Another Garbage Patent

*no comment* writes "Literally "garbage patent" that is, Apple was rewarded a patent for the "Garbage" icon in Mac OS X. The patent documents can be found at the USPTO by clicking here. More on this and other Apple patents are in this article over at the macobserver."

Whats funny.....

Is I'm looking at a Slashdot ad of Xerox.

fp

I guess MS can just use

their own company symbol for trash now.

Re:I guess MS can just use

I guess MS can just use their own company symbol for trash now

Well, I know I do:

I pulled one of those "designed for Windows98" stickers off a box years ago and stuck it on my kitchen bin ...

Only it's not a very fair comparison - my bin has never crashed in over three years of continuous operation, which is more than I can say for Win98 :)

Re:Let's see how this turns out

Consulting the chart, it seems that today, we hate... stupid generalizations. Oh, crap! :)

Re:Let's see how this turns out

ANd I still say we should boycott the idea of "Software Patents" in general.

Intellectual property, in limit, should be patentable. The original idea was to provide governmental protection for inventors given they FULLY PUBLISH the idea set forth in the patent if and only if that "object" is non-intuitive.

What's turned out is software patents patenting damn near everything in sight. Who cares if it's new or not. These days, making software is becoming a legal minefield, and the USPTO isnt helping (dump dump dump). Even the process of playing a DVD you own can violate 10's of patents. That's why MPlayer is off the US shore.

So, I'm not against intelluctal property, but am against software patents until the UPSTO starts heavily regulating those types. Until then, I say we should violate EVERY software patent we can find until the rules are changed.

Re:Let's see how this turns out

Until then, I say we should violate EVERY software patent we can find until the rules are changed.

You do that. I'll find a way to get cigarettes and Playboys to you for as many years as they get you for, too...

Not a popular opinion on this site but it's against the law and breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how wrong you feel the law is. You'd better be damn sure they turn it over (like segregation, or slavery) if you go against it, and that they do it before you're caught. Even if the law is repealed, if you commit the crime while the law exists then you broke the law of the hour and are responsible for it.

Breaking patent and copyright law is thrown around much too trivially these days. While bad laws (horribly bad ones), they are as much laws as is fraud and larceny. Most people aren't caught, but the ones that are are hung by their toenails for years before they pull them out.

Re:Let's see how this turns out

Quoth Josh Crawley:

Until then, I say we should violate EVERY software patent we can find until the rules are changed.

ahknight responded:

Not a popular opinion on this site but it's against the law and breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how wrong you feel the law is.

Except that Josh Crawley is advocating something called "civil disobedience" -- something that is a time-honored tradition for getting unjust laws changed.

Burning one's draft cards was also "breaking the law" thirty-five years ago but there were enough of us who were willing to go to jail rather than participate in a war we considered unjust-- that we made a point that is still being heard today.

Taking in a runaway "Negro" slave was "breaking the law" a hundred and forty years ago but enough people believed strongly enough in their principles to do it anyway.

Dumping a shipload of tea into a harbor was "breaking the law" two hundred and thirty years ago, but... well, you get my point.

Re:Let's see how this turns out

You know, there's alot of very smart people out there who would tell that it's your moral duty to not stand for bad laws, even if they are the law of the land. People kinda like the founding fathers, or civil rights activists, or suffragettes. Just saying "oh, it's a law, and it'd be wrong to break it, no matter how stupid and/or immoral the law is" is placing your head in the sand. Even worse, it's delegating your moral character to a comittee, and not even a comittee that relates to you. I'll quote JFK here. "We have a right to expect that the negro community will respect the law. But they have the right to expect that the law will be fair."

The quote stands for any instance. Rejection of unjust law is one of the ways changes get made - and since there's little or no direct responsibility from lawmakers (a flaw in our system thats gotten worse over time), direct action is one of the few ways to make major changes.

Re:Let's see how this turns out

---For starters, this is a bit offtopic considering that this patent is a design patent and has absolutetly nothing to do with software.

The patent itself is moot, because art is covered under COPYRIGHT LAW.

---Secondly, and more importantly, whats so evil about software patents?

I never said that. What's evil is a government organization is OK'ing patents on damn near every aspect of computing. They dont care if it has prior art or not. If we had a decent system where all patents were checked for consistency and prior art, we wouldnt be in this situation.

