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Yahoo Patents 'Smart' Drag and Drop 128

Unequivocal writes "According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo has filed a patent for 'smart' drag and drop. From the article: 'A computer-implemented method for manipulating objects in a user interface, comprising: providing the user interface including a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface; and in response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, presenting at least one additional interface object in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object, each additional interface object representing a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated.' How do these patent claims differ from normal drag and drop? In pretty trivial ways if at all, but it may be hard for a patent examiner to understand that trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent. If Yahoo gets this patent, they'll have a mighty big stick to shake at competitors."
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Yahoo Patents 'Smart' Drag and Drop

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  • NeverWinter Nights (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ilithiiri ( 836229 )
    Wouldn't this describe NWN interface?
    Drag, choose option, drag some more..
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
      What about the task bar in Windows 95 and beyond? I can drag a file from an Explorer window to the task bar, make a Window get focus so I can drop it on that Window......

      I don't understand from TFA (which I read...I did not read, however, TFPA) what makes their system so smart? Is it the pop-up text that says "Move to Top"? Or just that it does what I want it to do?

      Layne
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
        How is anybody supposed to program anything with the way these patents are worded? I have no clue what they are even talking about. Each patent should be able to explain something in plain english as to what they are actually patenting.
        • It is a context menu, except initiated by dragging instead of right-clicking, and instead of a menu it pops up one or more drop targets.

          The wording of patents [seds.com] is an attempt to avoid the potential ambiguity of plain English.

          • So, you mean like when I drag with right click in windows, and it shows me a little menu once I drop allowing me to copy, move, or create shortcut? Isn't there tons of prior art for this?
            • by beav007 ( 746004 )
              No, it's more like the Send To menu under the right-click context menu. Rather than right-clicking a file, choosing Send To, and then choosing a location, when you drag it opens a better, smarter version of the Send To menu.
        • by JoelKatz ( 46478 )
          Maybe you're not very experiences in reading patents, but this one seems surprisingly clear. What they're claiming is this:

          1) You pick something up and drag it.

          2) You drop it in something else.

          3) Some new user-interface element pops up, presumably to offer you some options about how the accepting application should handle the thing you just dropped on it.

          DS
    • PhotoShop too (Score:3, Insightful)

      This also sounds a lot like Photoshop's guidelines that they've had for several years. There's got to be more to this patent than this.
    • Also sounds like dragging and dropping in Windows when you have taskbar grouping enabled and multiple Explorer windows open.
  • A large mug is what I'd call whoever granted this patent. Isn't it just a normal drag and drop crossed with some context sensitivity?
    • by leamanc ( 961376 )

      A large mug is what I'd call whoever granted this patent.
      The patent hasn't been granted. It has only been applied for.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Hognoxious ( 631665 )
        The headline says otherwise. Har, har, you read the article. LOLZ@U, N00B!!
        • by leamanc ( 961376 )

          The headline says otherwise. Har, har, you read the article. LOLZ@U, N00B!!
          I did not RTFA! I only read the Slashdot summary. I know that's still reading too much though. :-)
          • Er, are you saying the summary accurately reflected the article?

            Hang on, I'll get right back to you, there's some guy called Satan on the line asking if I know a good heating engineer. And boy, are his teeth chattering!
  • by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:28AM (#22137370) Homepage Journal
    If Yahoo gets this patent, they'll have a mighty big stick to shake at competitors."

    No they bloody well won't.

    I have the patent [uspto.gov] for shaking a stick at competitors.
    • by phobos13013 ( 813040 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @11:05AM (#22137736)
      Maybe so, but *I* hold the patent on misdirected links, soooo, as my team of lawyers race after you for my millions... we will just call it even!
    • The only reason companies use patents is to create phony investment potential.
      • And you see it all the time. So many product literatures I get from vendors trying to sell us their appliance boxes love to tout how many patents they have or have pending. Personally, I see that number as a bad thing, but many management types might not.
      • The only reason companies use patents is to create phony investment potential.

        Because investors demand it.
    • Does the text of the patent include terms suchas "a plurality", "providing in the instance of" and other obscure legalese? It's not valid if it doesn't.
    • >I have the patent for shaking a stick at competitors.

      I'm sorry Rooseveldt beat you to it. By the way, the KDE drag and drop interface used to present a mini menu that let you decide to copy, paste, etc...

      This patent/application deserves to die a grisly death.
    • A project called Open Rico has had an open-source javascript api that does that for a long time, and it works quite well. There is an online demo at: http://demos.openrico.org/demos/drag_and_drop_custom_dropzone [openrico.org] No login required.
      • A project called Open Rico has had an open-source javascript api that does that for a long time, and it works quite well. There is an online demo at: http://demos.openrico.org/demos/drag_and_drop_custom_dropzone [openrico.org] No login required.

