Microsoft Receives Patent For Double-Click 836
kaluta writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Microsoft was granted a patent for double-clicking on April 27. The patent in question is 6,727,830 and says, amongst other stuff: 'A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time. An alternative function of the application is launched if the button is pressed for a long, (e.g., at least one second), period of time. Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click'. So this is what we have to look foward to in the E.U. now?"
Dear Lord... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm hoping that such insane uses of patents will result in the USPTO and Congress waking the hell up and fixing this mess.
Absurdity (Score:5, Insightful)
For the millionth time... (Score:5, Insightful)
WHO CARES?
They can have so many patents that they have to start holding them in their asscracks. Exhibit 1: IBM, the Little Linux guy's friend on Slashdot.
They problem is not that they GET them. The problem only occurs if they can actually ENFORCE them. Which, in any sane court (yes, I know those are in dwindling numbers these days) won't happen.
By all means, let them run amok and waste money on BS patents. Just make sure that the first time they get challenged they actually go down. If the challenge fails, THEN there's a problem.
The news is wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey guys, don't worry... I don't think this patent can be used by Microsoft to destroy Open Source. So, it's better to laugh at it.
Now, we have got one more example to show people how ridiculous software patents are.
only for "limited resource computing devices" (Score:5, Insightful)
Hence general-purpose PCs and bigger embedded systems are safe from this, but small devices such as handhelds are vulnerable?
Might As Well Apply For A Patent... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not impressed....
Keep 'em coming (Score:3, Insightful)
.. because if they continue to give patents on stuff like this like they've done the last few years, the system is bound to fail. Its just a simple matter of time.
(and now for the obligatory:) What next? A patent for interpreting presses on different keys into machine-understandable signals?
Re:Xerox and Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce
Re:For the millionth time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why have a patent office anyways? Why not just go the Copyright route, and let everyone and his aunt patent everything they like, and duke it out in the courts.
The USPTO was created for a friggin' REASON . They are NOT doing their job by just rubberstamping everything that crosses their desk. They are being negligent in their duties, and should be held accountable by the Congress. Sheesh, only an Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer would grant this patent....
Isn't an excellent piece of prior art (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Xerox and Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, this first time I did see this happen was on PocketPC 2000 software where a click and hold popped up the context menu. That's a 'hardware limited' device, i.e. it has no second button, just a stylus.
In any case I'd just like to point out that I'm not defending it - it's another silly patent - merely stating that the story has it wrong.
Re:For the millionth time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:April Fool's (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:For the millionth time... (Score:2, Insightful)
It would be far, far better for everyone (except patent system-abusing scum) if such patents were never awarded.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's record (Score:2, Insightful)
The name of the game is winning ... (Score:3, Insightful)
1) the patent goes unchallenged, thus Microsoft wins by achieving a license to rape and pillage. (unlikely)
2) the patent is challenged, and Microsoft wins, thus strengthening their license to rape and pillage. (unlikely)
3) the patent is challenged and Microsoft loses the challenge, but still wins by weakening the opposition due to the opposition having to spend a larger fraction of their working capital than Microsoft in this non-productive activity. In areas of the marketplace where there is not a large healthy corporation to oppose them, they drive the competition out via the competitors' inability to afford the Microsoft tax of continuous legal action.
The ability of monopolies to buy into the poker game and use their near-limitless wealth to drive the competition out of the game by raising the stakes beyond their opponents' ability to call is one reason why monopolies used to have strict controls placed on them or be broken up. They are beyond the reach of the checks and balances of the free marketplace.
Re:Xerox and Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Xerox and Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess size really does matter after all.
Why not a really good Petition (Score:2, Insightful)
- Compile a fair amount of evidence showing how the US Patent Office has really messed things up (eg, Amazon, this patent, and many other good ones)
- Present that to the EU signed by thousands of EU citizens
I know that there have been Open Letters and other activites, but why not do their homework for them? Show them why Patent Systems, like the one in the US, suck poopy and abridge the rights of innovators and honest business. Litigation is good for rich lawyers and nothing else. It is NOT good for humanity.
Yeah yeah, I have no legal background so I couldn't do it myself. So I ask others. Hang me. Or better yet, get a patent on not knowing everything and then sue me.
Re:No, but it is a repost from last week--sigh (Score:1, Insightful)
"Everyone should respect the copyright of the GPL. By the way, the RIAA is evil for going after copyright infringers."
(1) You realise that it's not always the same people in the pro-GPL and anti-RIAA-prosecutions camps, right?
(2) Plenty of people (e.g. me) believe that all copyright is wrong, and feel that only people who expect us to respect their copyrights should respect our GPL - we don't have any beef with people who don't try and assert copyright in the first place. i.e. the Free Software purist party line: "The GPL is enforced via copyright law, but in the absence of copyright law, it would be unnecessary..."
Even a news community needs editorial standards (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, indeed, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported that "Microsoft has been granted a patent on the double-click by the US Patents and Trademark Office". Yes, indeed, anyone who knows how to interpret patents can glance at the patent claims and see that the article was written by a reporter who doesn't have a clue.
Then the fun begins, as the article is posted to Slashdot, and the raving loonies cry havok, and let loose the whining of "it's the end of the world" and "what, us file a request for reexamination?!"
I practice patent law. I like to read the opinions on Slashdot, but I am --->| this close to never reading another patent news item again because both the item and the commentary are almost inevitably content free.
The sad fact is, few people on Slashdot understand patents, trademarks and copyrights, and even fewer people care that they do not. If a submission claimed that SpaceShipOne was going to achieve orbit by burning 100 lbs of pure hydrogen peroxide in some incredibly efficient manner, odds are it wouldn't be posted, and if it were, people would be crawling out of the woodwork to criticize the lack of research, the abomination of chemisty, and the impossibility of the physics. Yet almost nobody takes the time to know what the laws of their own country, the ones that they seemingly criticize daily, actually permit or forbid.
This community needs to stop and reconsider its standards. Lobbiests drive Washington, but it's not all about the money. It's also about people who put the time, effort and research into presenting an informed, coherent, and considered argument for their point of view, EVEN IF IT IS "WRONG".
You will never fix this system if you're the political equivalent of the crazy guy in the subway. The misconceptions destroy your credibility, and it's easier to ignore you than to attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Limited domain gets you a patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the recent patent on burning a CD of a concert, the same night as the concert and selling it after the concert. There's prior art on making music CDs -- but I guess you can patent making CDs in a specific situation.
Now double-clicking isn't patented, but double-clicking the hardware buttons on a PDA is patented.
So we can just patent anything if we specify a narrow domain and apply it there?
I suggest we patent double-clicking with a mouse... on an application with a "metal" skin that looks like a PDA. (Meh. Maybe Microsoft's patent would already cover this one!)
How about patenting the idea of recording a DVD of your vacation... while on vacation.
How about patenting the idea of an SQL database... on a PDA.
How about patenting video conferencing... on a PDA.
It's stupid, but the pattern suggests this might be possible. Start filing your applications now!
steveha
This is good though... (Score:1, Insightful)
I say go out and grab yourself a useless patent if you can afford it. You're doing your civic duty!
Tom
Re:For the millionth time... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this is simple. Little guys done have the bucks required to mount a challenge against something like this. So, it locks markets up to those that have the resources to challenge such a patent, but, those large corps dont have to, they just cross license their own bullshit patents, and voila, you now have a marketplace where the little guy cant play anymore.
The whole point of building large portfolios of bullshit patents is to lock out the little guy. It's a classic case of a system defeating it's own purpose. The patent system was built so the little guy would be protected from having his invention stolen by the big corps. Now the big corps use that same system to lock little guys out of markets, by patenting obvious things, so they cant be used by anybody else.
Prior Art (Score:3, Insightful)
I think just about every digital watch I've ever owned has had multi-mode pushbuttons that work EXACTLY this way. To set the time on my Timex I've had for ~ ten years, I hold down one button an extended duration. Two pushes sets a different timing mode.
It's definitely resource limited.
It's an application-specific digital computing device.
Seems to meet the patent criteria. Maybe someone should call Timex to dust off their patent portfolio.