---I happen to hold a software patent for an idea that I'm currently marketing. If it werent for the patent I would have _NO CHANCE_ at making any money on my idea. As a result, I would have had no reason to spend the thousands of hours researching it. **THE IDEA WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT OF DAY**

You have to do that, as well as everybody else. Still the point is that the software patent sector is crumbling under its own weight, and rapidly.

---It is completely unique and highly fuctional. How is this any different than designing a new device? If it has function and is unique it has function and is unique.

A device has a purpose and is physical. Software is simply equasions... math. SHould I be able to "patent" calculus, or the pythagorean theorem, or hell.... even addition? If anything, software patents should be limited to very complex equasions with source included. In that guarantee, they will have royalties delivered to whomever uses that source. Also, a very limited patent time should also be given. Personally, no more than 5 Years.

---Why is the fact that its a patent on software make it evil?

It's the corruption already in the system. Not the patent itself.

Re:Let's see how this turns out

Why is the fact that its a patent on software make it evil?

I happened to have gone to a speech by RMS about software patents quite recently and he explained it very well (no, I'm not a stallman junkie nor a GNU addict in any way).

Some reasons software patents are evil are:

• regular patents protect one specific thing, software patents protect one tiny piece of a large puzzel. So a single program most of the time infringes on a large number of patents, making licensing not feasible (if you have to pay 5% of your revenue for every patent you use, you'll probably have to pay for each copy you sell).
• they don't protect small-time developers at all (except maybe against other small-time developers). If you find out that IBM or Microsoft violates your patent and you demand some retribution for that, they'll have a look at your program and probably find that you violate 30 patents of theirs. Of course, because they are such nice guys, they will probably allow you to keep using their patented stuff if they can use your 1 patent. So the protection you get is zero, and if they're not nice guy's you'll have to pay extra. The advantage of a small software developer is the speed at which he can follow changes of the market and do things, compared to the big, slow megacorporations.
• Programming not very unlike composing a symphony: just like you can't just take a couple of "musical techniques", throw them together and get something that sounds good, you can't take just a couple of (patented) cool software techniques, throw them together and get a killer app. It's the way you make those things work/sound together, the hours of debugging/refining that makes/breaks the result.

  In the same spirit: Beethoven is considered a great composer that was very progressive for his time, i.e. he introduced a lot of "new" things in his music. Nevertheless, should there have been music patents in his time, he would have been unable to make any of his compositions, since although he was smart, he wasn't smart/good enough to reinvent the music from zero and still get something that sounds good. It's similar in software development: you may be a superprogrammer with great ideas, but no one is that good that he can reinvent software development from scratch. You're just bound to reuse ideas that others have had before (and lots of people have the same ideas at the same time, without knowing anything about eachother).

• Software patents are granted for the most stupid things, for tthe simple reason that if you take something already existing that is completely obvious, but do it in software, it is considered new (e.g. selling stuff in a store -> selling stuff via the Internet, keeping client records in a store -> keeping client records in an internet store, ...)
• there are so many software patents that pretty much every program in existence probably violates several patents. If you want to develop a program, sell it and make sure you don't violate any patent, you'll probably spend more time on lawyers to look at all available software patents than you'll ever make selling your program.

The bottom line is that software patents do not promote progress and inventions (which is the original goal of the patent system), but in fact retard it (since you should be scared to do something, knowing that you're probably violating at least one patent or another and that when someone who has such a patent finds you annoying enough, he'll either sue you to hell or force you to give him all "intellectual property" you got). See also this article [researchoninnovation.org].

Re:Let's see how this turns out

Will the crowd spew a diatribe against intellectual property in general

How about just a diatribe against the patent office. Did you actually take the time to look at the patent? Probably not. Here, I'll save you the trouble.

The ornamental design for a user interface for computer display, as shown and described.

That's it. And a picture of a trash can, which the patent office would be happy to sell you a copy of. This is an invention? If this is an "invention", then I think I can literally patent my ass. Why not? By this precedent, I should be able to send them a picture of my ass, with the claim "The design for a sitting device as shown and described."

