Vista PATENT? Sinister Microsoft!

[Prometheus]

Maddeningly, Microsoft won't allow us to show you screenshots because the firm hasn't patented all of the interface...

This quote is from an older pc mag of mine in connection with Longhorn (now Vista. It's disturbing that I haven't seen this issue come up anywhere before. Anybody else thinking Microsloth is busy with something dodgy and sinister again.

 

[Hastur]

When you spend the kind of money they do on development costs, can you blame them for patenting their interface to stop every lazy d@@s from jumping on the bandwagon and stealing their ideas

 

[Darth Garth]

Really nothing sinister as Apple will also sue anybody who copies their unique Aqua look ... just ask anybody who has released a popular OS X Theme Pack for XP as of late .

 

[Toxin]

When you spend the kind of money they do on development costs, can you blame them for patenting their interface to stop every lazy d@@s from jumping on the bandwagon and stealing their ideas

Sorry, I'm a little confused. Not sure who you're talking about here. Microsoft or someone else?

 

[ant1b0dy]

When you spend the kind of money they do on development costs, can you blame them for patenting their interface to stop every lazy d@@s from jumping on the bandwagon and stealing their ideas

And this is a company that was built up by stealing other people's ideas. Tsk.

 

[Darth Garth]

And this is a company that was built up by stealing other people's ideas. Tsk.

Now don't be silly.

I lot of experimental ideas from early researchers was freely published in journals and taken and improved upon by other people and without which there would have been no computer industry as we know it today.

The GUI concepts was invented by researchers from PARC who themselves were inspired by work done by others like Douglas Englebart and his NLS team who showed it to Apple who ran with it and made a consumer mass market version of it.

Microsoft saw the same thing and the benefits thereoff on the early Apple Lisa and implemented some similiar concepts on the PC platform and was sued by Apple which I think was a bit rich.

Sadly the patent system and commercial interests have totally mucked up this whole sharing of ideas in the old days ... open source today is perhaps the closest to what it was like in the old days.

 

[reech]

When you spend the kind of money they do on development costs, can you blame them for patenting their interface to stop every lazy d@@s from jumping on the bandwagon and stealing their ideas

--erm didn't they steal the idea for windows from someone!?

 

[Prometheus]

Microsoft saw the same thing and the benefits thereoff on the early Apple Lisa and implemented some similiar concepts on the PC platform and was sued by Apple which I think was a bit rich.

--erm didn't they steal the idea for windows from someone!?

Glad to see some people get the point. Microsoft and Hewlett Packard were indeed sued by Apple Computer for "implementing a window system whose displays partially resemble those of the Macintosh system". Then Xerox sued Apple for implementing the Macintosh system, sinch it was basically derived from the earlier Xerox Star system. The reason interface cannot be copyrighted is because everyone would then be forced to stick to a particular developer. Also every developer would have to create a new interface leading to mass confusion for the end user. Afaik America is the only place you can patent a interface. The principal is still the same. What if Microsloth is planning to charge every developer royalties in future for writing programs to run on "their interface".
Please visit http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Copyright/look-and-feel.html and see for yourself.