Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Sat 15th May 2004 08:23 UTC
It is when I read articles like this that I have "my blood all going up to my head" (that's a Greek saying for people that get angry). So apparently, Apple is trying to patent "transparent windows that do a certain action after fading away". While I don't personally find this "innovation/invention" patentable, it's fine with me: Apple is doing the best it can to secure its business (maybe I would do the same if I had shareholders on my back).
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Here's a few examples for you.
Say I, as an independent engineer develop a new vector processing unit or something of that nature. Now I go get a patent because it's a wonderful new idea, or way to implementing an existing idea. Then IBM uses it. Without asking. Well, crap. Then what? I can go fight IBM in court, being 100% right the whole time, but buried in legal fees until I can't afford to fight anymore (it costs more to defend a patent than to get one), or I can sell myself and my idea to AMD. AMD sees how ingenius I am and hires me on the spot, gives a huge sum for the idea, and pays to defend it against IBM. So now my idea is being used by AMD and IBM, thus making it widespread and I am now considered a tech legend and always remembered for my innovation. I also have a great job and a ton of money.
Or say I come up with a new audio compression format. I get my patent. In fact I put the patent in the name of my entire OSS development team. Then Sony decides they like it and they use it. We can't go up against Sony, it's suicide. So I decide to get bought up by MPEG-LA. They stick the new format into the upcoming MPEG 5, and sue the pants off Sony, who used the format first, but didn't invent it.
Okay, this time I'm Apple. I patent transparent window effects. I know others have used them before, so I put the patent in the name of a developer I hired who really did think them up, or didn't, it's beside the point. Now Microsoft goes and uses the concept in Longhorn. I have three choices here. One, do nothing and get walked all over. Not going to happen. Two, try and shut down MS and Longhorn, also not going to happen. Or three, tell MS that they can keep using my concept if they license it. Now for every copy of Longhorn shipped, I get X amount of money. But at the same time KDE uses the concept. I can shut them down with ease, but why? I don't get anything for it, and nobody cares that they used my idea. So I would probably leave them alone. Now I have a ton of money from MS and left KDE alone. MS would of course call it unfair, and the Mac heads would call it sweet revenge, and the court case would last until the end of time, but I'd make a lot of money.
So now you say, well of course they would keep KDE from using it, they are a greedy capitalist company. Well they haven't sued KDE yet, have they? Think about it. Back in the 80s, Apple snatched up patents for every little thing that Xerox didn't. Icons, desktops, overlapping windows, click and drag. They got dupped into letting MS use them, and it took forever to end that one. But they aren't going after any OSS developer for using them. Go look around and you'll also notice a patent Apple has for fast user switching, they got it back in the early 90s, but it's still in Linux and Windows. Just owning a patent doesn't equal enforcing it to no end. Not everyone is like SCO.