
Patent US8762879 – Tab management in a browser - azhenley
https://www.google.com/patents/US8762879
======
viraptor
The title is wrong. The patent is about how you place the tabs which are
opened from already open one and a specific way of closing them. It definitely
doesn't patent opening and closing in general. It's more about UI placement
and the UX. From the patent itself: "Some browsers provide a tabbed interface.
The FIREFOX 2 browser, available at
[http://www.mozilla.com/](http://www.mozilla.com/), is an example of a browser
with a tabbed interface."

Edit: title was wrong (was about google patenting opening/closing tabs), now
updated

~~~
cheese1756
I completely agree. People should make sure to look at the claims,
particularly under 1 at C:

"rendering, on the computing device, the tab management area such that a close
button of a remaining tab is located at the screen position, wherein the
rendering (b) comprises, when the tab management area was determined to be
full in (b), translating the remaining tab to the left such that the remaining
tab maintains the same width"

This is a patent on Chrome's mechanism for resizing the tabs after you move
your mouse away from the tab bar, which is nicer than the standard method of
resizing them while other tabs are still being closed. It's not a patent on
opening and closing tabs in general.

Disclaimer: IANAL, but I have worked directly on patents.

~~~
glomph
Ugh. Does this mean firefox will not get this feature now?

~~~
viraptor
Depends on the patent licensing. They can always ask the authors to add it to
OPN
([https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/](https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/))

Currently the licensing terms are not published
([https://covalentdata.com/patent/US08762879B1](https://covalentdata.com/patent/US08762879B1))

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gnu8
Software patents need to be banned entirely and this is a perfect example of
why. Google's ideal outcome is that no other browser would have tabs, making
them inferior to the point of not being usable. That is literally their
desired outcome from filing this patent, and indeed it is the basis for every
software patent. You can see just from the list of patents cited that
Microsoft and many other companies have all taken out patents on obvious
incremental design improvements on browser GUIs, and the reason that they do
it is to gather ammo for some theoretical ultimate showdown that they imagine
will end with their browser as the only remaining legal product. None of them
are dealing in good faith, and this should confirm forever that Google no
longer subscribes to "don't be evil" as a behavioral maxim.

~~~
monochromatic
> Google's ideal outcome is that no other browser would have tabs, making them
> inferior to the point of not being usable. That is literally their desired
> outcome from filing this patent, and indeed it is the basis for every
> software patent.

Spoken like someone who has not even looked at the claims, and probably
doesn't know what the word "claim" means.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hey, Ad Hominem

~~~
monochromatic
That's not an ad hominem. "You're dumb, so we shouldn't care what you believe"
is an ad hominem. "What you believe could only be believed by someone who's
uninformed" is not.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And your response is only possible from a stupid boogerhead who doesn't even
know what a 'claim' is. Not an Ad Hominem. Sure.

~~~
monochromatic
It was sort of insulting (probably needlessly so), but it was not an ad
hominem.

------
monochromatic
Glad to see the title has been changed. Previously it was yet another example
of someone who has no idea how a patent works, but still feels qualified to
get all outraged about them.

------
sanbor
Can you patent something invented before by someone else?

~~~
transfire
Thank Congress for the recent "first to file" change to patent law.

~~~
sanbor
Apparently was an [Obama's
initiative]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_inv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_invent#The_USA.27s_change_to_first-
inventor-to-file_.28FITF.29)). Let's hope this decision helps to remove
software patents.

~~~
monochromatic
How would the decision to grant one particular patent to Google "help to
remove software patents"?

