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I'm suing Apple, Google and Microsoft, I NEED A BAILOUT!!!

Throw in some TARP funds too while your at it!!!

Extend Socialism right into lawsuits!! Then when everyone files for bankruptcy, the lawyers clean up yet again.

Oh, thank you Barney Frank and Senator Dodd for pushing Freddie and Fannie, as well as lowering loan approvals at banks into accepting so much SUB-PRIME mortgages. Oh thank you...

Now wonder why Mac's have gone up in price lately?

Yea, these patent trolls...

Dec 29, 08 - 01:14 pm Comment from: Murasaki

Bartender, I'll have whatever their lawyers are drinking.

uhhh.....accessing files via a graphical icon!

Gee...that's never used in anything these days?

I'm patenting the method of moving one's legs back and forth to produce a forward motion...I think it's going to be HUGE!

Dec 29, 08 - 01:26 pm Comment from: Lurker_PC

Here's another article on the same story:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081226-microsoft-apple-google-sued-over-icon-software-patent.html

Peace.

I'm patenting the method of moving one's legs back and forth to produce a forward motion...

And I'm patenting the method of moving one's body back and forth...

...so if anyone wants to have s*x they have to get a license from me!!

muhhahlalala!!

Oh yea, I agree with WAAAAAHHH, Senator Dodd and Barney Frank should be tried, tarred and feathered, ran out of Washington for what they did.

Socialized sub-prime housing for illegal aliens and deadbeats, now we ALL have to pay.

Of course, without their criminality the stock market might not have collasped and Bernie Madoff would have kept on bilking people out of billions....

One crime exposes another...

Dec 29, 08 - 01:37 pm Comment from: jtc

@WAAAAAH!!!!

"Now wonder why Mac's have gone up in price lately?"

They have??

Sorry Pounce, but I'm guessing I'm probably older than you (38.5), so I've been using this forward-leg motion system longer than you, thus I have precedence.

Therefore, I am suing you on patent infringement! You can't patent what I've had in the market first.

Seriously, any real judge should toss this "case" before it even gets off the ground...

Best yet, let's go the Japanese route, and if you sue and lose, you pay for all the fees the defendant has rolled up. That'll stop this crap cold! Can you imagine all the whiplash cases that will no longer clog our courtrooms, or the "companies" like Cygnus that would need to fork over money to pay for Apple's legal team/s once the lose. Yeah, 10 million+ to shell out no longer looks like an easy settle out of court money grab.

Side note: As to what WHAAA!!! posted, a big support group behind Obama was/is - the attorney lobby - so don't count on any further torte reform, but expanded unions (more lawsuits, less competitiveness), and more lawyers and suits abounding over the next 4 - 8 years (at least very likely...). But I'll hold off entire judgement until I see what bills he brings to the table. I'm just pointing out a big likelihood of what we voted into office, but I digress into politics, so I'll stop while I'm not ahead!

How do you get a patent in 2008 based on 'The '850 Patent generally relates to methods of and systems for accessing one or more computer files via a graphical icon, wherein the graphical icon includes an image of a selected portion or portions of the one or more computer files,'" What has happened to the Patent office. Does anybody know or understand what prior art is? "Prior art (also known as state of the art, which also has other meanings), in most systems of patent law,[1] constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid." (Wikipedia) Xerox was using something similar over 25 years ago in its work stations. We are now, and for the past dozen years, patenting vague concepts and vague business practices that were not patentable in the history of the patent office. They are so vague as to defy logic or explanation in their reach and scope.

Dec 29, 08 - 02:04 pm Comment from: Cubert

Back to the topic at hand:

This sounds like one of those companies that trolls around looking for obvious things that no one has thought of to patent.

I wonder if the wheel has been patented yet.....

Dec 29, 08 - 02:11 pm Comment from: Galloway

Does the patent office even READ these things before they grant them?

GraphicConverter has been able to change the icon of an image to a thumbnail of the image since what, 1992? I'm sure other apps have done that too.

How is that not an example of prior art? Un-fsck-ing believable!

Throw all the bums out!

Let's bail out Washington DC! We can start by throwing out all of the Congress and Senate along with their staff. Then we can start tossing out all of the bureaucrats, including the IRS and EPA. Next we'll toss out the Department of Education and all of the other absolutely useless departments and agencies that accomplish nothing, but get hundreds of billions of dollars in funding.

This boat is sinking fast and I've got a great big bucket!

Actually, it was ex-Prez Bill Clinton who made changes to the Community Reinvestment Act to force banks to accept sub-prime mortgages, but he thought the economy was doing good enough to play around with a little socialized risk sub-prime housing.

Naturally during the real estate bubble Frank and Dodd drove a semi though the CRI to derail the presidents success with the economy.

Funny how everything went to hell AFTER democrats took the Congress? Then they blame the outgoing administration and get even more corrupts democrats elected.

noticed how they lynched a 70 year old republican senator who had a few hundred thousand spent on his house by contributers, but then fail to disclose they received hundreds of thousands from the corrupt officials of Freddie and Fannie.

