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Apple's patent claim will not block the W3C Widgets specification
Back in April, I wrote about how Apple tried to block the W3C Widgets specification with a patent claim.
After spending a lot of W3C members' money to figure out if Apple's claims were valid, the Patent Advisory Group has now come to a conclusion: The work on Widgets 1.0 will continue. Apple's patent claim does not appear to be relevant to the Widgets 1.0 specification:
Read the full report here: Report of the Patent Advisory Group on the Widgets Updates Specification
After spending a lot of W3C members' money to figure out if Apple's claims were valid, the Patent Advisory Group has now come to a conclusion: The work on Widgets 1.0 will continue. Apple's patent claim does not appear to be relevant to the Widgets 1.0 specification:
The Patent Advisory Group concluded that the inventive step claimed by US Patent Nr. 5,764,992 lies in the fact that the software program can update itself absolutely independent of functions performed by any resource external to the current software program. As the Widgets 1.0: Updates Draft uses an update-manager throughout the Specification, such self-updating does not occur.
Read the full report here: Report of the Patent Advisory Group on the Widgets Updates Specification
Readers' comments 14
Left under the original article, as archived.
About this article
| Published in | A Journal from Behind the Trenches |
|---|---|
| Date | October 9, 2009 |
| Author | Haavard |
| Tags | opera, widgets, w3c, patents, apple, standards |
| Original | Internet Archive |
Brian HuismanFriday, October 9, 2009 1:52:27 PM
TamilFriday, October 9, 2009 2:30:33 PM
tomassplatchFriday, October 9, 2009 2:39:31 PM
Daniel AleksandersenFriday, October 9, 2009 5:18:32 PM
d4rkn1ghtFriday, October 9, 2009 6:20:42 PM
Charles SchlossThursday, October 15, 2009 12:34:21 AM
Idan AdarThursday, October 15, 2009 6:19:28 AM
Originally posted by danaleks:
Many things don't make much sense in the Patent World, but reality teaches us that just because it doesn't make any sense - it doesn't mean it can't happen still.See the whole Eola case as a prime example, and really, many other examples of unknown companies that appear "out of thin air" and use their "patents" on the most trivial things to make huge amount of money, because other companies use their so-called "intellectual properties".
Disgusting and careless behaviour.
FataLWednesday, October 28, 2009 10:27:36 PM
Charles SchlossThursday, October 29, 2009 3:13:00 AM
Originally posted by FataL:
+1
PurdiThursday, October 29, 2009 7:55:25 AM
Originally posted by FataL:
Nonsense. If you actually read Opera's reasons for doing this, you wouldn't have written crap like this. Widgets will never be proper applications if they keep being tied to the browser UI.
FataLThursday, October 29, 2009 4:48:29 PM
Originally posted by Purdi:
They just can be managed both ways since widgets depend on Opera browser presence anyway. Also most of current Opera widgets is so tiny that hardly anyone would install and use them separate from the browser.BTW, I installed and tried to use Twitter widget as separate application, but after couple days I started to use Twitter widget from panel. Believe or not Twitter widget starts from panel faster (not significantly, but I can feel it) than as separate application.
(God! That bug with TEXTAREA killing me!)
PurdiThursday, October 29, 2009 8:30:33 PM
Originally posted by FataL:
Yeah, except that's what they are trying to change, so why do things that will just keep widgets that way? You obviously didn't read Opera's statements on why they are doing this.
FataLThursday, October 29, 2009 10:18:28 PM
PurdiFriday, October 30, 2009 9:30:15 AM