Transparent windows that fade when they aren’t active is a feature of Apple’s operating system, but are also slated to show up in the next version of Microsoft’s Windows (the Longhorn Aero interface) and has been seen in Sun’s “Looking Glass” user interface for Solaris. Now Apple wants to patent this idea. As part of its application, Apple described a feature that would allow the user to work through an unused window. “Upon reaching a certain level of visual translucency, user input in the region of the window is interpreted as an operation on the underlying objects rather than the contents of the overlaying window.”
Apple was recently awarded a patent for the interface used in the iTunes music software.
Bottom line: Apple doesn’t want to end up like Xerox PARC, whose inventions formed the basis for original Lisa and Macintosh user experience but never made a dime from licensing the concepts. You might recall that Apple sued Microsoft over the similarity of Windows to the Mac user interface, but did not prevail in the courts. Two questions come to mind: Will Apple’s patents hold up, and would the company license them.