itwire.com— If patenting the obvious is considered something of an art form in the world of IT, then Microsoft is undoubtedly an old master. The Page Up Page Down patent it has been granted would seem to confirm this...
Aug 22, 2008View in Crawl 4
@Sean - so, you're saying it's okay because everyone else is doing it? that's profoundly flawed logic. and this isn't microsoft hating (at least in my case) - it's disgust for companies in general filing frivolous patents.
Well actually, if the author of the story had spent 30 seconds to read the CLAIMS, which is the actual scope of the invention, he would have known the patent is directed to an incremental scroll controller and formula for generating the control. The buttons are merely a way to affect a change on the control. The buttons themselves are not being patented per se. Unfortunately the sensationalistic take on patent analysis in the media is not surprising, especially among software patents. The deluge of comments following the story on ZDNet AND on Digg scream to "patent reform" and yet the commenters are almost as clueless as the author, which is the most depressing part of the whole thing.
Sean,I'm glad you had this opportunity to take out your frustrations. Do you feel better now that you got that rant out of your system? Now that you have done so, did it ever occur to you that people might be opposed to stupid patents on blatantly obvious concepts, no matter who takes them out? You obviously have a thing about Linux users - I wonder why that is.
flarn2006Aug 22, 2008
*presses Page Up* *presses Page Down*
Closed AccountAug 22, 2008
@Sean - so, you're saying it's okay because everyone else is doing it? that's profoundly flawed logic. and this isn't microsoft hating (at least in my case) - it's disgust for companies in general filing frivolous patents.
mrviklundAug 23, 2008
Heh. Cool.
nekroskomaAug 27, 2008
facepalm.jpg
pkaocAug 30, 2008
Well played, sir!
mdude85Sep 4, 2008
Well actually, if the author of the story had spent 30 seconds to read the CLAIMS, which is the actual scope of the invention, he would have known the patent is directed to an incremental scroll controller and formula for generating the control. The buttons are merely a way to affect a change on the control. The buttons themselves are not being patented per se. Unfortunately the sensationalistic take on patent analysis in the media is not surprising, especially among software patents. The deluge of comments following the story on ZDNet AND on Digg scream to "patent reform" and yet the commenters are almost as clueless as the author, which is the most depressing part of the whole thing.
osullibheanDec 6, 2008
Sean,I'm glad you had this opportunity to take out your frustrations. Do you feel better now that you got that rant out of your system? Now that you have done so, did it ever occur to you that people might be opposed to stupid patents on blatantly obvious concepts, no matter who takes them out? You obviously have a thing about Linux users - I wonder why that is.