Microsoft Applies For Patent On Private Browsing 181
PhilDEE writes "Microsoft is in the process of applying for two patents for a private browsing mode in their next version of Internet Explorer — a feature already present in Safari, among other browsers."
Re:Trademarks, not patents! (Score:4, Interesting)
While there are always cases of people/co's being ridiculous, I think there's a very good argument for trademarks.
I don't want to pick up a Coke and get a Pepsi, an eee PC and find out it's not made by Asus, or buy an iPhone online and find out it's not the Apple iPhone.
Ok... that last one is a bad example. ;)
Re:Trademarks, not patents! (Score:5, Interesting)
Go read up on the nut trademarking "stealth" and tell me whether you think they are so good. He's trying to own the word, performing a DOS on the word itself. Trademarking a company name makes sense. Trademarking every single feature with a different name is a useless practice. It's easy to realize that "word processor" means different things if made by Microsoft vs IBM. If there was a shelf in a store with "Microsoft Word" next to "IBM Word" I do not think that a significant number of people would be confused, yet trademark law protects "word" from being used by anyone else. That's where it loses its usefulness.
The trademark identifies the manufacturer, and their reputation gives me an indication of the quality of hidden components.
And everyone tries to trademark every little feature. I've even seen marketing material with "The only Car/TV/chair/whatever with XXX" when XXX is nothing more than a trademarked name for a feature everyone else had. That's deceptive and works to harm the consumer's choice and knowledge, not add to it. Like copyrights, trademarks are a good idea that manages to fail in implementation. Yet no one seems the least bit interested in fixing it.
Re:Typical .. (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically:
1. Search for useful features (history, cache, saved entries)
2. Patent the removal of said features
3. ???
4. Profit!
I see the point of removing or disabling histories in a browserâ"it makes senseâ"but these are just added features that some very old or very basic browsers don't have.
How can you patent the removal of features? It's not "making" anything, it's just tearing down something that already exists and only putting some parts back when you build it again. Obviously not everyone wants those parts, hence "privacy-aware" browsers exist, but you can't patent that!
Re:First place I saw it was distrust (Score:2, Interesting)
It would be interesting to see a detailed comparison of the various options.
Rank at the top of the list something like browsing with Firefox under Ubuntu run from a Live CD (not even VM swap on disk then), and down at the bottom options that remove or prevent only visible-in-browser stuff like the history....
It has been a while since I looked, but some time ago I noticed that Safari used with some sites had many JPEG images left in the JAVA cache files even in Private Browsing mode, and a surprising amount of data in the logs.
Private isn't private if a tech savvy housemate can easily see such things directly or with utilities.
Re:Trademarks, not patents! (Score:3, Interesting)
When an organization can keep others from selling fake versions of its products as if they were the real thing, that is good.
When that organization uses trademark law to keep ANYONE from making unapproved references to it (like when Ford sues to stop publication of the Black Mustang Club's calendar even if it has a disclaimer saying it's not an official Ford product) that is very, very bad.
I agree with this, but will take it one step further.
The origin of federal trademark law is in fair trade law (no use of similar marks to confuse customers). When a trademark is used to protect consumers from harm, it is fulfilling its purpose; when it is used to provide an undue and/or unfair business advantage to the holder, it harms consumers and is operating counter to its intended nature.
Re:First place I saw it was distrust (Score:3, Interesting)
Highly recommended. I haven't found anything better.