9 ms·

I don't think nitpicking, saying "this is just a slider, you can't patent it" or "ms copied all concepts from xerox and apple lisa" is rational in this situatio

by ayi 11y ago

I don't think nitpicking, saying "this is just a slider, you can't patent it" or "ms copied all concepts from xerox and apple lisa" is rational in this situation. Because this patent is not about these subjects. Just look at the bigger picture: Corel copied Office suite apps almost pixel by pixel. I would be pretty angry after seeing this to screenshots: This is Office Excel: http://weborb.gcflearnfree.org/weborbassets/uploads/ID_82/workbook_2.png http://weborb.gcflearnfree.org/weborbassets/uploads/ID_82/wo... This is Corel Calc: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/software/detail-page/CorelCalc_LG.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/software... Even the shade of blue is the same.

chrisfosterelli 11y ago
Indeed. The actual complaint that the EFF links to isn't because they copied their slider, it's that the entire interface as a whole has been copied and that they go as far as to call it the "Microsoft Word mode" in their documentation. I would agree a patent for a slider is a little ridiculous, but this is quite a bit more than that.
- nailer 11y ago
  It's blue, uses tabbed toolbars, and gel effects. None of those things are new (though Microsoft really, really wants to pretend it invented tabbed toolbars). Yes, they look the same, and Corel is certainly making the same UI choices Microsoft did so their users coming from Microsoft platforms feel more familiar. Do we want to stop companies from doing that?
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    Yes. We likely do want to stop companies from attempting to steal users by literally aping the interface from a more successful competitor that spent millions of dollars in UI/UX/HUI research to develop it (opinions on the Office Ribbon notwithstanding). If you cut the title bar off the two screenshots in the previous post, I think most people would be at a loss to tell you which was actually Excel.
    - tamana 11y ago
      When you are a monopoly platform as well as an app provider, you have to give your sharecroppers a little leeway. No one is "stealing users" here.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      The point of UI/UX/HUI guidelines is to ensure consistency of applications' look&feel. Under detailed guidelines, two applications doing exactly the same thing should look exactly the same. If both Microsoft and Corel are aiming for an optimum spreadsheet, the UI of their applications should converge.
      - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
        Exactly. People seem to be suggesting that making it a shade of green instead of blue would make the problem disappear (although, isn't that based on the OS theme?) Or should Corel use a completely different icon for 'copy', for example?
      - paulojreis 11y ago
        > The point of UI/UX/HUI guidelines is to ensure consistency of applications' look&feel. That's not the focus of UX, at all. Consistency is not an end in itself, it's just a way to achieve predictability and, in consequence, ease-of-use. It's important but not that much (not everyone is an engineer or homo logicus - people do tolerate inconsistency, as incredible as it might seem). Maybe you're thinking this or focusing on UI implementation guidelines. UI/UX (I don't know what you mean by HUI) guidelines should be heuristics/rules of the thumb aimed at ensuring your digital product serves your users in their usage contexts. e.g. saying the button should be blue isn't that much relevant; however, saying "you need an explicit button to confirm a given kind of action" is. > Under detailed guidelines, two applications doing exactly the same thing should look exactly the same. I just quoted this to illustrate how wrongly you are conceiving UX: you're focusing only on the "thing" being done. But UX - even the most square definitions of usability such as ISO 9241 - cares about "who" does it and in which context. So, two applications doing the same thing may look radically different, if used by different people and/or in different contexts. I also think you focus too much on the "look" aspect.
  - Nutmog 11y ago
    In its own ribbon guidelines, Microsoft encourages UI designers to use the same tab names, icons and icon locations that are already familiar to people. Their examples of "correct" designs are taken straight from MS Office. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742393(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn7...
cturner 11y ago
DR-DOS was a clean-room reimplementation of MS-DOS. Linux is a reimplementation of unix. Fender guitars work remarkably like Gibson guitars. The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. Nothing wrong with it. If you don't allow people to copy interfaces - where does that end? Does that mean that APIs should be protected from being copied?
- ayi 11y ago
  You are totally right and i'm against patenting such obvious design choices like Apple's patent for "slide to unlock" and "glass with rounded corners". I'm not defending MS, just trying to explain the rationale behind this situation because the article is pretty shallow.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. That's an interesting point in more than one way. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious but Mercedes is a high-end car manufacturer while Mazda chiefly serves cars to the middle-class and in the case of the Mazda 2 - this generation's People's Car. By aggressively protecting designs then only the rich (well, Mercedes isn't super high-end but it's an aspirational brand) can adopt new technologies, which means the markets for new technologies are tied to the speed at which wealth increases (that includes the rate at which adoption at the high-end subsidises the cost at the low-end). It stunts the speed at which we advance collectively.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    It's a good illustration of the general point - progress is driven by how many independent eyeballs we can have looking at the problem. Any form of limiting access to knowledge or technology limits progress in that domain.