Re:Hmm... BUT!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh. As if double click wasn't annoying and contrived enough. How about as many as five clicks, and the duration varies between long and short clicks? Is there a prior art in this, like freaking MORSE CODE?
Re:For the millionth time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Patent law is a HUGE money industry. AVERAGE Patent lawsuits are counted by "millions", not "thousands" like your average jackass civil case.
If MSFT or one of the other 500lb gorillas came knocking on your door, you would have no choice but to bend over and take it.
Don't even try and say that you're going to put your family's home, your car, and your girlfriend's jewelry up in an attempt to protect your open-source latest-greatest media player - I think you'd be lying if you said that you would.
The point being that patents are an EXTREMELY POWERFUL OFFENSIVE tool that hasn't really be used in the non-commercial arena - YET. The fact that they're racking up these patents without enforcing them, inclines me to believe that a mass exodus is on the horizon: attack every major open-source package with a combination of injunctions, cease-and-desist letters, and lawsuits. The end result could probably look like this:
-Those that don't even fight and just take their projects down: 35%
-Those that want to fight, but don't have the financial legal backing to fight but ultimately end up taking their sites down: 30%
-Those that fight and lose everything they put on the line for the sake of the industry: 15%
-Those that fight and win (after putting everything on the line for the sake of the industry): 10%
[ Please note: this is purely speculation ]
Net result: an overnight shutdown of about 80% of the _major_ open-source projects out there.
Are you getting angry yet?
hard to believe (Score:1, Insightful)
Nokia 5510 prior art - was (Re:Xerox and Apple) (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about any other phones, but my 5510 had the facility that I could press '1' and it would enter the #1, but if I held down '1' it would call the speed dial entry for #1.
Clearly this fits into the "limited resource environment", the "hardware button" and everything else. If this isn't a very, very specific example of prior art that is meant to be covered by this patent then I'm screwed if I know what else could be.
Yes Virginia, the patent office is staffed by morons.
This is your ass... on a plate... AGAIN (Score:2, Insightful)
jane doe vs mc donalds over hot coffee
Not bad, two in a row. Want to go for a threepeat?
Sane courts and legal systems... hmmm. hmmm.. since civil cases are handled seperately from criminal cases.....
Can I get an APPLE?
APPLE!
Can I get an ORANGE?
ORANGE!
Hot coffee... hot coffee. You are aware, I assume, that at the time of the lawsuit the training manual for McDonald's coffee required the coffee be maintained at a temperature no less than 180 degrees farenheight which is a mere 32 degrees below the boiling point of water? You are aware, I assume, that on sensitive skin such as that of the elderly and on children (both age groups being members of society which frequent McDonald's, mind you - one of which is a regular customer of coffee), 180 degree water can cause intense damage? I spilled their coffee on myself as a preteen, years before the lawsuit - it left burn marks for several days. I had previously spilled instant coffee on myself and it NEVER left that sort of damage. And, of course, you're conveniently ommitting the fact that the judgement was eventually reduced to less than $700k.
Well, you've offered your ass up twice now, and twice I've handed it back to you on a silver platter. Want to go for three? I'd recommend against it. I don't really have anything against you, I'm just tired of people offering up irrelevant comparisons and BS statements to make a "point", when, in fact, they're not making any point at all as a result of thier meaningless posts.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
So if I make a PDA and doubleclick on an app to run it, I don't owe Microsoft money?
Yeah, right...that's how Bill thinks.
Re:recurssion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:April Fool's (Score:5, Insightful)
yes go ahead and -1 offtopic but i want it at the top...
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
This might be so, but regardless of whether they enforce it, Microsoft still has an unfair advantage over other companies.
You could as easily argue that competitors who might actually have a fair reason to take Microsoft to court could be unfairly put off by Microsoft's overly inflated defensive patent portfolio that could be unleashed on them at any time. That is what defensive patents are there to do, after all.
Re:Dear Lord... (Score:5, Insightful)
clicky [uspto.gov]
Re:April Fool's (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer power buttons - Short period = sleep, Long period = Hard off.
