Yahoo Patents 'Smart' Drag and Drop

Unequivocal writes "According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo has filed a patent for 'smart' drag and drop. From the article: 'A computer-implemented method for manipulating objects in a user interface, comprising: providing the user interface including a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface; and in response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, presenting at least one additional interface object in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object, each additional interface object representing a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated.' How do these patent claims differ from normal drag and drop? In pretty trivial ways if at all, but it may be hard for a patent examiner to understand that trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent. If Yahoo gets this patent, they'll have a mighty big stick to shake at competitors."

NeverWinter Nights

Wouldn't this describe NWN interface?
Drag, choose option, drag some more..

Re:

What about the task bar in Windows 95 and beyond? I can drag a file from an Explorer window to the task bar, make a Window get focus so I can drop it on that Window......

I don't understand from TFA (which I read...I did not read, however, TFPA) what makes

Re:

How is anybody supposed to program anything with the way these patents are worded? I have no clue what they are even talking about. Each patent should be able to explain something in plain english as to what they are actually patenting.

PhotoShop too

This also sounds a lot like Photoshop's guidelines that they've had for several years. There's got to be more to this patent than this.

A large mug

A large mug is what I'd call whoever granted this patent. Isn't it just a normal drag and drop crossed with some context sensitivity?

Re:

The headline says otherwise. Har, har, you read the article. LOLZ@U, N00B!!

No they won't

If Yahoo gets this patent, they'll have a mighty big stick to shake at competitors."

No they bloody well won't.

I have the patent [uspto.gov] for shaking a stick at competitors.

Re:No they won't

Maybe so, but *I* hold the patent on misdirected links, soooo, as my team of lawyers race after you for my millions... we will just call it even!

Misleading headline

They've applied for this patent. It has not granted yet. Seems like a small point but it isn't.

Prior art

How is this different from spring-loaded folders which have been in MacOS since before it was X?

Hey, something just occurred to me

Patent tax revenues are backdated to the day of filing. So patent trolls are claiming that all those inventions that were suddenly extant and infringing on day 0 didn't exist as prior art on day -1. They just appeared fully formed overnight.

How can anyone working in the patent racket sleep at night? It must be where lawyers end up when even child molesters, cannibals and politicians won't employ them any more.

What competitors?

Every windowing system in existence? How could Yahoo! possibly implement a drag-and-drop interface without the support of a window system that has already implemented it (whether they use the window system's native drag-and-drop or not)?

Seems similar to EVE Online

EVE:
-click on some object on screen (typically ship in space) and hold mouse button down
-several "drop targets" appear around selected object
-by "drag and drop" one of these "drop targets" can be selected. Each "drop target" launches a specific activity, l

Microsoft and Apple APIs

I would think that someone should send a copy of the Microsoft and Apple APIs and corresponding documentation for implementing "Drag and Drop" in Windows and in MacOS 9 / MacOS X. I suppose that this documentation would count as "published" because everyon

A way to fix all of this

Patent Examiners should post ALL technology-related patents onto Slashdot and then just wait to see what WE have to say about it =P

Re:

Oh, like we don't get enough dupes currently...

Apple has clear prior art, I'm sure others too

People are asking about traditional drag-n-drop or drag-n-menu, but let's try to be specific to the claims made. After reading them I am convinced Apple's "spring loaded folders" match the description. They were released in the 1990s, I believe in OS8.

"A computer-implemented method for manipulating objects in a user interface, comprising: providing the user interface including a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface;"

Since this is the "drag", this portion of the patent is prior-arted by just about everyone. Next...

"and in response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, presenting at least one additional interface object in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object, each additional interface object representing a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated.'

This is the key. Although other UIs might meet the first portion of this part of the claim, the second is more narrow. Specifically it has to open something near the first that is a drop target. Menus are not drop targets, so they don't apply. Launchers are not related to the original drop target, so they don't apply.

But spring loaded folders absolutely do. They opened in response to a "hesitant drop" over a folder, creating a new window under the cursor showing the contents folder (as if one had double-clicked it). This window is "at least one additional interface object", it is most definitely "near the first that is a drop target", it is definitely an "object representing a drop target", and finally, it is [related to] "the first interface object may be associated".

Flush.

Maury

The subsentence they forgot:

'on the internet' !

