Patent US8762879 – Tab management in a browser | Hacker News Reader

Patent US8762879 – Tab management in a browser

google.com

27 pointsazhenley24 comments

The title is wrong. The patent is about how you place the tabs which are opened from already open one and a specific way of closing them. It definitely doesn't patent opening and closing in general. It's more about UI placement and the UX. From the patent itself: "Some browsers provide a tabbed interface. The FIREFOX 2 browser, available at http://www.mozilla.com/, is an example of a browser with a tabbed interface."

Edit: title was wrong (was about google patenting opening/closing tabs), now updated

I completely agree. People should make sure to look at the claims, particularly under 1 at C:

"rendering, on the computing device, the tab management area such that a close button of a remaining tab is located at the screen position, wherein the rendering (b) comprises, when the tab management area was determined to be full in (b), translating the remaining tab to the left such that the remaining tab maintains the same width"

This is a patent on Chrome's mechanism for resizing the tabs after you move your mouse away from the tab bar, which is nicer than the standard method of resizing them while other tabs are still being closed. It's not a patent on opening and closing tabs in general.

Disclaimer: IANAL, but I have worked directly on patents.

Ugh. Does this mean firefox will not get this feature now?

Depends on the patent licensing. They can always ask the authors to add it to OPN (https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/)

Currently the licensing terms are not published (https://covalentdata.com/patent/US08762879B1)

Unless opening a tab in the browser generates a singularity which can be harnessed to provide free unlimited energy to the entire world there's no reason to award a patent for it.

Software patents need to be banned entirely and this is a perfect example of why. Google's ideal outcome is that no other browser would have tabs, making them inferior to the point of not being usable. That is literally their desired outcome from filing this patent, and indeed it is the basis for every software patent. You can see just from the list of patents cited that Microsoft and many other companies have all taken out patents on obvious incremental design improvements on browser GUIs, and the reason that they do it is to gather ammo for some theoretical ultimate showdown that they imagine will end with their browser as the only remaining legal product. None of them are dealing in good faith, and this should confirm forever that Google no longer subscribes to "don't be evil" as a behavioral maxim.

You use this as an example to how Google no longer subscribes to "don't be evil".

At the same time how can Google protect its UI/UX if the patent system allows for cases like this? What if Microsoft or Apple went for the same patent and stopped Google from using it?

> Google's ideal outcome is that no other browser would have tabs, making them inferior to the point of not being usable. That is literally their desired outcome from filing this patent, and indeed it is the basis for every software patent.

Spoken like someone who has not even looked at the claims, and probably doesn't know what the word "claim" means.

Hey, Ad Hominem

That's not an ad hominem. "You're dumb, so we shouldn't care what you believe" is an ad hominem. "What you believe could only be believed by someone who's uninformed" is not.

And your response is only possible from a stupid boogerhead who doesn't even know what a 'claim' is. Not an Ad Hominem. Sure.

It was sort of insulting (probably needlessly so), but it was not an ad hominem.

Glad to see the title has been changed. Previously it was yet another example of someone who has no idea how a patent works, but still feels qualified to get all outraged about them.

Can you patent something invented before by someone else?

Thank Congress for the recent "first to file" change to patent law.

Apparently was an [Obama's initiative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_inv...). Let's hope this decision helps to remove software patents.

How would the decision to grant one particular patent to Google "help to remove software patents"?

That's not what first-to-file does.

Yes, just ask apple.

What did Apple patent that someone else invented before?

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/7/3614506/apple-patents-rect...

Rounded corners.

That's a design patent. Yes, it's a patent, but it's a whole different kettle of fish compared to a utility patent.

Slide to unlock, pinch to zoom, bounce.

But it is not just Apple, almost every company has patents invalidated for prior art

> almost every company has patents invalidated for prior art

Yeah, that's pretty true. But the way the parent comment said it, it sounded like it was some intentional thing where they were out to screw everybody by fraudulently obtaining a patent that was anticipated by prior art. Which... I don't think many companies are trying to do that.

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