OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/20266/Patent_Application-Specific_Windows_Colourisation Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:02:32 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Windows with different transparency settings? http://www.osnews.com/thread?329661 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329661 Isn't that..umm, like, what we've had for years? I personally know only of Beryl/Compiz/etc which allow that, but I am quite sure it has been possible a lot earlier than that too, just not perhaps under Linux. Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) Comments RE: Windows with different transparency settings? http://www.osnews.com/thread?329666 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329666 kde can do that too, you can go to any window bar, right click -> advanced -> special windows settings -> preferences and set active window and inactive windows opacity to whatever % you want ..

you can have as many windows as you want with different transparency ..

ps:
the above procedure is in kde4, the same functionality is there in kde3, it might take another route to get there though Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mtzmtulivu) Comments Irritating http://www.osnews.com/thread?329667 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329667 While being annoyed by the obviousness of the patent and the breadth of the prior art I think my hair began to fall out and recede faster Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (matthekc) Comments Please RTFP before jumping into conclusions! http://www.osnews.com/thread?329673 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329673 They are not patenting the concepts of opacity or colored windows. It's just one specific method of providing such functionality and from what I understood, Windows dependent.

They even state that similar feature exists on other OSs and this is basically a different implementation of the same idea.

I'm perfectly fine with patenting "methods", as the real danger is when a "concept" gets patented. IBM and Microsoft and other multi-billion dollar corporations are delicious targets for patent trolls. Stuff like this are more about protecting themselves.Edited 2008-09-09 00:40 UTC Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (linumax) Comments RE: Please RTFP before jumping into conclusions! http://www.osnews.com/thread?329674 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329674 Reading it a little bit more carefully it still doesn't specifically say anything about this method being only about Windows. As such, it can always be used against other software/OSes that boast similar "glass framed windows". I hope it never comes to that, it's still a possibility however. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) Comments Just another in MS's portfolio... bogus as the rest. http://www.osnews.com/thread?329675 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329675 I've used Xfce for a couple years. While it's a distant third compared to KDE and Gnome judging by how well it's supported by major distros, it's had a compositing window manager for a while now. This compositing manager allows you to change the transparency of active windows, inactive windows, title bars, menus, etc. I always found this distracting, so I didn't use it much, but it's there.

I now use a Gnome-based distro with full support for Compiz-Fusion. While I'm sure it supports the above scenario (if I really wanted it), it also has a tendency to (by default) make any programs that are extremely busy or locked up fade to a dark gray. Let me just say, I'll take the good old hourglass or similar mouse pointer and keep the window as is. Windows fading in and out just begs for attention and is the perfect way to distract... even worse than the above scenario.

On the other hand... why the hell can something as obvious as changing the shades of windows be declared a patent to begin with? This one appears to me to have prior art against it and seems to be destined to fail the "obvious" test miserably. Just another patent for the Ballmer crew to add on to their list... 235+1. Now if this is not a potential hindrance to the further advancement of GUI design, then I don't know what is.Edited 2008-09-09 01:15 UTC Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (UZ64) Comments RE: Windows with different transparency settings? http://www.osnews.com/thread?329682 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329682 Real transparency has been available in Windows at least since 2000. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bending Unit) Comments wps http://www.osnews.com/thread?329683 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329683 in 1998 os/2 workplace shell gave unresponsive programs a thicker border to indicate their uhm well unresponsiveness. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PipoDeClown) Comments Trusted Solaris implements security coloured windows http://www.osnews.com/thread?329686 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329686 Trusted Solaris has used colour coding to represent security zones and I am pretty sured those trusted extensions were fed back to gnome. To be honest i haven't read the patent but if it is simply the concept prior art is abundant. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chekr) Comments My new patent http://www.osnews.com/thread?329687 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329687 My new patent is about the desktop background that you can switch between mauve and green. It adapts to your mood. It you feel more green you click on the button on the task bar and the background changes to green. When you feel mauve, you can switch to mauve. All hail me! Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (agrouf) Comments RE: Please RTFP before jumping into conclusions! http://www.osnews.com/thread?329688 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329688 I'm perfectly fine with patenting "methods", as the real danger is when a "concept" gets patented.

The problem is that methods aren't supposed to be patentable just as concepts aren't supposed to be patentable. Specific implementations are patentable and was the original intent of the patent office. What we have now is a gross perversion of patents. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abraxas) Comments RE: Irritating http://www.osnews.com/thread?329689 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329689 Well, american software patents (ans software patents in general) could be funny if they were not so scary. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kajaman) Comments RE: My new patent http://www.osnews.com/thread?329692 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329692 I feel kinda periwinkle... what you're going to sue me? Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) Comments quite useful http://www.osnews.com/thread?329696 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329696 Contrary to all experts here, I actually think this is a pretty good idea, and it really doesn't matter if OS XY had this in 60s.

MS has something similar already with IE8 - tabs coloring by from what parent did the new tab open. This can really help finding a tab and having an idea of what tabs adhere to certain issue. Having this OS-wide could help focusing and removing a little from a need to continuously think about what window belongs to what app.

Anything that can relieve from excessive micromanagement that plagues today's OSes is welcome. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stooovie) Comments Is this the right patent? http://www.osnews.com/thread?329697 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329697 Is it just me, or is the patent linked to completely different from the one described in the article?

The linked patent describes graph/shape insertion. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chaosvoyager) Comments RE[2]: Please RTFP before jumping into conclusions! http://www.osnews.com/thread?329705 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329705 Methods are exactly what is supposed to be patented, Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[3]: Please RTFP before jumping into conclusions! http://www.osnews.com/thread?329762 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329762 Inventions are patentable, which means a specific implementation. Ideas are not patentable. Methods can be simple ideas. They are not patentable. Don't be fooled by the perversion that is the present system. It wasn't always like this. I agree that a new implementation's specific methods are patentable but methods alone cannot be. They must be implemented. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abraxas) Comments RE: Is this the right patent? http://www.osnews.com/thread?329826 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329826 Yes, I noticed that. Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stestagg) Comments Patenting ideas http://www.osnews.com/thread?329828 http://www.osnews.com/thread?329828
it is fun to theorise over what such a user interface patent could be used for (...) a patent which describes how different windows may be coloured differently, or that they may have different transparency settings. This sounds a bit weird, but it may actually prove to be quite useful.

The general idea or the actual software patent? I'm sure you must mean the idea in general but one could get a false impression.

As to software patents, it is hard for me to understand how they could be useful or support innovation? Quite probably it would be better for the whole world if software patents were completely forbidden everywhere. But I guess some big boys in power may think they can better guarantee their riches and power by supporting the software patent system - regardless of how ridiculous and impossible that system may usually look to practically everyone... Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (irbis) Comments