Cygnus Systems, Inc., the holder of the '850 patent, has asserted the patent in litigation against Google, Microsoft and Apple alleging their use of document preview icons - thumbnails - in their operating systems and browsers. If successful in this action, this patent may be asserted against other operating systems and browsers.
The '850 patent claims continuation from a patent application filed June 12, 1998.
WHAT'S NEEDED: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Prior Art
Products On Sale, Offered for Sale or Publicly Used Prior to June 12, 1997
February 4th, 2009
This patent application was filed on June 8, 2001 but claims continuation from an application filed June 12, 1998, resulting in an earliest date of invention of June 12, 1997. While it is possible that the invention did not occur until after June 12, 1997, finding relevant prior art before that date assures it application. Such prior art may include products embodying the invention that were sold, offered for sale, or publicly used by the patent holder, an inventor, or any third party prior to June 12, 1997.
Corel Draw 7, released in 1996, had thumbnail previews in the File-Open dialog.
Seems to me that the icon behavior of xterm in the X Window System prior to X11 covers this one pretty well, on a quick reading. Unfortunately it didn't make it into X11: I was always fond of this feature.
I'm one of the authors of xterm.
This dates to 1986, btw, and was in commercial product, and open source.... Pretty iron clad as prior art.