Microsoft? HELLO?! :)

Patent the "Start" button!! QUICK QUICK before Jeff Bezos comes out of the woodwork!! :)

Re:Microsoft? HELLO?! :)

They already have...5,757,371 [uspto.gov] Taskbar with start menu

Re:Microsoft? HELLO?! :)

Where is the +1 Sad moderation?

Re:Microsoft? HELLO?! :)

I liked this quote from the abstract of the start menu patent:

The taskbar may also be displayed in a mode where it is not displayed [...]

Re:How could they do this??

Public Domain can mean openly available to everyone and not subject to copyright protection, or simply openly available to the public (i.e. for sale to the public).


You know, if every fuckwit in the world makes up definitions [investorwords.com] for commonly available words [ramshock.com], english will get more fucked up than it already is.

New slogan for USPTO

Garbage in, Garbage out.

Better Yet:

Garbage in, Patents out!

They partially relinquish copyright.

In their patent app, they say that anyone can copy the facsimile supplied to the patent office. That means we can all use a butt-ugly version of the trash can wherever we like.

I submit that the first major MacOS X worm should have a specific payload: replace everyone's trash icon with the ugly black and white version in Apple's patent application.

it's a design patent

Design patents aren't that big of a deal. If I designed a toaster, I'd get a design patent on *my* toaster so nobody else can call it their own. And no, I can't collect royalties or sue everyone that makes toast. It's different from a trademark, but IANAL so I'm not sure of the differences.

Ever see those infomercials where they start off with "our new, innovative, *patented* design..." Well, odds are they've got a design patent.

Re:it's a design patent

Here is an About.com article about design patents [about.com]. Key quote:

In general terms, a "utility patent" protects the way an article is used and works, while a "design patent" protects the way an article looks.

The concept of a trash can isn't being protected, only a trash can that looks like the one in the design patent application.

Re:it's a design patent

How is this different than a copyright, then? Apple already had a copyright, since you get one automatically unless you declare something to be in the public domain.

Re:it's a design patent

Traditionally, copyrights didn't protect the appearance of industrial designs, only limited classes of printed materials. That's why we got design patents. Nowadays, there may be some overlap.

ambiguity is the problem! Re:it's a design patent

In meatspace, patents are black and white. Judges interput physical patent very strictly. Even slight modifications can get around someone's patent. Best part is, you have access to the patented parts of the design. They are included in the grant.

The problem with software patents is lack of code disclosure. If the patent judges could compare line-by-line a MS .asp page feature with a php/apache page, they would laugh most of this stuff out of court. Unfortunately, they can't force them to include the patented code, because code is also protected under copyright and trade secret. The patent office is allowing a "black box" style patent--without even proof of a working system. They used to require detailed specs and proof of actual working devices. Now companies like Rambus can draw some pretty pictures and then prosecute the people who actually spend time and resources building the thing. This goes aginst 200 years of precedent!

That alone should be enough to get these thrown out, but patents don't work that way. They are assumed to be sacred, holy, creative genius by the courts until someone spends the time and money to strike each one down. Our wonderfull legal system doesn't allow the courts to "see" what goes on in the real world, only what comes into court--they can't even overturn bad Laws until someone's hanged for breaking it!

Anti-grouch?

This was probably done in collusion with Children's Television Workshop (CTW) so that they can prevent someone from making an OS X version of "The Grouch", one of the greatest MacOS hacks ever.

It was great. Empty the trash, and Oscar the Grouch would come out of the trashcan singing. Then CTW sued the the muppety pants off the author and it pretty much disappeard.

Re:Anti-grouch?

I had one once called the Mitten Touch Typist. Every fourteenth or fifteenth keystroke would end up being the key next to the one you hit - it was pure genius, and it took such a long time for people to figure out something was wrong. Hehehe.

A way out....

There is this possibility: countless children twist it into a legal reason for not having to take the garbage out.

Move over Microsoft

All your icons are belong to us...

What I can't wait for is when Apple patents the space character in file names. Whew! Imagine the royalties on the "Program Files" (c:\Progra~1 to 8.3 folks out there) folder.

This just in: Apple patents the technique of "double-click launching" to launch applications visually.

Garbage Lawsuits...

I'm afraid of Apple lawsuits.

As a result, I've just been leaving my trash on the floor, just outside the garbage can.

I wonder

If we used a modified garbage icon: a trash can with a picture of a rotten, partially eaten apple in it, would it violate the patent?

If not I'm making one right now!!!

Check my .sig soon to know when its available for download.

necessary evil...

Although I hate hearing about google, red hat, apple, etc. owning some common detail such as Instant Messaging; one needs to keep in mind that these patents are often the only incentive-protecting mechanism that are available to companies.

If companies couldn't get a patent for something it would be much harder for them to profit and thus they wouldn't develop items/technology as quickly or at all.

To offset this "monopoly" that is legally created, patents have expiration dates. For example: Tylenol(acetaminophen) once cost 'too much' but once it's patent ran out other companies rushed in and the price dropped significantly.

Paying that higher price for some feature on a laptop sucks but would you rather not be able to buy a laptop because no one wanted to produce/invent it?

Re:necessary evil...

Things like Instant Messaging and weighted search results are of such obviously high usefulness that they would be invented, regardless of the inventor thinking he would be able to get patent protection.

In fact, your very example has disproved you, for ICQ very willingly invented and published "Instant Messenging" techniques without any protection, and there were many immediate copies (AOL, Microsoft, and others). Yet, even knowing they had no way to prevent clones, Mirabilis still went ahead and created the field.

Re:necessary evil...

Yeah, and look at what a profitable company Mirabilis became because of it!

This is irrelevant, the point is that innovation occured, without needing the incentive of patents, or any kind of guarantee of income.

However, Mirabilis was very profitable. They got a big cash buy-out [icq.com] from AOL. The internet-craze jackpot. $100s of millions for a handful of employees. Much more than they were worth, and so far AOL still hasn't figured out how to earn money [slashdot.org] on that stuff.

(Note, if you read the press release [icq.com], it is incorrect about some things. The developement of ICQ wasn't "accelerated", it was halted (on the desktop platform), so that it wouldn't lure customers away from AOL's nascent offering. AOL felt it was absorbing what could've been a major potential competitor, 5 years later)

Re:necessary evil...

People think of things because

You really think most stuff that is patented because someone just dreamed it up?

I tell you what.. pour a few years of your life, lots of your own money, and all your ambition into inventing, developing, proving, and finally patenting your new invention, and then come back to us about "thinking things up".

Because they have nothing better to do. Because they want to help someone or improve something.

This is all great when you are talking about some bullshit little piddly toy. Sure, that icon that represents the trash, or a little widget here or there.

But lets talk about real things. Things with 4000 moving parts, things that take millions of dollars and a million man years to design and develop. Let's talk about microprocessors, let's talk about jet engines, let's talk about industrial machinery, let's talk about all of that and more.

Non-trivial inventions are expensive. You don't just think them up. You research them. New drugs don't just dream themselves up. They are discovered through vicious cycles of testing, refinement, testing, refinement. Failure is expensive. Success is hard.

It is not unusual to see companies spending $1B trying to come up with a new product - to take something from a fanciful thought to a working prototype to market.

Patents are often used to curb knockoffs. Any idea how much GSM cost to develop? Any guesses? Millions? Billions?

A world without patents is not far from what is going on in most Asian manufacturing places. A company spends money to develop, refine, and bring to market a new product. Once that legwork is done a competitor dissects that product, eliminates some/all of the quality, and reproduces it for the fraction of it's cost. This destroys the original company who must charge highers costs to cover the development.

The same applies to the concepts of software. Yeah, you know what, a lot of patents are stupid. But not all are. We can all say after the fact that "ohh, thats obvious!" - but where's the beef? Where is the proof it was obvious? How can you show it? The idea of a "taskbar" is obvious right? Then where was it before MS got the patent? Who thougt of it first? Why did it take 7 software engineers to come up with it, to make it a reality?

Look.. get over your gripe. All the things you mention will be in the open in a few years or at most a decade. Then it can be knocked off en masse. Till then reward those inventors or not. It's up to you.

Patents work. Patents are the reason why we aren't a cesspool of cheap knockoff's.

