More Prior Art for US patent 7,743,336. Dashboard demonstration at WWDC 2004

According to [1]: 

"Publicly available products also count as prior art, even though it may be very difficult to determine exactly what the product is made of or how it works. If a device is put on the market before the patent application filed on a feature in that device, the feature is no longer novel. Usually, the sale or other disposal of the product is enough to make all its features prior art for later filed applications. If the product is not sold, but only demonstrated to the public, then only those features which the public could observe count as prior art."

Dashboard was demonstrated by Steve Jobs, on the 28th of June 2004:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KW4OVQpQhWM#t=446s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRBSzehwPW0&feature=bf_next&list=ULKW4OVQpQhWM&lf=mfu_in_order

The demo shows widgets accessing the Web, which means the demo is showing the WARPish access request feature of Dashboard. 

Mac OS tiger was released : 29 April 2005. 

According to [1]:

"In the USA, selling or publicly displaying an invention counts as prior art (35 US Code 102(b)) even when the invention was completely hidden from view as part of a larger machine or article, if the invention is otherwise used in its natural and intended way and the larger machine or article is accessible to the public. But if the use was under the control of the inventor, the invention was not publicly used and so the use does not count as prior art." 

According to [2]: 
"There were G5 demo stations set up to preview Tiger at the show. I played with Tiger under the watchful eye of an Apple rep and he had no qualms about letting it strut its stuff for me. I checked out Spotlight, Smart Folders, Mail, Safari RSS, Dashboard, everything and anything I could think of, and it all worked great in an unscripted setting."

An open question remains as to whether journalists and other individuals who had not signed an NDA had access to these stations (journalist will unlikely have been under NDA). If they did have access, then my understanding is that counts as prior art. 

[1] http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/priorart/ 
[2] http://75.102.3.15/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=434303
-- 
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Monday, 24 October 2011 14:31:30 UTC