Somehow I know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:April Fool's (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:April Fool's (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:April Fool's (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:April Fool's (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, maybe they should be recognized, but should they be granted a twenty year technology on an almost trivial idea?
The question isn't about giving credit who invented it, it's whether the public interest is better served by the current 20 year monopoly system for trivial things.
Every single day... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:More to the point... (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you know what defensive patents are for? If you answered "to stop other people suing you for doing the thing you patented", you answered wrong.
Defensive patents are what you use when someone sues you for violating one of their patents. Then you say "sure, but you're violating this, and this... oh, and these too... hey, tell you what, you drop your case and we won't squish you like an ant!"
Defensive patents are just another weapon the big guys use to screw the little guys over. So Pop has a great idea, and he patents it, thinking Microsoft will license it from him? Fat chance, Microsoft will just take his idea anyway, because there's fuck all Pop can do - if he tries to enforce his patent, Microsoft will just defend themselves with their defensive patents.
Can you see anything wrong with that picture?
Re:April Fool's (Score:3, Insightful)
I think we all agree this is a stupid patent but the real problem is the fact a company ( any company ) is allowed to take out these kinds of patents. Microsoft would be silly not to take advantage of this patent silly season for as long as it lasts.
It is the US patent system which needs to change ( and not infect the EU ) because must be pretty clear that this isn't really an invention or innovation of any kind, it's a pretty bloomin' obvious idea.
Re:April Fool's (Score:3, Insightful)
>common now, it's the double-clicking and long-
>time clicking on a PDA that's somewhat novel.
Patents are meant for inventions, how can this be called anything close to an invention? Just because you now do something since long common "on a PDA" (or whetever next you might think up) we have a new invention and something that should be granted a Patent? What if people do it with their eyes shut or with their toes, is that something novel and worth a patent as well?
Can Public Domain works be stolen? (Score:5, Insightful)
But maybe there should be. Take Disney's handling of folk tales and out-of-copyright stories.
In the case of Snow White, everyone now calls the Dwarves by the names in the film -- Disney owns a copyright in those names.
Pinocchio -- Disney added the stupid little cricket, and consequently have copyright on it. Many of the Italians hate what has been done to their classic children's book.
The Little Princess -- Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale of "Can't always get what you want" -- characters renamed, happy ending added, and (a lesson learned from previous releases) the name changed to The Little Mermaid to stop other kids video companies releasing a competing product.
...and now children worldwide refuse the original versions of each of these tales because they're convinced that the Disney way is "the right way," and Disney thus has appropriated the rights to some of the most enduring Public Domain works known to man.
A similar thing happens with folk/public domain music. Do a popular arrangement, and suddenly people will refuse to listen to the original way -- the new way is the "right way". Then anyone wanting to sing it has to buy it off the arranger.
Public domain work misappropriated. Not technically theft, but I contest that it should be.
HAL.
First Learn To Read. (Score:3, Insightful)
Before the deluge... (well, actually after the deluge), may I suggest that the average SlashDotter take a moment to learn how to read a patent.
The key things to look at are the claims. These are generally read in the context of the rest of the patent, but it's the claims that are the most important bit, since it's on these that the patentee claims a monopoly. Let's examine the claims of US6,727,830 (read along here [uspto.gov]).
Start with claim 1. It has four elements, a, b, c and d. A claim applies in whole, not in part, so for something to infringe, it would have to do all of a, b, c and d. Just doing a, b and c would not infringe. Take a look at the difference between c and d; the key point is that if the button is released after the time limit, the behaviour is different (the previous state is displayed). That's important and (as far as I know) novel. In particular, it's not the same as a double-click.
Similarly, claim 2 is like claim 1, only if the button is released after the time limit, the application starts with a new blank document. Claim 3 is a further variant, etc, etc.
I haven't proceeded to look at every single one of the other claims, but the key point to remember is to read them carefully and exactly, rather than jump to ludicrous conclusions such as "Microsoft Patent Doubleclick". You have eyes to read, and brains to think. Use them.
Re:EFF's Patent Busting Project (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where? (Score:4, Insightful)
The main problem with patents like this is that you can patent something in such broad terms that it can be stretched to fit any definition they want it to fit.