RTFA (as usual)

This is a design patent, not a utility patent (which is the type of patent often lambasted 'round these parts). This protects the image that is Apple's trash can, not the function of a trash can on a computer. From the USPTO [uspto.gov]:

n general terms, a ?utility patent? protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a ?design patent? protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171). Both design and utility patents may be obtained on an article if invention resides both in its utility and ornamental appearance. While utility and design patents afford legally separate protection, the utility and ornamentality of an article are not easily separable. Articles of manufacture may possess both functional and ornamental characteristics.

Keep this in mind before flaming anyone.

Re:RTFA (as usual)

"This protects the image that is Apple's trash can, not the function of a trash can on a computer. From the USPTO [uspto.gov]: "

That's a bummer because that trash can was an interesting innovation. Anybody remember the olden days of computers back in the early 80's? People were afraid of them. One of the most voiced fears is "I'm afraid I'll hit the wrong button and wipe out everything!". The "you're putting it there, but it's not your final decision yet" approach was really useful in reducing people's fears that they'll break their computer.

Just because we take it for granted today doesn't mean it's wrong. (Though I do question why this is news and not patented back years ago when it was used...)

Re:RTFA (as usual)

One of the most voiced fears is "I'm afraid I'll hit the wrong button and wipe out everything!".

Years ago('94-ish), I was a total PC kiddie and didn't know anything about Mac's. At one point I had to load a program on a mac, and put a floppy in the computer. We spent forever trying to figure out how to eject the disk. Eventually someone told us to trash it, and my answer was, "are you sure?" Of course, it worked and since then I've realized that Mac's are far too logical for me.

-Sean

Re:Why You Trash Mac Floppies

No, Put Away was made for back when Macs didn't ship with Hard Drives. ejecting left a ghost image of the disk on the desktop, then you could insert another disk and drag your files over, the mac would then prompt you to insert the other disk to make the copy. Put away ejected the disk and removed the icon from the desktop.

Re:RTFA (as usual)

Can some explain why a patent is required for this. Since it will only ever exist as an image on a computer screen it seems more like art to me and would seem more appropriate under copywrite laws. The IANAL disclaimer applies big time here.

Re:RTFA (as usual)

If I took the icon from Apple's system and distributed it with a rival system, Apple would be able to claim copyright infringement. However, if I included a picture of a generic trash can in my operating sytem, Apple would have a tough time proving that that element was in fact derived from Apple code, and was not in fact, derived from a generic trash can.

However, a design patent would protect this element. Presumably this will expire in twenty years.

In All Fairness...

...this is a Design Patent. This means that it offers protection to a very specific, usually decorative design. There are no text claims, just drawings. Design patents are often used for things like cellphone cases, as each manufacturer tries to lock up distinctive visual fefatures to differentiate otherwise similar items. They are also found in the food industry -- novelty shapes for pasta and breakfast cereal are often protected this way. So, realistically, this is not some huge, evil attempt to patent the very idea of a garbage can icon.

Oh, this is rich

As I loaded the front page and saw the Apple patent (patents are bad, remember?) there was a plain-text ad at the top that linked to:

http://www.invention.com
http://www.litmanlaw.c om
http://www.gilmanresearch.com/pages/944483/ind ex.h tm
http://www.isc-online.com/forms/inventorinfore q_se arch.asp
http://www.qualitypatent.com

How low can you go!

I'm going to lose Karma on this one.....

Steve Jobs: We need to file some more patents quickly. My stock options are dropping.
Terrified Employee: Well sir...umm...(looks around room) how about our round corners?
Jobs: Already in heavy use. You're fired
Employee 2: How about the idea of color coding computers to go with your decor?
Jobs: Nah, we already cornered the artist market. You're fired.
Employee 3: Well....how about this (picks up trash can)
Jobs: Brilliant! Get a picture of that to the Patent office as soon as possible.

It's a design Patent

Design patents are offered for those marks in which companies have proprietary rights. Because Apple won't be using the Garbage Icon as an indication of goodwill , it wouldn't qualify for Trademark status.

All in all this is much ado about nothing.

It helps to understand what a "design" patent is

The USPTO defines "design patents" here. [uspto.gov]

For ADHD slashdotters:
A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture...

In general terms, a "utility patent" protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a "design patent" protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171)...

Clearly a design that simulates a well-known or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute. Furthermore, subject matter that could be considered offensive to any race, religion, sex, ethnic group, or nationality is not proper subject matter for a design patent application (35 U.S.C. 171 and 37 CFR 1.3).

