Apple Spotlight patent predates Microsoft’s Longhorn announcement by three years
’Popular wisdom’ (itself an oxymoron…) has it that Apple’s upcoming
Spotlight search technology
copies Microsoft’s plans for desktop search in the
delayed Longhorn operating system. However, evidence from a
patent granted January 25, 2000 shows that Apple
had several years’ worth of head start on Microsoft regarding universal desktop search.
Patent 6,847,959 specifies a claim for a “Universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system.”
Filed January 5, 2000, Apple was officially granted the patent on January 25, 2005. Not terribly speedy on turnaround
time at the patent office, are they? :)
I’ll spare you the legal mumbo-jumbo of the patent language; suffice it to say, the goal of Spotlight is to enable you
to find anything on your Mac from a search interface embedded in the operating system itself. Instead of separate
search mechanisms inside of each application, Spotlight integrates search functionality across programs and file system
both. It purports to be a revolutionary new paradigm for desktop search, and I have every expectation that it will
deliver exactly that. Tiger? Q2? On a nice new Powerbook
G5? Ohhhh, ‘twould be pure, unadulterated bliss.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Steve said 9:30AM on 10-13-2005
Speaking of unadulterated bliss, or perhaps returning to this patent, I can't wait to see Ballmer sign royalty cheques to Apple once Longhorn is released, especially as Microsoft was first and all.
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Brian said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
1987: http://store.retrosoftware.net/10241.html
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Chris K said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Godwin should create another law: The first person to bring up a software patent to defend their cause loses the argument.
Patents are useless for software. No matter what Apple's patent covers, MS will be able to produce Longhorn without fear of a patent violation. All they have to do is implement it SLIGHTLY different, and given the inherent differences between OSX and Windows, it will certainly be a different implementation.
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