Bonum Certa Men Certa

Design Patents (e.g. Sliders) Are Becoming as Much of a Problem as Software Patents

Copyright already covers many designs, so why extend so-called 'protection' to the vastly broader domain of patents?

Slide to unlock
Slide to unlock: put it on a computer and you're apparently a genius deserving a patent



Summary: A fine demonstration of how dumb a lot of patents in the United States have become, including so-called 'design' patents that pertain to an abstraction on a computer (hence software patents)

IN SOME sense, many design patents are inherently software patents, as schematics attached to patent applications often serve to show. I have personally reviewed some patents before, so I know how particular lawyers -- not programmers -- try to give a 'life' (or a form) to algorithms by drawing things*. Doodles are not algorithms. They're often a spurious presentation that attempts to give a physical form to something which is inherently abstract. It can mislead examiners and judges, presumably by intention. Just look at the many post-Alice articles composed by patent lawyers; just look at the tips they're giving to one another. They almost self-incriminate.



"Doodles are not algorithms. They're often a spurious presentation that attempts to give a physical form to something which is inherently abstract."Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols called Microsoft's latest high-profile patent attack "design patent wars" and said that the "Electronic Frontier Foundation has declared "User Interface for a Portion of a Display Screen" to be this month's stupid patent. Here's what's really going on between Microsoft and Corel over the Office ribbon design patent."

We wrote about this in last week's coverage regarding Corel. "The EFF named Microsoft's design patent for a slider as its Stupid Patent of the Month," one person wrote to us, just over a week after it all happened. But actually, it's more of a software patent, or something in the blurry line/s between design and software (like interface elements).

"Just because one takes something that has existed for thousands of years before computers (like a fence/gate's metal or wooden lock) and draw it on a computer with some callback function/s doesn't (or shouldn't) make it magically patent-worthy, just as doing something "over the Internet" doesn't make old and trivial ideas patent-eligible."Consider today's patent lawyers' views [1, 2] about Apple's attacks on Samsung, which include the infamous slide-to-unlock patent (slider again, amongst other patents). And speaking of sliding, how about the "LANDSLIDE article" mentioned by Patently-O today? "And as a larger policy issue," said the author, "it’s questionable whether verbal claim dissection is either desirable or appropriate in the context of design patents. The better approach may be, as Chris Carani argued in the LANDSLIDE article mentioned above, to simply instruct juries “that design patents only protect the appearance of the overall design depicted in the drawings, and not any functional attributes, purposes or characteristics embodied in the claimed design.”"

We wrote quite a lot about Apple's so-called 'design' patents (in principle software patents) more than half a decade ago when Apple's patent war against Linux/Android began. When authors mention terms like "design patents" it would only be fair to read or interpret this as software patents, or a particular subclass of these. These patents don't allude to any physical thing like a bar that you slide, only an abstraction thereof. Just because one takes something that has existed for thousands of years before computers (like a fence/gate's metal or wooden lock) and draw it on a computer with some callback function/s doesn't (or shouldn't) make it magically patent-worthy, just as doing something "over the Internet" doesn't make old and trivial ideas patent-eligible. Then again, this is what the USPTO brought about with its laughable quality control. ____ * I am a software professional with experience both as a programmer and a researcher, having reviewed papers for the world's top international journals (even in my twenties), which meant I needed to identify prior art (existing/published research) in areas like computer vision and machine learning.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Contingencies, GTD, and Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: Economic Races, Charm Offensives, and USB-C Rants
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: "Infantilization at Big Tech" and LLM Slop Abused in Defiance of Workplace Rules/Policies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Palm Addiction and Real Experts
Links for the day
Egypt is Controlled by Google, Not Microsoft
Moving from Microsoft to Google is not the answer
Microsofters Say They Cannot Find a Job (That They Want) Because of Techrights, But Techrights Merely Reported on Their Behaviour
Quit pointing the finger at people who are recipients of abuse or merely mention the abuse
Free Software and Standards - Not Marketing Blitz - Needed Amid Growing Severity of Dependency on Hostile Suppliers (or Another Country's Sovereignty)
ZenDiS can be described as the "Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration"
When It Comes to the Web, Google is Evil and It Destroys the Web's Integrity With LLM Slop
Even academia, which is meant to keep standards high, is being lured into LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 18, 2025
Links 18/04/2025: "Fentanylware (TikTok) Exodus Continues", Chinese Weapons Allegedly in Russia Already
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Price of Games and State of Tinylog
Links for the day
Sounds Like IBM is Preparing for Mass Layoffs/Redundancies in Red Hat, Albeit in "PIP" (Performance Improvement Plan) or "Relocation" Clothing
This isn't the "old" IBM; they're applying pressure by confusion and humiliation
Gemini Links 17/04/2025: Role of Language and Back to Mutt for E-mail
Links for the day
"Sayonara" (さよなら), Microsoft
Windows had fallen below iOS in some countries
Links 18/04/2025: Layoffs at Microsoft Infosys and Qt Becoming Increasingly Proprietary (Plus Slop)
Links for the day
Google News is Dying
treating MElon's algorithmic/biased site as a source of verified news
Microsoft's Attack Dogs Have Failed. Now What?
It would be utterly foolish to assume that Microsoft has any intention of changing
All Your "Github Projects" Will be Gone One Day (Just Like Skype)
If you have code you wish to share and keep, then start learning how to do so on your own
To Understand Who's Truly Controlling You Follow the Trail of Censorship (or Self-Censorship)
Do not let media steal and steer the narrative; CoCs are not about "social justice", they're about corporate domination
Fedora Already Lost Its Soul Under IBM
Fedora used to be very strict compared to many other distros and it had attracted very bright volunteers
Microsoft is Still Attacking GNU/Linux and the Net
Microsoft bribed the government using money that did not even exist
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 17, 2025
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Pinephone Pro and Linux is too Easy
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2025: Calling Whistleblowers at Microsoft, Slop Doing More Harm Everywhere
Links for the day
Links 17/04/2025: Russian Bot Farms Infect TikTok (Which US Government and SCOTUS Decided to Block January 19), US Hardware Stocks Crash Due to Tariffs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/04/2025: Sticking to Free Software, Smolnet, and Counting the Reals
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: In Conclusion and Enforcement Action Proceeds Against OSI at the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)
There's too much to cover in one single part
When You Fail to Filter Your Clients You End Up SLAPPing Reporters on Behalf of Bad People From Microsoft in Another Continent
“American Psycho”
Links 17/04/2025: LayoffBot and Tesla Cheats Buyers
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 16, 2025