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Microsoft's Decade-old Patent On Tree-view Mode!
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:21 AM
from the weekends-are-fun dept.
from the weekends-are-fun dept.
BhaKi writes "Remember the Tree-View mode in many file management applications? It's shocking to know that this omnipresent feature was patented by Microsoft back in 1995 (granted in 1997). I'm not very sure about the implications, though. The patent is so general that it can be related to many things from tree-mode to virtual filesystems. Check out claim no. 3 of the patent for the most clear part."
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This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Funny)
I patented trees in general in 1992. I'm going to sue.
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Funny)
I patented dirt.. Want to apply for a license? Without my dirt license, you can grow no trees.
Parent
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Funny)
Ever hear of hydroponics?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, yeah, of course he has, but that's been patented too, silly. The guy with the patent to hydroponics is a jerk and won't license it out. brxndxn is cool, though, and it'd be a lot easier to just license dirt from brxndxn.
Disclaimer: brxndxn did not pay me to say this, I'm just a happy customer.
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Funny)
Yes they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You claim that trees don't grown in dirt but soil, but then link a definition for dirt where the number one entry is "earth or soil". Cleary from your own link dirt is often a synonym for soil.
I would like to point out that you can't use a dictionary.
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a old joke:
One day a group of Darwinian scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one Darwinian to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The Darwinian walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no
longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the Darwinian was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the Darwinian happily agreed.
God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old
days with Adam."
The Darwinian said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God interrupted, saying, "Hold it. You go get your OWN dirt!!"
Parent
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
Parent
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
Hell of a way to frighten away potential wives. No wonder nerds have problems in that area. It's like the dating couple admiring horses galloping in the sunshine, when the geeky guy turns to the girl and says, "You know, the purpose of a horse's tail is to keep flies off of its anus." Date over.
Parent
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:4, Insightful)
I patented trees in general in 1992. I'm going to sue.
That's kind of an interesting point here, they were granted the patent in '97 but I fail to recall any lawsuits over such a thing... Much ado about nothing?
Parent
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Insightful)
I would expect that no lawsuits would be pending, or ever brought to surface - for a few reasons.
1) They are far from the first to implement such a feature... too much prior art existed
2) One of the companies that made excessive use of "Tree View" was IBM, when they rewrote OS/2's GUI (without MS's involvement) for OS/2 v2 - which far predates both the application date of this patent and the granted date.
I doubt they want to sue IBM for something they (Microsoft) did not come up with.
I also doubt they want to sue anyone else, because doing so would invariably bring IBM into the picture for such reasons (listed in #2 above), as well as force IBM (and others) to bring up the prior existence of such a "structure" which would thus be ground to invalidate Microsoft's patent.
I am sure that IBM did not come up with this idea - but they did implement it long before Microsoft filed for a patent, and I am sure that the OS/2 GUI patents do cover it, and reference prior art as well.
This is a (pandora's) box that I doubt Microsoft wants to open. Instead, I think they will use it (or may have been using it, or may consider to use it) for nothing other than trying to force smaller companies without the legal wherewithal to pay them royalties for a technology they did not create.
Just my opinions.
Parent
Re:This infringes on my 1992 patent... on trees (Score:5, Informative)
I read the patent, and it does not patent tree views. Claim 1 patents adding objects visible in a file viewer, just like files, by registering such objects with the registry. Sounds fairly worthless to me, but Microsoft patents pretty much anything. Claim 3, which does mention tree views, is dependent on claim 1. In no way are simple tree views covered by this patent.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you were to combine the patent on dirt and the tree view, you would effectively kill the keeping of potted plants in cubicles. :-P
So whom would companies employ then?
Why do people link ad-laden patent sites? (Score:5, Informative)
You can get patent results ad-free from Google [google.com] or straight from the USPTO [uspto.gov].
Re:Why do people link ad-laden patent sites? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why do people link ad-laden patent sites? (Score:5, Funny)
I notice that many of the flowchart illustrations are purely linear; no branches or loops. Why bother with a flowchart for such? Just do a text step list of the common kind:
1. Collect panties
2. Make a web-site about collected panties
3. Put Google Ads on it
4. Profit!
(List for illustration purposes only. Profits not guaranteed. Collecting panties risks lawsuits and may pose an environmental hazard.)
Parent
Re:Why do people link ad-laden patent sites? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Why do people link ad-laden patent sites? (Score:5, Funny)
(... Collecting panties risks lawsuits and may pose an environmental hazard.)
Man, oh man. What kind of chix do you DATE!?!?!?
