I'm curious... what happens to completely nonsensical and spurious patents like these? Does anyone actually treat them seriously? Is it just the case that filing a patent is cheap enough that they might as well file patents for any idea on the planet, just in the off chance they get to sue someone in the future for one of them? It really makes no sense to me.
I don't read that patent as nonsensical or spurious at all. Apple already uses "invisible" lights on their MacBook Pro computers to hide the LED next to the webcam. You only see the LED light up when the cam comes on. The rest of the time, it looks like part of the enclosure.
It looks like this patent goes a step beyond, and incorporates touch sensing to make that kind of LED into a virtual button.
I just noticed recently that on the unibody Macbook Pro the sleep LED on the edge of the body is hidden when off. It uses tiny perforations in the aluminum.
A lot of non-companies sit on patents like this and sue the shit out of bigger companies when they implement stuff like this into their product.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
Bigger companies patent this stuff to protect themselves. They can also abuse these patents too.
I think patents are just the "mine's bigger" for corporations.
In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass* , Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”
My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.” Steve was silent. - Jonathan Schwartz (http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis...)
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 32.4 ms ] threadIt looks like this patent goes a step beyond, and incorporates touch sensing to make that kind of LED into a virtual button.
In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass* , Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”
My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.” Steve was silent. - Jonathan Schwartz (http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis...)
Might want to update the headline.