“The most extensive of those filings is labeled “Multi-Dimensional Desktop” and was submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office back in June of last year, around the same time the company took the wraps off the feature set for its upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard,” Lane reports. “None of the latest interface enhancements described in the June patent are present in current pre-release builds of Snow Leopard, however, suggesting they’ll be candidates for inclusion in versions of Mac OS X that would surface in years to come.”
“Generally speaking, the filings depict a 3D interface by which side walls, a top, and a floor all protrude from a back surface that resembles today’s two-dimensional Mac OS X desktop. A few examples also suggest a radical departure from traditional interface design by which the Mac OS X menubar would be removed from the top of the screen and thrown into a stack or floating element.,” Lane reports.
read the full article, with many illustrations from the patent application, here.