        Unless there's some way to arrange for the drop zones to not appear until after you start dragging, Rico is not prior art for this patent. It does look like a nice Javascript library.

    • Well, if they do get this patent they will be soon hearing from my lawyers since I 've already patented the 'ingenious' drag and drop last year!
  • Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)

    by DustyShadow ( 691635 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:30AM (#22137386) Homepage
    They've applied for this patent. It has not granted yet. Seems like a small point but it isn't.
    • "Seems like a small point but it isn't."

      Have you SEEN some of the patents they've put through in the last 5 years? This most definitely IS a small point.
  • Prior art (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:31AM (#22137396) Homepage
    How is this different from spring-loaded folders which have been in MacOS since before it was X?
    • Sounds a bit like "snap to grid" too.
    • Better question how is this different than Finder's varible icons? The trash can becomes an eject icon when you select an external volume?
      • It's only a guess, but I'd assume because the trash can is not always in proximity to the drive you're dragging. This seems much more like the 'Ring' of options described above, which would appear when you being to move an object. What they are actually using it for is unknown to me, but it'd be interesting to see it and see if it really is a new or interesting idea.
        • It's only a guess, but I'd assume because the trash can is not always in proximity to the drive you're dragging. This seems much more like the 'Ring' of options described above, which would appear when you being to move an object. What they are actually using it for is unknown to me, but it'd be interesting to see it and see if it really is a new or interesting idea.

          You don't want it to be always in the vicinity of the item you are attempting to drag. That would be annoying (it would distract from what you really want to do assuming you have your dock set up according to how you normally work) and changing the interface out from under a user tends to be confusing, but this is an HCI and asthetic choice, not in any way a technical one.

          Having annoying icons chase your mouse around is easy. I did that to some guy at college (many years ago) when I made the "OK" button

    • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      IBM had desktop objects that did similar things in OS/2 over a decade ago. Everything on the desktop was an object and depending on the type of object being dragged and the drop target of the object different behaviors could be initiated. Of course Yahoo could add "On the Internet" to this description and STILL get a patent for it, assuming that IBM doesn't already have one. I wouldn't make that bet personally, seeing as how IBM is one of the biggest patent powerhouses in the world and has probably already
  • that will stop Yahoo for having to fire 1000s of its employees over the next few weeks. Go Yahoo!
  • by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:33AM (#22137410) Homepage

    Patent tax revenues are backdated to the day of filing. So patent trolls are claiming that all those inventions that were suddenly extant and infringing on day 0 didn't exist as prior art on day -1. They just appeared fully formed overnight.

    How can anyone working in the patent racket sleep at night? It must be where lawyers end up when even child molesters, cannibals and politicians won't employ them any more.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      WTF are you talking about?!? 1) There is no such thing as "patent tax revenues". 2) Which "patent trolls are claiming that all those inventions that were suddenly extant and infringing on day 0", you gibbering, faux-cynical moron?
    • How can anyone working in the patent racket sleep at night?

      Duh. You don't need to sleep if you don't have a soul. ;)
    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I am sorry - but that isn't insightful. The day of filing has to be within a year of invention being made public. The day of filing is NOT the day of invention. An idea can have been in public knowledge for any time period less than a year and a patent can be filed. The definition of public knowledge is also complex, in this case. You don't have to have announced it. If you are using an idea deep within a service you are providing to a customer, that is considered "making public". So, if you start selling
      • Can you point to anything factually incorrect in my post, or... wait... I'm talking to a machine.
      • Disclaimer: IANAL...

        But as far as I know, only the inventor has one year to file after the invention being made public. Anybody else who just reads the publication and tries to grab a patent in the innovation is not entitled to the patent.

        So you might need to prove you were the original inventor. Easy enough if you wrote the first article in a science journal, but it might become messy end expensive if you did not make your invention public in such an obvious way.
  • What competitors? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Trevin ( 570491 )
    Every windowing system in existence? How could Yahoo! possibly implement a drag-and-drop interface without the support of a window system that has already implemented it (whether they use the window system's native drag-and-drop or not)?
    • The patent isn't on every drag-and-drop interface, just one that presents context-sensitive drop targets after you start dragging.
  • EVE:
    -click on some object on screen (typically ship in space) and hold mouse button down
    -several "drop targets" appear around selected object
    -by "drag and drop" one of these "drop targets" can be selected. Each "drop target" launches a specific activity, like locking weapons on, unlocking target....
    "Drag and drop" in parentheses because the selected object is not visibly dragged, only the mouse cursor moves.

