RSSApple Challenged Over Old Xerox UI Patent
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published April 23, 2007, 11:24 AM
AppleInsider's Aidan Malley broke the story over the weekend that portfolio licensing company IP Innovation, LLC has filed suit against Apple, Inc. in (where else?) Marshall, Texas, claiming to defend a graphical technique where multiple workspaces are divided into frames, between which the user can switch devices like tabs.
[Editor's Note: IP Innovation, LLC is not to be confused with IP Innovations, LLC (plural), a patent search services firm for prospective patent filers, based in Washington, DC.]
The single patent in question, #5,072,412, for "User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects," was filed in 1987 by various Xerox researchers, and granted in 1991.
The graphical era was already well under way by this time, although this patent was apparently intended to give the manufacturer of STAR workstations an on-screen tool for collecting multiple complete workspaces together under a single row of tabs. The description of such a system in the patent is so replete and generic that it could apply to a wide array of visual tools, so it isn't specifically stuck on the notion of tabs.
As AppleInsider reported, IP Innovation seeks a judgment of over $20 million, which would appear to fall under the category of treble damages - relating to a clause in federal patent infringement law that awards plaintiffs three times the amount of the basic infringement amount. Firms such as IP Innovation may be filing such claims now, in advance of landmark federal legislation some say is likely to pass this year, whose draft language would eliminate the treble damages provision.
IP Innovation is no newcomer to the patent litigation or settlement field. In August 2005, it reached a major settlement with Sony over a series of patents related to noise filtering for both audio and video.
That same year, it settled with five providers of online courseware, including market leader Thomson Learning, over patents related to the display of graphical course material in a window with hyperlinks. But there were eight parties to that suit, three of whom -- eCollege, DigitalThink, and Docent -- chose to fight it out and let a judge decide.
That November, a district court ruled the three firms did not infringe upon the defended patent after all, after having taken apart the patent's definition of a hyperlink and concluded it actually didn't meet the three companies' implementations.
The patent language made it appear that the hyperlink code itself was translated to the screen in a "human-readable font," as if the A tags in HTML hyperlinks were visible. Since the three defendants used HTML, and since their A tags were invisible to the user, the court determined the description by the patent didn't apply. Had Thomson recognized this flaw, it might have avoided paying that unspecified amount.
Apple is, of course, no stranger to IP disputes over visual content of operating systems. In 1989, the company fought Microsoft and Digital Research valiantly over what Apple claimed to be their misappropriation of Apple's graphical constructs, such as the trash can icon for deleting files.
I and several other reporters at the time noted that Xerox PARC was actually the first to use such icons in that fashion, though at a time before the US patent database was searchable online, it appeared that Xerox had never filed claims to that effect. As it turned out, it had, and ironically this is one of them, although the filing was not actually granted until 1991.
Exactly how this 1991 Xerox PARC patent changed hands to eventually wind up in the IP Innovation portfolio, remains unknown.
There needs to be a limitation on the time a company can wait to sue another over a patent infringement. These companies are waiting until the technology is popular (5-10 years) then suing the infringing company, therefore taking the customers the infringing company had to originally get themselves. The infringing companies did all the leg work and the patent holders just waited. Most of the time the infringing companies had no idea a patent existed.
This country needs a "You snooze, you lose" law that basically states: If you don't take care of a patent infringement within a specified time, YOUR BURNT!!!
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|Guess what folks, everyone of these lawsuits cost you and me the consumer. The companies pass the cost on to us, and the lawyers make the money. The taxpayers also foot the bill since the legal court costs are subsidised (i.e. the court buildings, the publication of the case findings, etc...). Call your congressional representative to vote for IP term limits of seven years. Patents stiffle progress and are killing the US economy.
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|A little simplistic, don't you think? Seems to me there's been a hell of a lot of progress in this country over the last 100 (say) years.
--->Patents stiffle progress and are killing the US economy.
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|Software patents will eventually kill software development by small companies and individuals. Only large corporations with remain - with equally sized software and legal departments.
In the 19th century it was "my guns against yours"; at the end of 20th century - "my lawyers against yours"; in the 21st century - "my patents (lawyers too) against yours".
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|What a silly comment - first of all, if you think that their stuff is crap, then you probably didn't buy it, in which case you haven't lost anything.
Further, if people felt that their "crap" wasn't worth the price, they wouldn't buy it in the first place.
100% markup is pretty common for items that are not seen as commodities.
Do you have any rational arguments? For example, were Jobs and Co under a non-disclosure agreement when they were shown the Xerox stuff? Had Xerox published any of their efforts? These are much more relevent in determining whether there was any patent infringement - "serves them right" does NOT count!
---->I hope Apple ends up having to pay through the nose. They got deep pockets....
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|Looks like there's prior art too!!!
--->Wow, Commodore Amiga 1000 w/WorkBench from 1985 FTW!
http://oldcomputers.net/amiga1000.html
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|I hope Apple ends up having to pay through the nose. They got deep pockets. After all, they charge you ridiculous amounts for their wares and rake in huge profits. Last year they made $1bn profit on $2bn revenues. Which means, all the Apple crap you bought was sold to you for twice what it costs them to make it. Everyone's always so quick to reach into Microsoft's pockets, it's Apple's time now. I hope more lawsuits roll in. There's a new IP patent reform in the works, and all the patent "trolls" are scrambling to get a piece of the pie before it's too late.
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|It looks like ip innovation llc is just another gold digger in the high-tech. this is just ridiculous...
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|or itz just that you're pissed off at them
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|So when someone sues Microsoft its just microsoft copying ideas, but when someone sues Apple, they're gold diggers?
lol.
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|23 years too late... yawn
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|Wow, Commodore Amiga 1000 w/WorkBench from 1985 FTW!
http://oldcomputers.net/amiga1000.html
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|Yuck. Patent trolls stink.
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|I'd have to agree. If IP "Innovation" were the producers of an operating system, I'd contend they might have some small reason to be annoyed.
But what have they ever produced? Absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell (except lawsuits). These people appear to have patented the idea of a 1960's filing cabinet, but "on a computer"...
No innovation there!
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|Ummm.... notice where the suit went?
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