Parent
may be easier to read from google patents (Score:2, Interesting)
Slashdot's in trouble (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, its vague enough to cover slashdot's hierarchical nesting message view. Pay up, slashy!
Midnight Commander and Ztree (Score:5, Informative)
Thank god for mc and ztree
Re:Midnight Commander and Ztree (Score:5, Informative)
Xtree Gold preceded this by a long time, IIRC.
I have a copy in my attic that I had from the mid 80s
There is just tons of prior art for this patent.
Parent
Re:Midnight Commander and Ztree (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
UNIX (Score:4, Informative)
as a node at a level where it is not in the FS
You know, there is this old family [wikipedia.org] of operating systems dating back from the early 70s, that tend to represent pretty much everything as a file system [wikipedia.org], even things that aren't necesarily on the disk like processes or more recently USB devices.
Parent
background details (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the relevance of "well UNIX has been placing all devices in the filesystem for decades".
FYI, in addition of "/dev/" which *is* a directory on the file system (but contains special files to communicates with the hardware), there are other things that *are not* in the file system.
The patent covers including things which aren't in the filesystem as part of the tree view.
There are entry point in the tree like "/proc" which aren't in the file system at all.
Instead they use a special module called PROCFS (it's a file system drive in unix world, and pretty much equivalent to the the extension that the patent mentions : both can be used to make structures not on a disk appear as directory-l
Norton Commander in the '80s (Score:3, Interesting)
provided a navigable file system browser for DOS - tree view of directory in the left pane, list of files in the currently selected directory on the right.
It was a best-selling product, too.
A few years later (but before 1995), IIRC Lotus Notes had a navigational pane in its client. I doubt it was even the first app to use that - it was just sort of common wisdom among UI designers at the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Windows FileManager goes quite a bit further back then Win 3.11. I first saw it in Win 3.0 and it existed in OS/2 ver 1.1 (which IIRC was '87 or'88) where MS copied it from. (not too bad as they wrote the OS/2 ver1.x FileManager)
Of course this patent isn't just about file systems but also displaying other objects eg the control panel. OS/2 v2 did this in '91 or so.
Nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to give MS kudos for not using this patent offensively.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I'm offended, you insensitive clod!
Norton Commander (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure I was using something very much like what's described in point #3 back in the DOS days with Norton (or its clone Volkov) Commander.
Prior art anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Prior art anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Prior art anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
It's describing a mechanism whereby a hierarchical filesystem viewer can delegate the ability to display documents to other modules (e.g. a Word Viewer COM control).
Let's see.
Claim 1 refers to a file system browser that allows mounting non-file objects into the same namespace as the file system. UNIX did all this, and its "registry" was called /etc/fstab.
Claim 3 ("a first window for viewing a selected part of the name space and a second window for viewing in more detail an object") describes the approach taken in Mac OS since 1.0, whose Finder had the "Get Info" window.
But some of the claims are specific and possibly novel. Claim 6: "the non-file system objects include printer objects representing printers." Mac OS from the time of the patent did not have drag-and-drop for printer configuration; instead, it used a desk accessory called the Chooser.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But some of the claims are specific and possibly novel. Claim 6: "the non-file system objects include printer objects representing printers." Mac OS from the time of the patent did not have drag-and-drop for printer configuration; instead, it used a desk accessory called the Chooser.
OS/2 ver 2 had printer objects that worked this way in '91 or '92. ver 1.1 introduced what would become the Windows 3.x FileManager in '87 or '88.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But some of the claims are specific and possibly novel. Claim 6: "the non-file system objects include printer objects representing printers." Mac OS from the time of the patent did not have drag-and-drop for printer configuration; instead, it used a desk accessory called the Chooser.
Mac System 7 had 'desktop printers' a printer icon in the desktop where you could drag a document to print, and double-clicking it opened the queue (where you could manage it by drag&drop the items, not only by 'right-clicking' or menu items, like windows until today)
Re:Prior art anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
The implications? (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally, very little. Yes, most low-level things in CS have been patented in some sense (XOR cursors, one-click checkout, run-length image encoding, multi-hash lookup, stacktrace error display strategies.)
In theory, all software development grinds to a halt. In practice, no one gives a damn.
Trying to enforce a very broad software patent usually just gets the entire patent invalidated. Even if you win, you get to play whack-a-mole with a thousand open-source projects. And most software is bespoke stuff within corporations: good luck tracking that down to enforce patent claims.
Unless you are a law firm with the business model of extorting cash for infringment, you lose by going to court. Bad press, skeptical judge (unless you are suing a direct competitor,) workarounds from the peanut gallery provided pro-bono, countersuits from others with overlapping clainms: it gets ugly fast. Better to just cross-license and get on with life.
Wang: Clearview (1989), OIS (1977) (Score:3, Informative)
That's interesting, because a virtually identical view was available in a Wang Laboratories software product called Clearview, released in 1989, which ran on Windows 2.0.
(Clearview was one of a genre of Windows add-ons, HP NewWave being probably the best known, that plastered improved graphics shells or desktop managers on top of Windows).
And Clearview itself was nothing more than an improved version of a directory display that was used in the Wang Laboratories OIS circa 1977. They were logically the same, although visually different because the OIS was constrained by having a character-oriented screen. At least within Wang itself, Clearview's directory display was regarded a spiffy bitmapped graphic version of the OIS's display.
I seriously doubt that Wang was first or even close to first, but Wang was definitely shipping large numbers of commercial products that offered tree views of directories long before 1995.
Not just any tree (Score:5, Informative)
This patent isn't just about trees, or even file-system trees (which Microsoft made prior art for with the old Win3.1 File Manager). This is about file-system trees that also include things that aren't actually in the file system. It's about how things like Control Panel and My Network Places can appear in the same Windows Explorer tree with your C: drive.
Hopefully, though, the whole thing is now moot. [slashdot.org]
devfs, procfs, and tmpfs (Score:3, Interesting)
This is about file-system trees that also include things that aren't actually in the file system.
You mean things like devfs, procfs, and tmpfs?
Yet another misread patent on /. (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps Slashdot story submitters should have to certify that their understanding of patent law comes from something more than perusing the musing of RMS at the League for Programming Freedom [progfree.org]. A short course in claim construction would help in differentiating between broad patents that cover something commonly used and narrow patents that are easy to avoid.
The claims [wikipedia.org] of this patent all include the limitation of a "name space extension" that adds at least one "non-file system object" to the file system disp
Still prior art (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks for clarifying that. Still OS/2 2.0, released in April 1992, had the ability to display "non file system object". Any (former) OS/2 developer (or user with knowledge of low lever working) will tell you that what you just described it is the main feature which makes the OS/2 workplace shell the best GUI shell ever.
As for handling ZIP: IBM never bothered but it was available to the WPS as third-party extension.
Martin
Question Regarding Prior Art (Score:4, Interesting)
I notice a lot of people tend to make really really really generic patents these days, presumably to give them more control over who they get to sue, but when it comes to Prior art, does just one instance invalidate the whole patent, or does it only invalidate certain aspects of it?
Re:Question Regarding Prior Art (Score:5, Informative)
Each claim of a patent is presumed valid independently of the validity of the other claims. See 35 U.S.C. Sec. 282 [cornell.edu]. If one claim is invalid, then other claims that include additional or different limitations will still be presumed valid until proven otherwise.
You may have noticed that patent claims themselves form a hierarchy. At the top of the hierarchy are the independent claims. You can recognize them because they do not refer to other claims in the patent. Then there are dependent claims. These are claims that add additional limitations to the claims from which they derive. You can recognize them because they refer to other claims in the patent.
The independent claims, which have the fewest limitations, are the easiest to knock out with prior art references. The dependent claims, especially dependent claims that depend on dependent claims, are the hardest to knock out with prior art references, but are easier to engineer around (all you have to do is ensure that your own implementation does not include one of the limitations or its equivalent; but you still have to be careful because the courts often find weird equivalents when it comes to litigation). Patent practitioners usually draft a variety of independent and dependent claims to make a patent harder to fully invalidate or engineer around.
Because it is hard to knock out all the claims of a patent, defendants in patent litigation often look to ways to attack a patent as a whole. Defendants often accuse the patent applicant of withholding information from the patent office, such as knowledge of prior art or the best mode embodiment of the patent. They may even try to find inventors who were not named on the patent application and license the patent independently from them.
Parent
virtual filesystems (Score:3, Interesting)
prior art from 1986 Plan 9 V 1.0 [9fans.net]
Prior Art (Score:3, Interesting)
Burroughs (now Unisys) CANDE (command and edit language) had this feature in 1969.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Surely a family tree would be considered prior art?
Then why can't I use a mouse to drag my mother-in-law to the recycle bin?
The rear view mirror (Score:2)
.
Everything looks obvious in retrospect.
But you aren't patenting an idea. You are patenting a workable implementation of that idea.
It doesn't matter that Dick Tracy has a two-way wrist radio in 1946 or Maxwell Smart a shoe phone in 1965 - even when the theatrical prop sells for $39,000 on eBay. [associatedcontent.com]
What matters is