    - mhuffman 11y ago
      This is a very important point, because the original intent of copyrights and patents was not for corporations or people to get rich, but, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The entire purpose of copyright and patent is to promote progress. It has transformed into a capitalistic weapon that corporations use to muscle competition and slow progress.
Too 11y ago
Isn't the ribbon part of the widget-library included in the Windows APIs? If you use widgets from the same library it will obviously look the same. Although this case is a bit extreme, the order of the buttons and everything is a carbon copy, if the title bar was removed i would have a hard time telling which one is Corel and which one is Excel, and I'm a daily Excel user.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  MS Office is used as an example of the "right" way of doing UX on Windows. It includes button order, names, etc. Under these constraints all decently made spreadsheet programs should basically look the same. "Carbon-copy same" is improbable in practice, but "mostly same" is what's expected.
martin-adams 11y ago
So I looked at the Corel Calc image thinking that was Excel that I was looking at. I think this is the point, they look so similar that to the untrained eye, someone can't tell it's not Office. This is crucial when promoting such a product making people think they are getting Office for $30. I can never quite get my head around what constitutes a patent and what constitutes copyright infringement. To me this would fall under copyright infringement. However, I do understand the patentable idea of workflow that makes the process of using a spreadsheet more efficient. This is generally as a result of research and development and as such, may be subject to what has been patented as a whole. The positioning of the elements are designed for optimal workflow which makes Office unique. Someone simply copying it without their own investment of research and development does give them an unfair competitive advantage (until they get sued and lose).
- lmm 11y ago
  > I can never quite get my head around what constitutes a patent and what constitutes copyright infringement. To me this would fall under copyright infringement. I think both those are the wrong thing if your concern is buyers getting confused. Trademarks are the way to address that: MS should have a distinctive, trademarked logo for Office, feature it in their advertising or the like, and aggressively pursue anyone else who uses the same logo in their products.
  - martin-adams 11y ago
    Yes, you're right. Trademark is definitely designed for that. Having said that though, I know you can trademark names and designs. But with designs, I guess it's confusing what constitutes a trademark infringement or just plain old copyright infringement.
    - lmm 11y ago
      There's no rule that a particular act can't be both (though I don't think purely functional design is copyrightable).
voidz 11y ago
But on the other hand, if you're Microsoft, you've done the same thing so often that it's logical outsiders think you're extremely hypocritical when pulling stunts like this.
S_A_P 11y ago
You too can build an app that copies excel with any of the major win forms tool suites. DevExpress, infragistics, telerik all even offer app control templates called "Office <year>". These basically are the office UI with some of the event handlers stubbed out. My point is that I don't think that MS cares if you rip off their UI and I bet they even encourage it. I think MS wants Windows / Office apps to look like Windows or office.
marcosdumay 11y ago
And so what? They get away with enforcing completely obvious patent because they have reason to be mad?
ak39 11y ago
I wonder how Corel overcame the restrictions on the use of Microsoft's Ribbon component.
- thomasahle 11y ago
  Licensing restrictions?
robotcookies 11y ago
The case could be made that Corel did this to make it easier for users who used one product to find things in the other. I use both macs and pcs and I still get confused because the command button is on the inner while ctrl on pcs is on the outer. You need cmd-w to close while you use ctrl-w on pcs to close. I really wish one would copy the other and make the exact same keyboard. The layout in Excel is not special or better than other layouts. The point of patents is to protect ideas that are unique and improve. By enforcing patents on layouts which are not specifically improvements, you're really just trying to create an artificial moat that makes it harder for consumers to switch products or use more than one. That is bad for consumers and it hurts innovation.
- cwyers 11y ago
  The layout of Excel is a product of probably more spending on researching how people actually use a spreadsheet than everyone else has spent on the question combined. It's incredibly special.
  - quadrangle 11y ago
    And if we removed government-backed monopolies on these designs it would hurt the development of these things or what? Just pointing out that serious work could go into a design and still not be a good public-interest decision to let it be patented. Probably the restrictiveness hurts innovation more than it helps.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
talmand 11y ago
Is it possible the shade of blue matching is because of user choices in Windows color scheme?
alanh 11y ago
This might look like a pixel-for-pixel copy for someone who isn't very familiar with Windows 7, but Jesus, I don’t see anything wrong here. 1. The general look and feel is the same. So? That’s just fitting into the platform, having a native look & feel. 2. The general spreadsheet UI wasn’t invested by Microsoft... 3. The icons here are not, in fact, pixel-for-pixel copies... 4. The "ribbon" or tabbed/dynamic interface at the top is also not pixel-for-pixel... 5. The whole UI paradigm is, as you mention, from Xerox/Apple; tabs, icons, buttons, scrollbars, cursors: it's all just another remix... 6. And lastly but most significantly, I think we can excuse an underdog for trying to make software that would be easily usable to people who are most used to the competing suite from an established monopoly vendor!

