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TC · May 3, 2002, 01:44 PM

Adobe V Macromedia

They won against Macromedia�s use of reconfigurable tabbed palettes.
They will get nearly $3 million and adobe expects the court to issue an injunction to stop the infringrement.

xi_hyperon · May 3, 2002, 02:11 PM

Wow, sucks for Macromedia. If it was patented by Adobe, I'd think Macromedia wouldn't have had much of an argument in their defense.

zigmeister · May 3, 2002, 04:04 PM

Yeah , but all of this is pretty lame. If the idea is good it should become universal. It's pretty fscked up to make people have to adapt to different styles for similar products from different companies if you have something that works well already.

Greedy bastards.

Adam Betts · May 3, 2002, 04:21 PM

Adobe's a such whinny baby.

GoLive 6 is filled with TONS of tab windows! I think they overuse the tab window idea just to show the court that they owned this idea from the beginning. It's really lame and immature behavior.

workerbee · May 3, 2002, 04:51 PM

American lawyers being what they are (unbelievably greedy bloodsucking nuisances mostly, IMHO), could that mean that MM will have to stop any products?

Dreamweaver MX makes rather heavy use of tabbed palettes, and I'd really hate it if it was even more delayed (especially since I've been hit by the abominable "Trial expired" bug)

kennedy · May 3, 2002, 08:01 PM

Actually, I am not fond of the tabbed palettes... I think this could lead to MM delivering something much better, IMO. For minimal change, they could go with expanding hierarchical palettes like Office vX... oh, but wait... Micro$oft probably has those patented.

If only the automakers had been patenting their interfaces... then renting cars would be much more fun... where's the darn brake?... you pull back on the steering wheel? But that was the turn signal in the Ford!
;^)

Millennium · May 3, 2002, 08:26 PM

If Macromedia appeals this, they'll probably win. Precedent is actually on their side, given the old Apple vs. Microsoft case.

zazou · May 3, 2002, 08:55 PM

yeah... who's next... Deneba?

Oh, wait... there's that whole Palette Well concept.

Yeah, Adobe has the moral high ground....

zazou · May 3, 2002, 09:01 PM

yeah... who's next... Deneba?

Oh, wait... there's that whole Palette Well concept.

Yeah, Adobe has the moral high ground....

zigmeister · May 3, 2002, 11:29 PM

All this will definitely be something that the future generations will look back to and make fun of.

Man it's embarassing.

TC · May 4, 2002, 04:44 PM

There are some interesting article on the macuser website. Search for macromedia and patent.

Macromedia and Adobe are suing each other over several infringements. In this case Adobe took issue with the way Macromedia had totally copied the way Adobe uses tabbed palettes:

Although tabbed palettes appear regularly throughout software and operating systems, Adobe's patent applies specifically to the method that allows tabs within palettes to be customised, separated and reorganised. According to Adobe, 'this invention was a significant leap forward for customers' productivity and personalisation of the interface.'

Macromedia also has cases coming up against Adobe. If you think Adobe is being petty then dig this. Macromedia broke the same patent which was held by another company but then bought the patent when the company was going under. It is now using this patent against Adobe! Here is the full text:

Details have emerged of Macromedia's lawsuit against Adobe Photoshop and GoLive, showing why Macromedia is attempting to have the courts prevent Adobe from selling its image-editing and Web authoring applications.

According to legal documents filed in the San Francisco federal court, the Adobe applications utilise technology in breach of patents owned by Macromedia. Both patents pertain to WYSIWYG Web-editing functions: the first describes a 'draw-based editor for web pages,' essentially a method of placing objects on a page and having the software automatically convert the layout to HTML. Macromedia alleges this technology is used in both GoLive, Adobe's own Web editing package, and Photoshop.

The second patent is entitled 'hierarchical structure editor for Web sites,' a method for designing how a site is to be organised using drag-and-drop graphical icons. GoLive is alleged to use the same 'top-down' approach to Web site design. Macromedia claims that Adobe has wilfully infringed both patents since at least 1999, and is requesting an injunction restraining Adobe from further infringement. This effectively amounts to a request for Adobe to be forced to stop selling Photoshop and GoLive in their current forms. Macromedia is also demanding unspecified damages.

Ironically, the patents in question were not filed by Macromedia, but by Rae Technology, a company owned by the co-founders of NetObjects, a Web development company. NetObjects' principal product, NetObjects Fusion, had been a WYSIWYG Web site design package, popular on the Wintel platform. In August of this year, the company announced that it could no longer cover its debts and ceased operation. Last month, NetObjects announced that it had sold its assets to Web consultancy firm Website Pros. However, Website Pros did not acquire NetObjects' sizeable catalogue of patents, which were instead snapped up by Macromedia for an undisclosed sum.

As recently as last June, NetObjects' CEO Samir Arora told the Computerwire news service that he believed a number of Web editing products infringed his patents, including Microsoft's Frontpage, and notably Macromedia's Dreamweaver. 'Anything that does WYSIWYG page layouts that auto-generate HTML is violating the patent,' he said. 'We're going after anybody we believe is in violation.'

Now that Macromedia has its hands on the valuable patent, it is using it to go after Adobe. The two companies have been fighting a protracted legal battle since last August, when Adobe issued Macromedia with a patent infringement suit. Macromedia quickly responded with a claim of its own. The matter has yet to be resolved.

'Macromedia does not comment on pending litigation,' said a Macromedia spokesperson. A spokesman for Adobe also declined to comment.

3R1C · May 4, 2002, 05:38 PM

Let me get this straight. Only adobe has the right to use interface builder in such a way that tabs appear on a pallete?!@ If this is true who owns the copyright on image wells in a drawer? Id like that one.

Developer · May 4, 2002, 06:08 PM

Originally posted by 3R1C:
<STRONG>Let me get this straight. Only adobe has the right to use interface builder in such a way that tabs appear on a pallete?!@ If this is true who owns the copyright on image wells in a drawer? Id like that one.

</STRONG>

Adobe doesn't use Interface Builder.

They own the patent that dragging a tab out of a floating palette creates a new floating palette and vice versa.

At least that's more substantial than 1-click-buying.

Software patents are silly, but we must accept that we voted/will vote for politicians that want them. Too bad it doesn't matter what we vote, and the 'masses' just doesn't care about the matter, so we get what the big company's lobby wants. Let them sue the money out of each other, and hopefully that will regulate itself over time.