It's only a design patent.

Don't worry. This is only a design patent [uspto.gov], which is fundamentally different than a "utility" patent.

According to the PTO web site:

• In general terms, a "utility patent" protects the way an article is used and works, while a "design patent" protects the way an article looks...A design for an article of manufacture that is dictated primarily by the function of the article lacks ornamentality and is not proper statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 171. Specifically, if at the time the design was created, there was no unique or distinctive shape or appearance to the article not dictated by the function that it performs, the design lacks ornamentality and is not proper subject matter. In addition, 35 U.S.C. 171 requires that a design to be patentable must be "original." Clearly a design that simulates a well-known or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute.

So, it doesn't cover any functionality. In fact, if the design relates closely to functionaly, then that weakens the patent. In this case, I'd say the design of the garbage can icon pretty precisely relates to the functionalty of throwing away files.

With this in mind, it seems that it's probably a pretty toothless patent. Don't lose any sleep over it.

Good

This is actually good. The more such patents are approved the more meaningless the concept of a patent will become. Over time nobody will give a damn about patent laws because they will infringe something no matter what the hell they do.

There will be a point when the whole system will have to be scrapped or totally overhauled. More such "garbage" patents will bring this day closer. I can't wait.

It aint just technology companies folks...

Its not just computers folks. I have had to do some research on patents, to make sure we were not stepping on any toes, and you wouldn't believe the BS they patent, and get away with. I finally decided it was easier to argue it in court than figure out the conveluted crap they allow to be patented.

BTW, Im talking about tanning lamps, not computers. Same crap. Someone might as well patent the sun as a tanning device and charge us all royalties. Its just as phunked up in the real world.

Why WOULDN'T we expect Apple to patent a garbage icon? The problem isn't Apple, its the US Patent process. And the fact that so many companies feel forced to do defensive patents.

screw that

Im gonna patent TRASH. then, if they want to use the 'trash' can, they need to pay me royalties for trash.
And all I need is a picture of my room to prove nobody comes close to 'prior art'. I hear that argument a lot, nobody comes close to the 'prior art' that I posess...

Prior Art

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_ num=-1&SKU=100712&RN=53&xyz=xyz

(I have one of these. My mom refers to it as an "OS X garbage can")

real reason..

The real reason to patent the garbage can picture is to keep slashdot from choosing to use it to refer to macos in the future instead of the shiny silver apple.

Trash Can Absurdity

Am I the only one who thinks that dumping floppies into trash should REFORMAT instead of EJECTING?:)

Re:Trash Can Absurdity

That's what I thought. I'll never forget the first time I had to use a Mac. I tried and tried to get the floppy out but couldn't. I finally had to call up a mac friend and ask. The answer is so utterly counter-intuitive that I was shocked. I had been so brainwashed into thinking that Mac were designed for ease of use I couldn't believe that they'd do something so stupid. But they did!

Re:Info on 'What can be patented?'

You're basically talking about a utility patent, which is indeed the dominant kind. This is a design patent, there's a difference.

Hmmmm

/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Res ources/trashfull.png

/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Res ources/trashempty.png

It would be SO easy....

Microsoft has a leg up here!

Unlike wasteful Apple, the folks at Microsoft furnish Windows XP with a recycle bin!

You'd think the Northern California latte liberals at Apple would care more about their environment than Microsoft folks do, but that isn't the case. While Apple's filling up our landfills with garbage bits, Microsoft recycles them so they can be used again.

Re:Microsoft has a leg up here!

While Apple's filling up our landfills with garbage bits, Microsoft recycles them so they can be used again.

No, Micro$oft really is the evil empire. What happens when you recycle garbage? It is sent to a central facility where it gets carefully sorted through and the useful things get picked out to get turned into new products. The facility makes a tidy profit on this.

So, when you dump your homework / old code / other data in M$ recycle bin, it gets sent...

The best thing is, because they call it the recycle bin, they're not even lying about scouring your data for useful stuff!

Sleep well.

wait

are you sure they didn't mean they wanted to have a patent on THROWING Macs in the garbage?? Now that would be interesting...

Stupid pattent laws asside...