    Overall, this is not quite the same but might be similar enough to count as prior art. That is, if it
    • That was a noble attempt at finding prior art, sadly it is in vein as they don't give two fucks about prior art, all they care about is what the load of bull patent they shoved through says. This is a prime example of why all software patents are bullshit, there is no way you should be able to patent mathematics, specifically algorithms.
      • by mmalove ( 919245 )
        I have to agree. Although it's too bad really, I'd love to own a patent on the flavor of statistics where you pull a number out of your @$$ and claim it as a percentage of the population that believes/does X. I'd make a killing on at least 90% of the forums out there.

      • This is a prime example of why all software patents are bullshit, there is no way you should be able to patent mathematics, specifically algorithms.

        The software == mathematics argument loses some wind when used to attack a patent application such as this one. Mathematics describes universal truths. This application describes a user interface feature. Mathematics are exact, and often uses specialized notation to avoid ambiguity. This application uses a lot of words to describe several concepts and use

      • Not all software patents are bad, but bad ones like this are.

        software engineering still has room for creative, news ways to perform functions, hence, there is still room for innovative, creative ideas that should be protected. However, patent applications like this one simply degrade the patent process. Clearly this patent should not be awarded and should be summarily dismissed, but there is a process in place that has to be followed.

        What I would like to see is a heft fee slapped on people who file
        • Name one good software patent. I dare you. From Unisys with LZW to MS empty threats against Linux there hasn't been a single good application of these patents.
      • sadly it is in vein as they don't give two fucks about prior art
        Do you mean prior artery?
    • Overall, this is not quite the same but might be similar enough to count as prior art. That is, if it was present in EVE before March 29, 2006. Unfortunately others have to confirm or refute this as I started EVE in December 2006, after the date of the patent application :-(

      The functionality of EVE that you described could support an argument that at least some of the claims are obvious given the state of drag-and-drop technology. You are right to be careful about the dates when the functionality exist

    • Except for "dragging" the initial item, this is the same actions as a pop up menu. Your Eve example is a pop up menu. And there are circular pop up menus, and menus drawn as lots of floating icons, and menus that don;t appear until you start to drag or you hesitate. Some of these are already patented, so not only is their prior art, there may be patent violations here!
  • I would think that someone should send a copy of the Microsoft and Apple APIs and corresponding documentation for implementing "Drag and Drop" in Windows and in MacOS 9 / MacOS X. I suppose that this documentation would count as "published" because everyone who wants them can download them from the Internet. Actually, you would have to find versions as they were available at the time the patent was filed, plus any previous versions. Anything that is in either of these APIs would have to be removed from the
  • by PJ1216 ( 1063738 ) * on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:48AM (#22137546)
    Patent Examiners should post ALL technology-related patents onto Slashdot and then just wait to see what WE have to say about it =P
  • by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:48AM (#22137552) Homepage
    People are asking about traditional drag-n-drop or drag-n-menu, but let's try to be specific to the claims made. After reading them I am convinced Apple's "spring loaded folders" match the description. They were released in the 1990s, I believe in OS8.

    "A computer-implemented method for manipulating objects in a user interface, comprising: providing the user interface including a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface;"

    Since this is the "drag", this portion of the patent is prior-arted by just about everyone. Next...

    "and in response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, presenting at least one additional interface object in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object, each additional interface object representing a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated.'

    This is the key. Although other UIs might meet the first portion of this part of the claim, the second is more narrow. Specifically it has to open something near the first that is a drop target. Menus are not drop targets, so they don't apply. Launchers are not related to the original drop target, so they don't apply.

    But spring loaded folders absolutely do. They opened in response to a "hesitant drop" over a folder, creating a new window under the cursor showing the contents folder (as if one had double-clicked it). This window is "at least one additional interface object", it is most definitely "near the first that is a drop target", it is definitely an "object representing a drop target", and finally, it is [related to] "the first interface object may be associated".

    Flush.

    Maury
    • by zenslug ( 542549 ) *
      It sounds a little different to me. In my mind, the patent is describing how, when grabbing something to be drag-n-dropped, other elements reveal themselves differently immediately. That is different than the spring loaded folders in that all you have to do is grab something. You don't need to know already that a folder is a target. Instead, folders might tell you that they are valid drop targets so you don't have to guess what is possible.

      "in response to selection and movement of the first interface obje
      • by dedrop ( 308627 )
        It's arguable whether "spring-loaded" folders fit the patent or not. After all, it's not the selecting or moving of the first interface object that triggers them, but the separate action of moving it over the folder.

        However, the patent clearly covers other UI actions. And more than just "other elements revealing themselves differently". It also covers brand new elements appearing. Take a look at the images that came with the patent application. It shows someone selecting an email message in a list and begin
    • Maury- Thanks for confirming my understanding of this patent. I think prior art also exists in games- specifically in my experience in Jagged Alliance 2 (copyright 1999 Sir-tech Canada, Ltd.), where you remove a money object from your inventory and "give" it to Pablo at the airport. In this case, you drag the object (money) over the drop target (Pablo's mitts)with information about the action being initiated ("give") and this results in Pablo's happy response "Coffee money - to keep my eyes open.", which me
    • by Kazrath ( 822492 )
      There are several MMO interface add-ons that already implement this type of feature. Drag an item over one of your bags it opens up and you can drop the item in.

      Sad thing is... they will probably get the patent and some jackass will have pockets stuffed with green paper.

    • by ZiZ ( 564727 )
      How about the World of Warcraft UI mods that remove unused button frames unless you're dragging an item or skill around that you can assign to those button frames? They appear, empty, as drop targets, when you're dragging said item or skill...
    • I love how you parsed that. Less intimidating. Thank you.

      However, patents are drafted with the most general claims first, then getting more specific. The strategy is that the first claim(s) may fail, but later ones are upheld. This enables the inventor to hedge their bets between too broad (and invalid) and too narrow (someone invents around their claim). It's arguing in the alternative, a (little) bit like a murderer saying (a) he didn't kill the victim; but (b) if he did it was an accident.

      Anyway, the
  • by bytesex ( 112972 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:49AM (#22137554) Homepage
    'on the internet' !
  • After skimming through the patent [peertopatent.org], it seems the "smart" component of this is in bringing the possible drop targets within close proximity to the object being dragged. I vaguely remember reading about a system of that nature in one of my SIGGRAPH conference proceedings a few years back. I don't have time to look it up right now though, as I have to get to work. Maybe later tonight, unless someone else can find it first.

    • After skimming through the patent [peertopatent.org], it seems the "smart" component of this is in bringing the possible drop targets within close proximity to the object being dragged.
      Man, I bet that's not annoying. Much.

      I hate it when damn machines start trying to second-guess me. Whole-word select irritates the hell out of me, so stupid icons flitting around to be 'helpful' will have me spitting blood.
    • Sorry, I could not find anything like this in my SIGGRAPH Conference Proceedings for the past seven years. I must have been thinking about something else. It may not have been a drag-and-drop system, either; it might have been a browsing/navigation system where related objects where arranged in close proximity to your current object, and moving to a related object would re-arrange the other objects to show the objects related to the new object.
  • by Kirth ( 183 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:53AM (#22137604) Homepage
    Sounds like the interface of a LucasArts-adventure to me. If you pick up a banana the pointer changes and the environment reacts differently if you click on something.
  • My Mac II SE (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From 1990 had a drag and drop interface. Windows 3.0, and OS/2 back in the early 90's had a drag and drop interface. IBM PARKS in the early 70's used a drag and drop GUI. I dont see how Yahoo can claim this as theirs.
  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:59AM (#22137658)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • But it looks like this isn't just plain old drag and drop. Can't say if it's patent worthy, or even something with no prior art. Read the article if you didn't get the difference from the description. My summary- It's sort of like they combined a right-click with a drag, popping up drop targets when you start to drag an object (similar to opening a new menu when you right click on something). I wouldn't think it's patent worthy, but that standard seems to have fallen recently...
  • ProTools (Score:3, Informative)

    by log0n ( 18224 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @10:59AM (#22137662)
    has had this for years. Dragging/dropping in context of what the content is your manipulating - and then initiating an action (or series of).

    Hell, anytime you've burned a CD in OSX by dragging to the trash can and it changes to a burning icon, you've just prior-arted Yahoo.
    • by netik ( 141046 )
      Also prior art when said trashcan changes to an eject symbol. This patent is useless.
  • The way I read this, it's describing something similar to.. well, let's take Flickr as a Yahoo example. If you had an interface which you could pick photos on, but really don't have a great deal of space for myriad menus, and click-click-click operation. Imagine you select and drag a photo image, and the user interface darkens and presents a ring of graphical menu items - perhaps a trashcan, or a couple of previews of certain filter effects which you can drag the photo object onto and apply the effect.

    That'
  • Apple's Final Cut Studio. When you drag an item from the Browser over to the Canvas, a number of drop targets pop up, offering the editor a bunch of options for how to integrate that particular item (video clip, still picture, etc) into the timeline. Pretty straightforward stuff. Not sure if Apple has patented it, but it's definitely prior.
  • "trivial" changes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pbhj ( 607776 ) on Tuesday January 22, 2008 @11:58AM (#22138450) Homepage Journal
    >>> How do these patent claims differ from normal drag and drop? In pretty trivial ways if at all, but it may be hard for a patent examiner to understand that trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent.

