“Since the release of Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001, the Dock has been one of the most prominent features of operating system’s user interface, serving as a centralized and resizable launch pad for applications and document files,” Slash Lane reports for AppleInsider.
“On Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted the Mac maker patent number 7,434,177 titled ‘User interface for providing consolidation and access.’ The 20-page filing outlining the principles behind the Dock and its magnification component is credited to Jobs, in addition to well-known Apple interface designers Bas Ording and Donald Lindsay,” Lane reports.
“Apple now retains the exclusive right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or otherwise employing replicas of the technology in their own products,” Lane reports. “Under United States patent law, that right typically extends 20 years assuming the company keeps up with routine maintenance fees due 3½, 7½ and 11½ years following the grant date.”
Full article here.
Gates, Ballmer preview Windows 7: Multi-Touch and a Dock; Steve Jobs must be so proud – May 28, 2008
Back to the copiers, Microsoft!
MacDailyNews Note: Nextstep’s refined and consistent user interface introduced the idea of the Dock, which was carried through OpenStep and into Mac OS X. After several previews beginning in 1986, Nextstep 1.0 was released on September 18, 1989. Apple completed its acquisition of NeXT Software, Inc. on Feb. 7, 1997. Jean-Louis Gassée promptly took a long, long vacation.
Defend those innovations!
<YAWN> … oh, wait, this will mean a higher stock price “after the recession”. WELL, then … “YAY!”
Dock is a imitation of the Windows taskbar. Windows have it a long time ago and ever since the release of Mac OSX they started using a dock as a application launcher. Without it Mac’s are useless, and obsolete.
@ Joy of Tech
Useless? Obsolete? Please clarify.
@Radius-he can’t, he is a troll. All he can do is spew meaningless garbage hoping someone takes the bait.
wow, the dock, maybe the most attacked and disliked feature by many a Mac user, is all that stands between Macs and obsolescence!
ZuneTang is that you?
@Joy of Tech
What grade are you in, JoT? You’re obviously still in grammar school somewhere, for you have yet to learn anything close to standard English.
“a imitation” ≠ “an imitation”
“Windows have” ≠ “Windows had”
“a application” ≠ “an application”
“Mac’s” ≠ “Macs”
“useless, and” ≠ “useless and”
Also, your referent for “they” is ambiguous and unclear, but we must assume you mean “Apple.” Of course, posters like you always expect US intelligent readers to fill in your gaps in logic and good sense.
You are pathetic, little boy or girl. Go back to watching SpongeBob.
@Joy of Tech
Ha ha ha ha ha…
Don’t you mean windose is useless without its “task” bar.
With the Finder a Mac doesn’t need a dock and never did.
True innovation to make life easier and more elegant.
Just the fact you call the windose thingy a taskbar illustrates the mindset of windose.. TASK TASK TASK
No enjoyment there!!!
It took 9 long years for the U.S. government to award Apple the patent for the Dock.
Bring on nationalized health care!
The good news: natural selection would finally make its return in waiting rooms and lines across the country.
Vote Obama! The obese, the smokers (like Obama himself), the sick, the old, etc. get ready, it’s time to die!
Yay! Finally, more room on the highway for me!!!
Oh, but then, Barack, who will be left to pick up off the streets, from the shelters, and from under bridges to be taken in vans and paid to vote for the Democrat?
MDN MW: “ill.”
Wow! That’s almost scarier than an Obama presidency.
I’m happy, I love the dock.
@joy of Tech
I suppose it could be just an imitation of the Windows Task bar which came with Windows 95 in 1995. But I like to think that OSX’s dock is the result of Next’s “NextStep” Operating system which had it in 1989 and which came to Apple when they acquired Next (and Steve Jobs) in 1996. Yeah, I’m going to go with that. Apple buying Next and incorporating/revamping it’s technology into OSX. That makes more sense.
So does this mean Apple can go after Dell for adding a “dock” to their machines?
“It took 9 long years for the U.S. government to award Apple the patent for the Dock.”
And it’ll take another 9 long years for Apple to sue someone for producing a dock like thing, for the case to come to court, for the prior art to be shown and the patent to be overturned.
Next used the dock long before office task bar.
I remember that Mac OS system 7 has some kind of dock with square icons that you can deploy and retract side by side and you had the option to turn it off. I do not recall its name, does any body remember it?
I don’t see why so many people complain about the dock. I’d much rather the dock than a start menu.
Start > Programs > Accessories > Calculator
Yeeeeaaaaahhhh, I rest my case.
Viktor:
The Control Strip
@Joy of Tech:
Another certified moron heard from!
@alansky
My sentiments exactly
@Joy of Tech
The Taskbar is Windows half-assed knock-off of the original Dock in the Next OS. So it will take Windows 7 before MS finally gets it right and just in time to be sued by Apple for patent infringement. And I wonder if there will be a court fight over multi-touch?
King Harbor, in Redondo Beach, just received a Cease & Desist Order from Apple legal. Seems they will have to come up with a new way to moor the boats there.
Viktor:
It was Launcher. Control Strip was an auto-hide feature, though.
Hey MDN: I think you mean Gilbert F. Amelio took a long vacation; Gassee left Apple seven years earlier to found BE.
There are a few of us old timers who remember…
With Apples’ award of the Patent they may actually be able to go AFTER MS for the Start Menu and/or Task Bar which ultimately IS a type of DOCK”… Think about it…. Apple can claim it was a copy of NeXtsteps OS which they OWN. Now that they have that specific patent they actually have something tangible to defend.
Would love for them to go after MS in this way. Microsoft turn off your copiers.
Hum, doesn’t Windows have a dock or start bar or what ever they call it? Both Mac and Windows seem to work pretty much the same to me.
And our Macs are different????
Finder/Applications/Calculator
And on both you can make shortcuts on the dock/taskbar as well as shortcuts on the desktop. On Windows you can also put a shortcut on the Start Menu.
Think before you post. You sound like a moron.
And yes I use both kind of computers because a computer is a computer and everyone should know how to use both if you are going to write ignorant complaints…