Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

manytricks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 141 posts

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#31

Post by tyingq »

geocar wrote: post #22
tyingq wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a section "Description of the Related Art" in the patent which makes references to existing (at that time, year 2008) approaches and why they are not good enough In that section, it mostly compares itself to Microsoft Windows' stacking (not tiling) window manager. There's no comparison to ANY of the already existing tiling window managers. It was filed on June 2nd, 2008. There were a ton of tiling oriented…

The patent doesn't appear to describe tiling window management, but the composition of a window layout using a number of menu options that integrate neatly with the existing environment's window controls, and that visually demonstrate their effect. Indeed the patent describes a user interface to accomplish this that looks very similar to screenshots of Moom. My experience with the USPTO is that statements like "I don…

>The patent doesn't appear to describe tiling window management

It does though. The screenshots show grid options, and describe how the end user can place windows in the grid. It specifically complains about how MS Windows has overlapping windows. Grid + no overlap == tiling.

>Indeed the patent describes a user interface to accomplish this that looks very similar to screenshots of Moom.

Sure. The argument about "novel" is that the patent holder wasn't the first to do something "similar to Moom". The idea that 2008 was the first time someone had the notion of grid layouts and allowing an end user to place a window in them is just silly.

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#32

Post by ivanbakel »

altern8tif wrote: post #4

There's something fundamentally broken about the patent system.

It's difficult to say where the fault lies. I would rather live in a world of patents than not, if we insist on sticking to the idea of not forcing research and discoveries into the public domain. What would have prevented this particular case?

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#33

Post by geocar »

asdfgadsfgasfdg wrote: post #29
geocar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A judge is not going to skim the patent. They will patiently read each and every independent claim, and evaluate whether Moom implements any of them. In evaluating claims 1 and 2 (¶9) I imagine that a judge will get to this screenshot[1] and compare it to this diagram[2] and ask the authors of Moom for their justification. This justification can indeed be that it isn't novel, but I do not think the judge is likely to…

> because the patent examiner did indeed grant the patent. I am not a patent lawyer but I don't think that how it works. The patent examiner is not qualified to do and does not do an exhaustive check for novelness. They mainly do a procedural check.

I've been through the process both in the US and in Europe.

"Exhaustive" has a specific legal definition.

The examiner indeed identifies existing work[1] and asks for an explanation.

They usually focus on existing grants, but they also look at other applications (that are published). They do not have to pay as much attention to un-filed prior art because the US uses a "first-to-file"[2] system.

[1]: https://www.google.com/patents/US20090300541#backward-citati...

[2]: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/aia_implementation...

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#34

Post by ar-jan »

wereHamster wrote: post #7
Plugawy wrote: post #3

Interesting, I guess there's so much prior work around* it should be easy to dismiss the patent. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager

Please go read the patent, it describes an "apparatus and method" that is much more advanced than traditional tiling window managers. The patent doesn't even compare to simple terminal based tiling of sub-shells. It also describes a GUI to control the positions, and describes in detail how it's supposed to work. There is a section "Description of the Related Art" in the patent which makes references to existing (at t…

I used to use GridMove [0], which looks quite similar. This was certainly prior to 2008, though I can't find a version history right now.

0: http://jgpaiva.dcmembers.com/gridmove.html

Edit: first alpha version May 30 2006 (http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=3824.msg2...).

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#35

Post by amelius »

asdfgadsfgasfdg wrote: post #29
geocar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A judge is not going to skim the patent. They will patiently read each and every independent claim, and evaluate whether Moom implements any of them. In evaluating claims 1 and 2 (¶9) I imagine that a judge will get to this screenshot[1] and compare it to this diagram[2] and ask the authors of Moom for their justification. This justification can indeed be that it isn't novel, but I do not think the judge is likely to…

> because the patent examiner did indeed grant the patent. I am not a patent lawyer but I don't think that how it works. The patent examiner is not qualified to do and does not do an exhaustive check for novelness. They mainly do a procedural check.

Yes, and they have an incentive to pass as many patents as possible (because more patents is more money).

Re: Moom removed from sale due to patent violation claim

#38

Post by idbehold »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #2

Oh dear. I guess Spectacle (the app I use that does a similar thing) will be on a pretty long list of those to follow.

Does Spectical have a grid UI like that? I've only ever used keyboard shortcuts to position the windows using it. If it doesn't have that grid UI selector thing then I think it's fine.
Post reply on HN