[IxDA Discuss] Microsoft to license Office 2007 UI system
Jeff Axup
axup at userdesign.com
Tue Nov 28 08:33:08 PST 2006
I thank everyone who's pitched in on this topic - I'm certainly learning
some things.
To follow up on this rather difficult issue:
When I was in Australia (they have subtly different IP law there I
understand) I attended a few classes on IP, and also tried to commercialize
some research I was working on. The commercialization group said:
- "you can't patent ideas"
- My designs were not patentable because they did not have an algorithm,
business process, or highly refined hardware design as a component of the
work
- Thus any "IP" that existed in the designs was not actually defensible in a
court, and thus not worth pursuing in a practical sense.
- I did own copyright over the product documentation and visual designs
relating to the ideas, but the underlying product concept could be copied by
anyone who read the material.
So, even though I had a highly novel product concept, very simple
prototypes, and a business model of sorts, they didn't think they wanted to
go ahead with commercialization.
My conclusion from this at the time was that patenting a design concept
would be very difficult unless you had a refined hardware concept (for a
design patent), an underlying and unique algorithm assisting your UI widget
(algorithm patent), or a complex system of managing information related to
the widget/UI (business patent). I also concluded that sometimes when you
have a good product idea you should just run with it and get it into the
market while other people wait for patents to come through (the US is first
to invent right?).
Cheers,
Jeff
On 11/28/06, pauric <radiorental at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> While Dan's statement is true "useful, novel, and non-obvious", another
> way
> of looking at what can and cannot be patented is thinking about prior art.
> (Copyright is a completely different ballgame)
>
> Someone can patent a fragment of the human genome because they were the
> first to discover a use for it and write that down.
> http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/patents.shtml
>
> I was recently unable to patent a "useful, novel, and non-obvious" method
> of
> displaying and configuring Ethernet traffic, our lawyer was able to draw
> some correlation between my widget design and traffic lights even though
> the
> two a unrelated.
>
> However, and this is the part I still cant get my head around, when I was
> a
> chip designer I was able to get a patent for a very similar concept
> because
> the lawyer manged to word the concept in such a way that it avoided too
> much
> prior work while still being useful, novel, and non-obvious.
>
> http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6256318.PN.&OS=PN/6256318&RS=PN/6256318
>
> One final point. Avoid thinking about software/widgets/colours/flow or
> any
> such compartmental structure. The linked patent is an ASIC design, on a
> chip, written in a software language Verilog and drives both a web
> interface
> widget and physical UI LED. I'm not sure how you can avoid 'software
> patents' without a fundamental re-write of the law.
>
> I would imagine that MS are unable to patent the Office UI and this
> licence
> agreement is an alternative method to achieve the same result. Instead of
> legally forcing you to stop infringing on their hard work they simply
> flick
> a switch and shut your app down.
>
> Jeff raises a -very- interesting point "I'm pretty sure we're all free to
> create look-alike widgets in say AJAX" MS have market share in both OS
> and
> Browser. Once Google have their act together on security for their
> offering
> and start taking share, what's to stop MS applying this stance within the
> browser? Just throwing this out there, I know it sounds ridiculous, but
> stranger things have happened at sea.
>
> regards-pauric
>
> On 11/27/06, Jeff Axup <axup at userdesign.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Maybe I'm missing something, but I was under the impression that UI
> > features (e.g. widgets and look and feel) can't be patented and aren't
> > subject to copyright. MS might be able to require licences to interact
> > with their system or use an SDK, but I'm pretty sure we're all free to
> > create look-alike widgets in say AJAX and use them as we like. Amazon
> > patented the one-click ordering feature, but I believe that was more
> > about the underlying ordering system, which probably falls under a
> > work-process patent? Do we know any software patent attorneys we can
> > query?
> >
> > -Jeff
> >
> >
> >
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> > Jeff Axup Ph.D. Candidate - University of Queensland, Brisbane,
> > Australia
> > Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design
> > Consulting
> > Currently based in Washington, USA
> >
> > Research: Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group
> > Usability
> > E-mail: axup <at> userdesign.com
> > Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com
> > Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com
> > Academic: http://www.infenv.itee.uq.edu.au
> >
> >
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> >
> >
> >
> > On 11/27/06, Jared M. Spool <jspool at uie.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Nov 27, 2006, at 4:52 AM, Matthias Mueller-Prove wrote:
> > >
> > > > Can anyone explain to me (rhetorical question) why UI concepts that
> > > > are around for about 10 years are subject to a MS license?
> > >
> > > In war, the victors write the license agreements...
> > >
> > > Jared
> > > ________________________________________________________________
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--
Best Regards,
Jeff
____________________________________________________________________________
Jeff Axup Ph.D. Candidate - University of Queensland, Brisbane,
Australia
Principal Consultant, Mobile Community Design Consulting
Currently based in Washington, USA
Research: Mobile Group Research Methods, Social Networks, Group Usability
E-mail: axup <at> userdesign.com
Blog: http://mobilecommunitydesign.com
Moblog: http://memeaddict.blogspot.com
Academic: http://www.infenv.itee.uq.edu.au
____________________________________________________________________________
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