Obama already proven dirty by association with that corrupt Governor of Illinois, he hasn't even taken office yet!!

Yep, 2009 will be the year of corruption, and no opposition to root out and finger the criminals.

Dec 29, 08 - 02:20 pm Comment from: qka

Sorry Sherm, et al., but my neighbor at 101 is claiming prior art on all of us.

She's a nice old lady - she's putting the ideas into the public domain. Now we can all walk for free.

And I am patenting breathing, so you guys better learn how to hold your breath for a very long time.

Wouldn't this be prior art? I mean OS X had this for some time now (not sure if Leopard was first to have it.)

Dec 29, 08 - 02:23 pm Comment from: Yours Smugly

Now even patent trolling is "socialism"?? Seriously. People have no idea what they're talking about.

Patent trolls/whores are, if anything, the ugly bastard sons and daughters of American capitalism.

@RGKahn,

This is about icons that "show" preview of the document, like PDF or text file in Leopard, you can see the first page as icon.

Dec 29, 08 - 02:28 pm Comment from: MCCFR

Several weeks ago, I was criticised disproportionately for bringing a jokey reference to socialism - complete with smiley emoticon - into an article.

I was told how dare I bring politics into the unsullied world of Mac Daily News. Particularly anything that might poke fun at Rush Limbaugh.

Interesting that the same people aren't commenting here.

Obviously that Republican hypocrisy runs deep in the 25%'ers here on MDN.

BTW, Waaah and POUNCE, you're wrong: the reason you have to pay now has very little to do with Dodd, Frank, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The total exposure to "bad" sub-prime loans was no more than about $150 billion; a large figure in itself but a mere fraction of the total global banking bailout.

The real reason you are paying now is the introduction on 12/15/2000 of something called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. The CFMA - authored by Phil Gramm, who is now officially an employee of the banking industry as opposed to simply being a major recipient of banking lobby dollars, effectively removed the swaps market from SEC or CFTC oversight. Gramm had for many years emasculated the SEC and its ability to do its job, by refusing to increase its budget in line with its increased workload.

Because there were no rules and no oversight, the finance industry effectively overbooked billions of dollars of insurance on all kinds of debt including credit cards. Everyone thought that there was an infinite pool of capital and no substantive risk - it turns out that the Masters of the Universe were wrong.

Sub-prime was a bad seed, but it was fertilised and watered by a sea of arcane derivatives including CDOs and CDSs which is where people like WaMu, AIG and Lehman Bros lost their heads, followed by losing their shirts.

In fact, anyone who continually tried to maintain a credit-fuelled lifestyle by continually re-mortgaging on sub-prime (11% is better than 29% after all) has something to answer for: but retail banks who never checked on income and investment banks who thought they could sell the same risk twenty times over are far more to blame. These people were the equivalent of Bialystock and Bloom in The Producers - they took in lots of money thinking they'd never had to pay out and they were wrong.

Just because the guys on Faux Noise or right-wing schlock radio don't want to concede that the "free market" screwed up and they want to deflect the blame on the left doesn't mean you should live in ignorance.

@WHAAAAA!!!!

We are in the mess we are due to deregulation pushed through by you idiot Republicans. The Democrats had slim majorities in Congress the past two years that could not override filibusters by the Republicans or vetoes by the moron in the White House.

Just how much would Republicans have to run everything into the ground before you would pull your head out and realize that you guys suck at running things. Stop with your lame rationalizations and start seeing the reality that's in front of you. I am a former Republican, and I am ashamed of my former party now, and I have nothing but contempt and disdain for idiots like you who will never get it.

I know what I'll hear from you imbeciles when things start working again under Obama, "the policies of George W. Bush are finally kicking in." Please do the world a favor and don't reproduce.

Dec 29, 08 - 03:05 pm Comment from: Shadowself

This is THE perfect example of how the patent system is **BROKEN**. (And I say that as someone who has several patents.)

The patent auditors who are issuing a patent like this should be fired (and maybe even jailed) for pure stupidity.

I have a patent pending that "generally relates to methods of and systems for assessing one's heartbeat via a graphical proxy or icon, wherein the graphical icon includes a visible pulsing or image at the wrist of a selected portion or portions of the one or more beats of the heart"

That should cover most or all mammals, now what to do for insect and plant life? Hmmmmmm ...

"Obama already proven dirty by association with that corrupt Governor of Illinois, he hasn't even taken office yet!!"

Please slither back up Rush Limbaugh's asshole. Thank you.

Dec 29, 08 - 07:09 pm Comment from: mossman

Yet another reason why software patents should not be allowed.

apple would be better if the make a giant single pedal capable of make lots of stuff and also substitute all pedals on a car,that would be genius,but the idea was mine and its published on the net.Not to mention that supose unipedal can make lots of stuff and its easy to build and put on a car and make it running with electronics attached to cars console.

"This sounds like one of those companies that trolls around looking for obvious things that no one has thought of to patent."

You are not supposed to be able to patent the obvious.

Could we please fire the patent officers who make these bonehead grants?