... Can we all get the stupid trash can off our desktops now? Honestly, does anyone leave it on and actually go rescue things from it? When I click delete, I want the file deleted, not moved somewhere to be found by a nosy roomate or something.
Just because something is cute doesn't mean it needs to be in gnome/kde/windows/apple/gem/whatever desktop.
When people first encounter lack of trash on a unix box, they come running to the sysadmin, who tells them "You cannot undelete files, there gone there gone."
Data isnt something to be hap-hazardly pushed about and retrieved from garbage cans. Back it up, keep track of it if its important. Trash cans encourage a lax attitude toward work habits on the computer.

Re:Stupid pattent laws asside...

Maybe you're perfect, but the rest of us slip up every now and then. It's nice to be able to back up a bit and "undo" the errors. Maybe that's why so much software has an "undo" operation -- or are you suggesting that the "Undo" concept is a bad idea as well? If you're comfortable working in an environment where the luxury of making mistakes doesn't exist, more power to you. Most of us aren't. I would assume it would be in any company's best interest to try to appeal to the real needs of its clients rather than just to the ideal case.

As an aside, before computers, there was paper, and people were accidentally throwing out important documents long before you or I were even born -- If people were fortunate enough to realize their error quickly, they could retrieve the documents from the physical wastebasket before the janitorial staff came around to throw it all in the incenerator. The trash can metaphor seems to me to be just a computerized extension of that way of doing business.

Personally, the only thing I'd change about the trash can as it currently (and most commonly) exists is to be able to say exactly how much disk space I want stuff in the trash to take up before it automatically and permanantly wipes older stuff.

Design Patent

This may be a design patent; however according to this [uspto.gov], "a design which simulates a well known, or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute."

I think a trash can might be a well known object.

These aren't method/process ("utility") patents

These are patents on ornamental designs. This is fairly typical, and is used to protect how thinks look.
Jewelery, etc, often has ornamental design patents on it.
As for laptop design patents,
"While a design patent may be issued for a utilitarian article, such a patent may be obtained only to the extent that the ornamental features dominate the functional features. To the extent to which a design is predominately utilitarian in nature, it is not protectable by a design patent in the United States. "

The only thing the patents prevent you from doing is making something that looks exactly like say, a powerbook g4, such that an ordinary observer might purchase the "fake" product thinking it was the patented product.

I wouldn't worry much about it, since the only protectable parts are the parts of say, the trash icon, not found in the prior art.

Honest and (maybe) balanced comments...

OK, does anyone remember when Apple came out with the garbage can? I'll give you a hint: It was part of the whole package which signalled an entirely new era in computing.

That's significant. A new era! The beginning of something other than EVERYTHING that had proceeded it. (Yeah, Xerox notwithstanding. That's another story.) The garbage can WAS a completely different, new, and innovative idea.

Do they deserve a patent for it? Hmm. Tough call. Would I be as fair to Microsoft if they'd invented it? Tougher call--I've tried to be fair to MS when they do something creative or right, but it's been such a rare event that I can't promise unbiased commentary.

But as long as a general patent like this is legally valid, I'd say that this specific patent is valid. At the time, it was creative enough to change computing, and that's impressive.

Too Easy

As patents get sillier, the jokes almost write themselves. I withdraw my joke on the grounds that it's just too easy.

It figures

So many cartoons represent garbage with crumpled papers and apple cores. It figures that a half-eaten Apple would end up associating itself with the trash. This is funny. I'll try to remember this for the next time some Apple-whacker starts telling me, as if I were utterly unaware of its very existence, of the inarguable superiority of his preferred platform. "Yes," I'll say, "Apple is so innovative, they even patented garbage. . . . No, it's not that it's an innovative technique, but it's that no one else would have ever thought of it. That's what makes it art. It's like the guy who patented silence, except more audacious."

haha

I just downloaded the patent to my OS X desktop, and threw it in the garbage. It gave me a warm feeling.

Re:Wonderful!

I don't see a single post defending this obviously frivolous patent, or Apple for filing it. I do, however, see your post assuming that people will defend it.

Methinks this says more about you than about the Slashdot population in general.

Re:Wonderful!

I don't see a single post defending this obviously frivolous patent, or Apple for filing it

Oh, for crying out loud..

It's a design patent, not a utility patent. Go learn the difference before you call it frivolous.