Prior concept from SIGGRAPH?

After skimming through the patent [peertopatent.org], it seems the "smart" component of this is in bringing the possible drop targets within close proximity to the object being dragged. I vaguely remember reading about a system of that nature in one of my SIGGRAPH conferenc

Prior LucasArts

Sounds like the interface of a LucasArts-adventure to me. If you pick up a banana the pointer changes and the environment reacts differently if you click on something.

Let's get as many of these granted as possible.

If every company submitting such silly and obvious pattent applications gets their way then the system is bound to collapse. Business as the USA knows it will come to a halt, because each and every piece of equipment is being threatened by dozens of lawsuits.

Fine. Let it happen. China and India will be more than happy to ignore US patents and create new economies on that. It's already happening and stupid stuff like this will only help to make the process go faster.

Bad patents are a drag...

But it looks like this isn't just plain old drag and drop. Can't say if it's patent worthy, or even something with no prior art. Read the article if you didn't get the difference from the description. My summary- It's sort of like they combined a right-

ProTools

has had this for years. Dragging/dropping in context of what the content is your manipulating - and then initiating an action (or series of).

Hell, anytime you've burned a CD in OSX by dragging to the trash can and it changes to a burning icon, you've just prior-arted Yahoo.

"trivial" changes

>>> How do these patent claims differ from normal drag and drop? In pretty trivial ways if at all, but it may be hard for a patent examiner to understand that trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent.

Firstly I think you're confusing novelty and "inventive step". Something is either novel or not, there are no degrees of novelty. . It's very easy to create something novel, by collocation for example, but there must be a synergy between the elements as any application can only cover one "invention". The inventive step is the difference between the "state of the art" and the patent being considered, whether that step is obvious is often the crucial point.

Looking at the claims (eg http://peertopatent.org/patent/20070234226/overview [peertopatent.org]; assuming they are copied correctly) then they seem to follow a pretty standard formula. Often (and in certain jurisdictions there's a benefit in this) the first claim is intended to be too broad. This means that the applicant gets an extra period of time for amending the patent before it can be granted and hence before fees have to be paid. Other reasons for broad claims are to get an overview of a field from the examiners perspective - they site a spread of patents that knock out your claim 1. The claim 1 in this case is to broad for this however.

The claims then branch off, methods, devices, systems each incorporating or excluding details of what might be the envisaged product. This way the broadest possible scope of monopoly is sort - it's an adversarial system really. So the article is bunk when it claims to be fighting overly broad patents - the applicant wouldn't want claim 1 to stand as such a patent wouldn't be enforceable as it's clearly invalid wrt the prior art.

Now back to that quote "trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent". Well the issue if indeed the steps are minor is that drag and drop interfaces are used by a plurality of users in a plurality of places (!). So the field is extremely well worked. A very minor change therefore is critical, it could easily corner the market. Say the change from a static to a dynamic "wait" cursor (egg-timer) - a minor alteration but a very significant one. Now we say such a change is obvious, but we have to assess this question from the time of filing (or more properly the priority date) and from the perspective of the man skilled in the GUI art and in possession of the common knowledge of the GUI field or research. Do citations in the field mean you could produce that inventive step without being inventive. Is it plainly obvious.

In any well worked field it appears to me that it's perfectly reasonable to argue that any small feature that can't be hit for lack of novelty must be inventive as otherwise it would appear in the prior art. That argument can't easily be refuted; though I think it lacks rigour, personally.

FWIW.

[I was a UK Patent Examiner a few years ago.]

Re:SIGCHI slashdotters could help out!

There may be prior art, but after carefully reading the patent, I suspect claim 1 may hold up. It uses the word 'presenting' confusingly, which can invalidate a claim, but the body of the patent makes it clear that 'presenting' means creating new objects on the screen that weren't there before in that location. If you drag an object, they might pop up a recyle bin right next to it, which otherwise wouldn't even be visible. I'm afraid this claim wont infringe any drag-and-drop application I've ever seen.

Two points: First, who cares if Yahoo patents some tiny area? This patent is so specific that few will ever feel the need to violate it. Second, this patent sucks because it's a software patent, not because it's obvious. I have several software patents. You need them in the US to protect your company from your competitor's software patents. However, the EU got it right when they rejected the concept. The world would be better off without them.