Microsoft Patents “3D Tiles UI Concept” – MyNokiaBlog Did it First.
Remember the image above? If not allow me to jog your memory, about 18 Months ago (April 2011) one of our very own readers and contributors “Peter” came up with a concept of 3D cubes for WP, which would allow tiles to deliver more content, without the need for more tiles on the actual screen (each tiles delivers more content by being a multi sided cube, rather than a single 2D square- meaning that each tile could deliver at least up to 4 times the content without taking any more space).
It was a great concept, and seemed pretty much ready to hit the presses; check out the full concept here: http://mynokiablog.com/2011/04/19/nokia-windows-phone-7-ui-concept-live-cubes/
Well it turns out that Microsoft have just been issued an eerily similar patent, that covers the same concept (of course MNB’s renders look prettier):
Example: Microsoft describes the user being able to manually tap on a panel of a music application and the icon will rotate to display another panel indicating the currently playing song. The panel will either automatically rotate back to the front icon (e.g. photo of artist) or will be manually turned by the user at will.
For example, the icon could be associated with an email application, and the email application could receive an email as an update to the application. Based on the update to the application, the system 100 could rotate the icon in three dimensions 130. For example, as shown at 112, the icon could rotate in three dimensions automatically when the application associated with the icon is updated.
Microsoft’s patent goes a bit further to cover all sort of 3D shapes besides cubes, including Cylinders, polygons, spheres and basically any 3D shape you can think of:
Microsoft even goes a step further, implementing menus and options into each tile (which would probably work best on the “large” sized tiles in WP8:
All in all it’s a great concept, and a pretty sound one too; check out the video Peter made alongside his original post:
I’m not pointing any fingers, but Microsoft’s patent was applied for in Q2 2011, and approved in Q3 2012, Peter’s original post date was April 19th 2011. #JustSayin
Patent source via
Thanks for the tip PeterL 
Category: Concept, Gestures, ideas, Lumia, News, Nokia, Photos, Windows Phone
About the Author (Author Profile)
Heyyo, names Ali- Currently a fourth year Dental Student from Chicago; studying in Jordan. I love all sorts of gadgets almost as much as I love my cookies! (Have: Green Nokia N8, Cyan Lumia 800, Black N9, Stormtrooper White Lumia 900, Black 808 PureView, Red Lumia 920). Follow my twitter handle '@AliQudsi' - no pressure. Thanks.Subscribe
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well it was an obvious course of future development
we all loved Peters depiction of this and hopefully he got something out of Microsoft
That’s the thing with a lot of patents. Just it’s expensive to file, so most people who come up with the ideas can’t afford to patent them.
If patent applications were free, the landscape would be a lot different.
OCTOBER 30, 2012 7:24 A.M.
caleb23 wrote:
Morningstar today about Nokia:
Share price assumption at this moment: 2.40 euro (Nokia share is in Helsinki right now 2.06 euro, in New York 2.56 dollar)
Best scenario (if WP8 phones go well): the stock price will go to about 7.70 euro per share)
Worst scenario: no bankruptcy, because Nokia would be sold in parts before that.
Estimated price for this: intellectual properties over 1 euro per share;
other business parts (smartphones, featurephones, NSN) at least over 1.50 euro per share.
And NAVTEQ´s price not included (Nokia bought NAVTEQ with about 7 billion euro). All in all even in this case, Nokia share price would be at least over 2.5 euro. Pretty much like my thoughts and analysis.
Is there a way to find the patent number for this patent?
It would be interesting to check if this concept was considered in the ‘prior art’ segment of the application…
You got too close to discovering the truth.
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090414150020/uncyclopedia/images/a/a4/I-want-to-believe.gif
This is obvious prior art and anyone able to use Google would have discovered it here on the blog and the patent should not be granted.
However, the US patent system is completely broken these days, and as long as you can afford a bunch of lawyers, i.e. as long as you’re a big corporation, you can get anything patented, no matter what.
who wants to steal this ugly tiles patent?
Microsoft.
+1000
What the age old Troll Microsoft does best is copy…
Did any one notice the N9′s Swipe actions copied in the Surface Tablet? Eg. The Swipe down to close an open app.
Yes i noticed, but dos Nokia have a patent on that?
Don’t think so, since BB10 also has the same feature.
Ok.. you do know that the “swipe down/up” to close an app started with Palm’s WebOs, don’t you? as much as I love meego, it wasn’t a feature made by Nokia.
Elop’s handing over Nokia to Microsoft for Free, why would they ever patent it? He’s a trojan after all…
LOL the 90s called, they want your stupid stereotypes back. Google is the new MS.
what was that in the name of your favorite God like creature, that happened that magically transformed, Microsoft into an OK company?
I dislike Google but comparing it to Microsoft??? Really???
I have to wonder how come some like you have to repeat this sort FUD time and time over, is Microsoft paying you to do it? if not juts let it go Microsoft is what it is, It was not in so long ago they were caught bribing people in the ISO standard national Committees…
Not this again. Nokia copied that from Palm/RIM.
grt work…………peter and ali.
MS, give peter a job now !!
or at the very least give him consultancy fees.
probably not, they just did what every singly US pathetic company is doing this days, patent any idiotic half brained idea. and prepare to Sue.
Apparently everyone in the US is coming to the conclusion that the software patent system is only making one sort of company rich, lawyer firms/patent trolls.
Lol! Is it really beyond the realm of possibility that Microsoft had been working on this years before they actually filed for the patent? The whole premise of live tiles is to deliver dynamic content – this patent is just an evolution of their original premise.
Great concept by ‘Peter’ but Microsoft has been in business for over 30 years and didn’t need ‘Peter’s’ concept to spur
this patent.
Microsoft started out by buying DOS. Sure, they do invent, but like Apple, a big part is looking at other people’s ideas.
In other news, Nokia is no more a top 5 smart phone manufacturer. Tiles didn’t help, may be the cubes will come to Nokia’s rescue.
LMAO.
If the patent file date is after 19th April 2011, this patent is not enforceable.
when i opened this article i thought im going to see some good comments instead i only saw stupid haters you are even worse than apple fanboys
and the chocking news this site called my Nokia blog
sory for actualy having ideas of our hown…
The patent software buisness is fundamently broken,
those aren’t ideas those are Troll comments
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