by ayi 11y ago

chrisfosterelli 11y ago

Indeed. The actual complaint that the EFF links to isn't because they copied their slider, it's that the entire interface as a whole has been copied and that they go as far as to call it the "Microsoft Word mode" in their documentation. I would agree a patent for a slider is a little ridiculous, but this is quite a bit more than that.

nailer 11y ago
It's blue, uses tabbed toolbars, and gel effects. None of those things are new (though Microsoft really, really wants to pretend it invented tabbed toolbars). Yes, they look the same, and Corel is certainly making the same UI choices Microsoft did so their users coming from Microsoft platforms feel more familiar. Do we want to stop companies from doing that?
- mattlutze 11y ago
  Yes. We likely do want to stop companies from attempting to steal users by literally aping the interface from a more successful competitor that spent millions of dollars in UI/UX/HUI research to develop it (opinions on the Office Ribbon notwithstanding). If you cut the title bar off the two screenshots in the previous post, I think most people would be at a loss to tell you which was actually Excel.
  - tamana 11y ago
    When you are a monopoly platform as well as an app provider, you have to give your sharecroppers a little leeway. No one is "stealing users" here.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    The point of UI/UX/HUI guidelines is to ensure consistency of applications' look&feel. Under detailed guidelines, two applications doing exactly the same thing should look exactly the same. If both Microsoft and Corel are aiming for an optimum spreadsheet, the UI of their applications should converge.
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      Exactly. People seem to be suggesting that making it a shade of green instead of blue would make the problem disappear (although, isn't that based on the OS theme?) Or should Corel use a completely different icon for 'copy', for example?
    - paulojreis 11y ago
      > The point of UI/UX/HUI guidelines is to ensure consistency of applications' look&feel. That's not the focus of UX, at all. Consistency is not an end in itself, it's just a way to achieve predictability and, in consequence, ease-of-use. It's important but not that much (not everyone is an engineer or homo logicus - people do tolerate inconsistency, as incredible as it might seem). Maybe you're thinking this or focusing on UI implementation guidelines. UI/UX (I don't know what you mean by HUI) guidelines should be heuristics/rules of the thumb aimed at ensuring your digital product serves your users in their usage contexts. e.g. saying the button should be blue isn't that much relevant; however, saying "you need an explicit button to confirm a given kind of action" is. > Under detailed guidelines, two applications doing exactly the same thing should look exactly the same. I just quoted this to illustrate how wrongly you are conceiving UX: you're focusing only on the "thing" being done. But UX - even the most square definitions of usability such as ISO 9241 - cares about "who" does it and in which context. So, two applications doing the same thing may look radically different, if used by different people and/or in different contexts. I also think you focus too much on the "look" aspect.
- Nutmog 11y ago
  In its own ribbon guidelines, Microsoft encourages UI designers to use the same tab names, icons and icon locations that are already familiar to people. Their examples of "correct" designs are taken straight from MS Office. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742393(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn7...

cturner 11y ago

DR-DOS was a clean-room reimplementation of MS-DOS. Linux is a reimplementation of unix. Fender guitars work remarkably like Gibson guitars. The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. Nothing wrong with it. If you don't allow people to copy interfaces - where does that end? Does that mean that APIs should be protected from being copied?

ayi 11y ago
You are totally right and i'm against patenting such obvious design choices like Apple's patent for "slide to unlock" and "glass with rounded corners". I'm not defending MS, just trying to explain the rationale behind this situation because the article is pretty shallow.
icanhackit 11y ago
The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. That's an interesting point in more than one way. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious but Mercedes is a high-end car manufacturer while Mazda chiefly serves cars to the middle-class and in the case of the Mazda 2 - this generation's People's Car. By aggressively protecting designs then only the rich (well, Mercedes isn't super high-end but it's an aspirational brand) can adopt new technologies, which means the markets for new technologies are tied to the speed at which wealth increases (that includes the rate at which adoption at the high-end subsidises the cost at the low-end). It stunts the speed at which we advance collectively.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It's a good illustration of the general point - progress is driven by how many independent eyeballs we can have looking at the problem. Any form of limiting access to knowledge or technology limits progress in that domain.
  - mhuffman 11y ago
    This is a very important point, because the original intent of copyrights and patents was not for corporations or people to get rich, but, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The entire purpose of copyright and patent is to promote progress. It has transformed into a capitalistic weapon that corporations use to muscle competition and slow progress.

Too 11y ago

Isn't the ribbon part of the widget-library included in the Windows APIs? If you use widgets from the same library it will obviously look the same. Although this case is a bit extreme, the order of the buttons and everything is a carbon copy, if the title bar was removed i would have a hard time telling which one is Corel and which one is Excel, and I'm a daily Excel user.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
MS Office is used as an example of the "right" way of doing UX on Windows. It includes button order, names, etc. Under these constraints all decently made spreadsheet programs should basically look the same. "Carbon-copy same" is improbable in practice, but "mostly same" is what's expected.

martin-adams 11y ago

So I looked at the Corel Calc image thinking that was Excel that I was looking at. I think this is the point, they look so similar that to the untrained eye, someone can't tell it's not Office. This is crucial when promoting such a product making people think they are getting Office for $30. I can never quite get my head around what constitutes a patent and what constitutes copyright infringement. To me this would fall under copyright infringement. However, I do understand the patentable idea of workflow that makes the process of using a spreadsheet more efficient. This is generally as a result of research and development and as such, may be subject to what has been patented as a whole. The positioning of the elements are designed for optimal workflow which makes Office unique. Someone simply copying it without their own investment of research and development does give them an unfair competitive advantage (until they get sued and lose).

lmm 11y ago
> I can never quite get my head around what constitutes a patent and what constitutes copyright infringement. To me this would fall under copyright infringement. I think both those are the wrong thing if your concern is buyers getting confused. Trademarks are the way to address that: MS should have a distinctive, trademarked logo for Office, feature it in their advertising or the like, and aggressively pursue anyone else who uses the same logo in their products.
- martin-adams 11y ago
  Yes, you're right. Trademark is definitely designed for that. Having said that though, I know you can trademark names and designs. But with designs, I guess it's confusing what constitutes a trademark infringement or just plain old copyright infringement.
  - lmm 11y ago
    There's no rule that a particular act can't be both (though I don't think purely functional design is copyrightable).

voidz 11y ago

But on the other hand, if you're Microsoft, you've done the same thing so often that it's logical outsiders think you're extremely hypocritical when pulling stunts like this.

S_A_P 11y ago

You too can build an app that copies excel with any of the major win forms tool suites. DevExpress, infragistics, telerik all even offer app control templates called "Office <year>". These basically are the office UI with some of the event handlers stubbed out. My point is that I don't think that MS cares if you rip off their UI and I bet they even encourage it. I think MS wants Windows / Office apps to look like Windows or office.

marcosdumay 11y ago

And so what? They get away with enforcing completely obvious patent because they have reason to be mad?

ak39 11y ago

I wonder how Corel overcame the restrictions on the use of Microsoft's Ribbon component.

thomasahle 11y ago
Licensing restrictions?

robotcookies 11y ago

The case could be made that Corel did this to make it easier for users who used one product to find things in the other. I use both macs and pcs and I still get confused because the command button is on the inner while ctrl on pcs is on the outer. You need cmd-w to close while you use ctrl-w on pcs to close. I really wish one would copy the other and make the exact same keyboard. The layout in Excel is not special or better than other layouts. The point of patents is to protect ideas that are unique and improve. By enforcing patents on layouts which are not specifically improvements, you're really just trying to create an artificial moat that makes it harder for consumers to switch products or use more than one. That is bad for consumers and it hurts innovation.

cwyers 11y ago
The layout of Excel is a product of probably more spending on researching how people actually use a spreadsheet than everyone else has spent on the question combined. It's incredibly special.
- quadrangle 11y ago
  And if we removed government-backed monopolies on these designs it would hurt the development of these things or what? Just pointing out that serious work could go into a design and still not be a good public-interest decision to let it be patented. Probably the restrictiveness hurts innovation more than it helps.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

talmand 11y ago

Is it possible the shade of blue matching is because of user choices in Windows color scheme?

alanh 11y ago

This might look like a pixel-for-pixel copy for someone who isn't very familiar with Windows 7, but Jesus, I don’t see anything wrong here. 1. The general look and feel is the same. So? That’s just fitting into the platform, having a native look & feel. 2. The general spreadsheet UI wasn’t invested by Microsoft... 3. The icons here are not, in fact, pixel-for-pixel copies... 4. The "ribbon" or tabbed/dynamic interface at the top is also not pixel-for-pixel... 5. The whole UI paradigm is, as you mention, from Xerox/Apple; tabs, icons, buttons, scrollbars, cursors: it's all just another remix... 6. And lastly but most significantly, I think we can excuse an underdog for trying to make software that would be easily usable to people who are most used to the competing suite from an established monopoly vendor!