to do than answer your questions, especially since you've got a long history of responding to answers with more time-wasting, circular questions (as well as putting words in the mouths of those you debate with).

I'm not going to answer your questions either, but I'll ofer an analogy that may be helpful. If a citizen is angry that the government has raised their taxes, is it their responsibility to research 200 years of the history of taxation, and to write an essay describing the pros and cons of justificiations for taxation? No. They just vote out the SOBs that raised their taxes. End of story.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Noel — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:22:38 -0000

Oh, and Doug, why don't you answer my questions above since Tim won't.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Noel — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:20:01 -0000

No Doug, I meant patent agent. TLF has its own post-grant opposition system, with Tim as the patent-agent and chief:)

Happy world IP day to you too!

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Doug Lay — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:24:27 -0000

that was me, above.

Happy World Intellectual Property Day.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Noel — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:46:20 -0000

I've never heard of the book before Enigma. If you've read it, perhaps you can send me a summary.

Tim has written about a dozen posts on patents in the past week, and in almost every one he makes some claim to the tune of: "but I don't see how" or "can somebody tell me why" or "I'm confused." Well it might be that he's not a patent agent, he takes a skewed view of innovation and does not really consider some basic elements such as those I outline above. Granted, I will probably disagree with his responses, but I posed the questions so he would at least address some recurring themes.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

eee_eff — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:07:25 -0000

Noel, please do also clue us in to any responses you may have to the many examples made in the excellent book Steal This Idea: The Corporate Confiscation of Creativity by Michael Perelman in which it is exhaustively documented that the present IP regime has retarded innovation, and in particular, during times of mandatory licensing, there tended to be much more innovative product development (for example, the development of consumer radio in the aftermath of compulsory licensing of radio technology.

Since neither you nor anyone at IP Central has ever undertaken a critique of this important work, I assume you are unable to do so...

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Luis Villa — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:32:47 -0000

On the plus side, this should invalidate the later Adobe patent on basically the same thing ;)

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Noel — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:37:17 -0000

Tim, please tell us your understanding of how patents are associated with innovation. Hopefully, your explanation will account for the half dozen or so theories developed by economists in the past few decades, or even hundred years. Also, detail how you interpret "to promote the progress," and how that has been associated with patents and innovation by policy makers and courts. It seems that you have a certain conception of your own, but I don't want to put words into your mouth.

As for who would argue that the above patent should have been granted? Well, I'm guessing that a certain scholar that supports relatively obvious patents for inventions without unclear commercial value, may support it. However, he would probably argue that the patent's scope should be interpreted narrowly, and its scope further limited by technical disclosure in the claim. Of course, I could tell you who it is, or simply do a write-up on IPcentral about him:)

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

David McElroy — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:35:11 -0000

Xerox was compensated for letting Apple has a look at its technology, if I'm not badly mistaken. I can't find a link at the moment, but it seems that Xerox was given some benefit related to buying Apple stock at a low price (or maybe just stock options). The notion that Apple engineers were just randomly shown Xerox technology that they were allowed to "steal" does not appear to be close to the truth. (And if you think about the story, it wouldn't make sense that Apple engineers were allowed close-up access to Xerox technology for any other reason.)

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

eee_eff — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:35:21 -0000

Apple and Microsoft copied each other promiscuously (well, OK, Microsoft mostly copied Apple) and consumers benefitted from it.

Oh, and Tim, you'd forgotten to mention that, for numerous items, Apple had copied things they'd seen during a visit to Xerox's PARC. For some reason, the normal procedure of having visitors sign NDA's was waived for Steve Jobs and Wozniak...

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

eee_eff — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:32:32 -0000

Yes, I had also read MS's patent on multiple workspaces and previewing of them, despite that my favorite window manager, blackbox, had the feature a couple of years before MS's patent.

Is there any punishment for filing fraudulant patent claims, BTW?

If so, has anyone recently been prosecuted?

Saw RMS yesterday, and was happy to hear he was still on message about software patents.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Don Marti — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:24:50 -0000

Tim, the poetry industry is a fraction of the size of the software industry, due to USPTO's refusal to undertake a bold initiative on rhyming word patents. And many new poems don't even rhyme as well as older ones. Where are the intellectualproprietarian white papers when you need them?

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:37:46 -0000

This is why we don't need patents. As long as they didn't steal the code per se, it's fair game.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

DontEvenBother — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 16:42:01 -0000

As a software developer I've come up with several terfiic idea's, most of them feasible and easy to implement. Main reason I haven't followed through on any of them, if I'm sucessful I'm almost certain to get sued on any one of them.

Re: Tabbed Windows: Patented!

Steve R. — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:34:43 -0000

Just before this article appeared, I referenced in your post "Balance of Patent Terror" a good article from Forbes on the insanity of today's patent lawsuits. To reiterate, abstract concepts should not be patentable.