-jcr

Re:Wonderful!

Utility patents are for useful inventions. Machines that do things, methods for doing things, etc.

Copyrights are for original artistic works. BUT with regards to pictoral, sculptural, or graphic works, they must be non-functional.

Trademarks are for designs that indicate the source of a good or service used in commerce. Since the Trash isn't being used to identify products in commerce, it wouldn't qualify. The Apple logo would, OTOH.

Thus, a typeface is not copyrightable, because the letter shapes are arguably not sufficiently original, and are certainly graphic and functional, said function being to convey to people a particular letter.

Design patents apply to how things look, as opposed to how they function. There's some additional requirements (one relevant here being that the design might not be original enough)

Thus a typeface could receive a design patent, and basically they exist to fill in that gap in copyrights.

Of course, if you had a Banana Jr. computer that closely resembled the original Macintoshes, and Apple had a design patent on the case, then a design patent could serve a similar role to trademarks.

Note also that the types of protection that the various approaches convey can be significantly different.

Re:Wonderful!

It's a design patent. This prevents MS (well, actually anyone, but given past history, MS is the most likely culprit) from making a clone of Apple's OS X GUI and calling it Windows XT (or whatever). This doesn't prevent anyone from using trash can icons, the concept of the trash can icons, etc., in a GUI. It prevents someone from using Apple's specific icon in their GUI.

Furthermore, if you really want to piss & moan about how everyone would jump on MS for doing something this underhanded then you may want to check this one out: Utility (not Design) patent 5,757,371 [uspto.gov] Taskbar with start menu from (you guessed it) MS.

You're either Robert Thomson...

of Canada's Financial Post, or you're just a plagiarist. ;-)

Thomson's brainless analysis was posted on February 20th in the Financial Post. As for the analysis itself:

1) Revenue fell from a year earlier. Making Apple the only computer company to have been hit by the sagging economy.

2) ... the same time Apple's sales were falling, PC sales rose. This tells us nothing about Apple's performance in comparison with competing companies. It only reveals Apple's performance vs. the aggregate of all competing companies. This includes not only Dell, Gateway, and HP, but also Bob's Cheep Komputer Shack. Such comparisons don't tell us whether the overal PC sales growth was fueled by one or two companies or was solid across the board (which it wasn't).

3) ... there aren't any new iMacs in Apple's future. I'll reread that statement and laugh when the next iMac (or the next consumer Mac, whatever it's called) ships. Does this crystal ball have a "reset" button?

4) ...has recently undergone a restructuring and is slowly fading into nothingness. I'm not sure what restructuring he's referring to here, but I'm also not sure how restructuring equals a slow fade to nothingness. Restructuring happens all the time in large organizations, and it can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how and why it is implemented. As to nothingness, why are there so many new O'Reilly books about OS X, so much interest in Apple on Slashdot (vs. 3 years ago), and so many positive reviews of Apple products in publications that include PC Magazine and InfoWorld?

As a final point, Apple, like any large company, engages in intellectual property development and protection as a matter of habit. It's not as if someone at Apple says, "Oh, shit! We'd better get off our asses and come up with a design patent on the trashcan!" The process can take *years* to implement, and at any given time, I'm sure Apple, like any other computer hardware/software company, is pursuing dozens of claims.

Re:Wonderful!

I'm starting to agree with the people who say patents are bad in general. This is utter idiocy.

In this particular case, though, I don't know what extra protection does a patent give them. That icon (as designed) is or can be already protected by copyright, I assume, which lasts, let me see, forever.

What's the point of getting these design patents? Or, even better, what is the point of awarding ornamental design patents, other than a source of funding for the USPTO?

Re:Wonderful!

The best part about this is that after the patent expires, EVERYONE can use their garbage can icon.

Heh.

Re:Slashdot is Garbage

I can't believe this. Slashdot editors post these articles purporting to expose problems in the patent system, and they don't even know what a design patent is, or how it differs from a utility patent.

Or perhaps they are aware that patent law is supposed to prevent design patents being given out for pictures of everyday objects?

In addition, 35 U.S.C. 171 requires that a design to be patentable must be "original". Clearly a design which simulates a well known, or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute.

Hems, Taco, crisd et al - GET A CLUE.

Quite.

TWW