Re: Sharing the Family PC is Patent-Pending

[Barry Margolin]

In article <c7go5b$18r$7@penguin.wetton.example.org>,
 "Bernd Jendrissek" <berndj@prism.co.za> wrote:

> In article <barmar-931773.12140207052004@comcast.ash.giganews.com> Barry
> Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >In article <409bd25d@news.peakpeak.com>,
> > Bruce Hayden <nospam-bhayden@ieee.org> wrote:
> >> Haven't looked at the application, but I would be surprised that
> >> if just that much was new and nonobvious.  Seems like Mac
> >> and UNIX have had such for awhile.
> >
> >The part about fast switching between users has been in MacOS for a 
> >couple of years, but I don't think Unix has it at all (su changes the 
> >userid, but it doesn't bring up the new user's desktop environment).
> 
> Linux + XFree86:
> 
> Ctrl+Alt+F1/F2/F3...

In any case, a patent doesn't just cover the end result, it covers the 
*method* used to obtain that result.  So unless the techniques used in 
Linux or MacOS render the technique used in Windows obvious, the patent 
may indeed be reasonable.  I haven't read the patent application, and 
I'm not familiar with the internal workings of the Linux and MacOS 
implementations, so I can't tell how similar they are.

As an analogy, the existence of staplers would not prevent someone from 
patenting other ways of fastening papers together.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA