Mikey Campbell
Apple on Tuesday won a patent for an early version of Preview, the Mac application that can display and perform keyword searches in documents without having to open the software that created them.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple's U.S. Patent No. 8,335,986 for "Previewing different types of documents," which describes the basic functionality of the current Preview app.
According to the patent's abstract, the property covers a "previewing application" for displaying a plurality of documents simultaneously in a single window, with the content appearing as digital books. Users can view pages in one or two dimensions and search through all opened document for specified keywords which are then displayed in an ordered fashion.
While the language calls for a slightly different user interface and tweaked usability function when compared to the existing Preview app, the patent outlines the underlying operational features that serve as a basis for the current standard OS X software. Specifically, the current iteration of Preview does not display manuals or PDF files as "books," but the application does include powerful content search tools that arrange pages according to the '986 patent.
Search tool view in patent (top) shows highlighted text in-window, Preview (bottom) uses column to arrange results.
The invention is basically a software-agnostic document reader that displays content in a managed format easily digestible by the user. Key to the property is the ability to search within the document, with results also displayed in a logical manner, which in this case only shows pages containing the keyword.
Both the patent and the current Preview app use a sidebar column that displays opened documents or pages within an opened document. This space also displays pages in which a search term is present either by page number or a ranking heirarchy.
Column view as seen in patent (top) and Preview (bottom).
In place of the two-dimensional book format detailed in the patent, Preview uses a multitouch-enabled view akin to "Coverflow," the UI first introduced with iTunes and the iPod touch. The latest Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion operating system allows for full-screen viewing and multitouch page navigation. Preview is the default document viewer in OS X unless otherwise specified by the user.
The '986 patent was first applied for in 2009 and credits Conrad Carlen, Patrick Coffman, Ryan Staake and Matthew Sarnoff as its inventors.
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
8 Comments
Yaye, more software patents...
Patenting this is more questionable than patenting the push button. There's a lot of previous art ignored by this patent.
Btw, Skim (and many other document readers) infringe this patent.
AI, once again I ask you to please stop writing patent headlines with the word "win". There is no competition to the patent system. An application is filed for an invention and is granted or not. I didn't "win" my drivers license. I applied for it and the government gave it to me. The idea is the same.
AI, once again I ask you to please stop writing patent headlines with the word "win". There is no competition to the patent system. An application is filed for an invention and is granted or not. I didn't "win" my drivers license. I applied for it and the government gave it to me. The idea is the same.
Actually, it's more correct to use the word "win" on this patent, because Apple actually "won" this patent. Forbidding to release software with page preview in book format affects a lot of already available previewers. Skim and many others are affected. So, actually, Apple "won" against them, which were already doing this.
Just more proof that the legal profession is out of their depth in the world of computers. Not many technical people would allow that this app passes the non-obviousness test.