Macromedia Sues Adobe, Claims Photoshop Infringes Patent

jmorse writes: "According to this article at sfgate.com, Macromedia is suing Adobe for patent infringement, claiming that Adobe's Photoshop and GoLive products violate a patent they filed in 1998. The article is a little short on details, so I'm wondering if there are other sources with more on this patent." Adobe and Macromedia have been skirmishing and counter-skirmishing over patents for some time now. The AP article doesn't say which patent Adobe is supposed to be violating this time, so just pick any random thing that Photoshop does that Macromedia might have patented and express outrage about it. :)

Gimp Rules!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They all suck compared to GIMP!!!

Re:Why wait until now??

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think Macromedia can f*ck off, they write terrible software with horrible interfaces that produce terrible results 99.9% of the time!

Maybe that's what their patent is. Too bad for them that Windows will be used as prior art in the trial.

Form Comment

[RoninM]

This is [ridiculous|stupid|ludicrous|lame]! How can Macromedia patent ______? I was doing _____ on my [Z80|8086|Altair] in the [1970s|1980s]. It's really [easy|trivial|fast] to implement. I could write it right now in [Perl|C|Python|Java|INTERCAL]! The USPTO needs to gain some [sense|accountability|knowledgeable employees (like me)]. Still, Adobe [deserves|asked for|needs] a taste of their own medicine! I can't be too upset about them getting sued. It's [kharma|fate|divine intervention].

Re:Gimp Rules!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

GIMP? Pfft!

Back in my day, we had to write raw RGB in a hex editor, and compress it, by hand, with no calculators!

And we liked it!!

Re:The tiniest bit of detective work

[ShaunC]

>US05808610 09/15/1998 Method and system of docking panels

When I followed that link and viewed Macromedia's patent, it opened up Adobe Acrobat...

Shaun

Re:Why wait until now??

[nomadic]

(Aside: Personally, I think Macromedia can f*ck off, they write terrible software with horrible interfaces that produce terrible results 99.9% of the time!

So poor craftsmanship removes Constitutional protections...novel idea...

Re:Gimp Rules!!!

[sconeu]

You had hex editors? We had to use handheld magnets to flip bits in memory!