The Adobe Macromedia War

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by Aaron West

This battle has been brewing for quite awhile. Adobe and Macromedia, arguably the two leaders when it comes to Web publishing and graphic design software, have officially declared war on each other. This war is not taking place on the battlefield, or in the streets, or even in cyberspace. This conflict, at least for now, will be settled in what many consider the toughest combat zone of all, the court room.

So what is this war about? It's not about whether Dreamweaver has cleaner code than GoLive, or whether it's easier to knock out a background with Photoshop than with Fireworks. No, it's not that interesting. Both are accusing the other of patent infringement. They each claim that the other stole or 'borrowed' elements of their interface and used them in competing products.

The Saga Thus Far

August 10, 2000
Adobe Systems Files Lawsuit Against Macromedia For Patent Infringement

Read the Press Release Here

This came just after the release of Flash 5, which was the first Macromedia piece of software where a 'tabbed' interface was used. Adobe thought that looked an awful lot like the tabbed interface of Photoshop (and other Adobe products).

The similarities are in the Floating Palettes, which both programs have had for awhile. Adobe was the first to introduce a customizable interface with the tabbed feature, and they patented it. When an Adobe program is first installed, many of the floating palettes are divided into sets. Each palette has its own tab, and can be moved around to other sets by the user. Here is an example from Photoshop 5.5:

The above screenshot is the default setting after Photoshop is installed. Clicking on the Swatches or Brushes tab will reveal that floating palette.

Users can drag these palettes out of a set and create their own set if necessary. For instance, suppose a user uses the Color, Actions and Layers palettes most often. It would be much easier to have them all in one set, rather than having all three open and cluttering the workspace.

Here is an example of the new Palettes (called Panels) in Flash 5:

Judge for yourself whether they look similar or not.

September 18, 2000
Adobe Amends Their Complaint

With a little over a month to reload, Adobe came out firing again. This time the targets were Dreamweaver and Flash. Adobe attacked their image rendering features, or more specifically how the animation engines of both programs use images and layers (basicly, the timeline). Adobe patented this technology as well, and uses it in products such as After Effects and Premiere.

Adobe alleges that the way the timelines in Flash and Dreamweaver utilize layers and imported images infringes on this patented technology.

You can see the full details of the patent here.

Next: Macromedia's Turn