    Firstly I think you're confusing novelty and "inventive step". Something is either novel or not, there are no degrees of novelty. . It's very easy to create something novel, by collocation for example, but there must be a synergy between the elements as any application can only cover one "invention". The inventive step is the difference between the "state of the art" and the patent being considered, whether that step is obvious is often the crucial point.

    Looking at the claims (eg http://peertopatent.org/patent/20070234226/overview [peertopatent.org]; assuming they are copied correctly) then they seem to follow a pretty standard formula. Often (and in certain jurisdictions there's a benefit in this) the first claim is intended to be too broad. This means that the applicant gets an extra period of time for amending the patent before it can be granted and hence before fees have to be paid. Other reasons for broad claims are to get an overview of a field from the examiners perspective - they site a spread of patents that knock out your claim 1. The claim 1 in this case is to broad for this however.

    The claims then branch off, methods, devices, systems each incorporating or excluding details of what might be the envisaged product. This way the broadest possible scope of monopoly is sort - it's an adversarial system really. So the article is bunk when it claims to be fighting overly broad patents - the applicant wouldn't want claim 1 to stand as such a patent wouldn't be enforceable as it's clearly invalid wrt the prior art.

    Now back to that quote "trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent". Well the issue if indeed the steps are minor is that drag and drop interfaces are used by a plurality of users in a plurality of places (!). So the field is extremely well worked. A very minor change therefore is critical, it could easily corner the market. Say the change from a static to a dynamic "wait" cursor (egg-timer) - a minor alteration but a very significant one. Now we say such a change is obvious, but we have to assess this question from the time of filing (or more properly the priority date) and from the perspective of the man skilled in the GUI art and in possession of the common knowledge of the GUI field or research. Do citations in the field mean you could produce that inventive step without being inventive. Is it plainly obvious.

    In any well worked field it appears to me that it's perfectly reasonable to argue that any small feature that can't be hit for lack of novelty must be inventive as otherwise it would appear in the prior art. That argument can't easily be refuted; though I think it lacks rigour, personally.

    FWIW.

    [I was a UK Patent Examiner a few years ago.]
    • The way it reads, it almost sounds like the way Google widgets interact on a customized Google search page.
    • [snip]

      Now back to that quote "trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent". Well the issue if indeed the steps are minor is that drag and drop interfaces are used by a plurality of users in a plurality of places (!). So the field is extremely well worked. A very minor change therefore is critical, it could easily corner the market. Say the change from a static to a dynamic "wait" cursor (egg-timer) - a minor alteration but a very significant one. Now we say such a change is obvious, but we have to assess this question from the time of filing (or more properly the priority date) and from the perspective of the man skilled in the GUI art and in possession of the common knowledge of the GUI field or research. Do citations in the field mean you could produce that inventive step without being inventive. Is it plainly obvious.

      In any well worked field it appears to me that it's perfectly reasonable to argue that any small feature that can't be hit for lack of novelty must be inventive as otherwise it would appear in the prior art. That argument can't easily be refuted; though I think it lacks rigour, personally.

      The problem is that there is a serious difference between most industry/scientific disciplines and software (and I have worked in both). People don't go through all of the citations in the industry when trying to invent "new" things in software. They look at a few things, sure, but mostly they play around and pull things out of their butts. The thing is that in software it is ridiculously easy to try "new" things and "invent" things because it is so malleable. It would be like making shapes out of polymer

      • by pbhj ( 607776 )
        >>> "The same thing would go for selling hats that look like upended bowls of pasta and shout at random passers-by."

        Sound novel to me!

        I totally get where you're at, it may have been too subtle, but where I stated the argument that the ~appearance of novel features in a well-worked field implies inventiveness~ I tried to intimate that I don't buy the argument but can't readily refute it.

        Moreover I'd agree that software is distinct from other areas of industry and have argued such myself - I'd like t
  • The most recent game I played, The Witcher, has this interface. Take a weapon from your inventory bag, and the slots you can drag and drop it into in your character (hands, for example, but not the feet) light up. I think that's exactly what the patent means. Yahoo doesn't specify (at least in the /. write-up) that it's web-only, so I predict this being nixed by prior art.

    And my guess is, the 4 month old Witcher is hardly the first application to do this.
  • I'm not sure how they can do this, since as far as I can tell [yuiblog.com] they "released" these design [yahoo.com] patterns [yahoo.com] a while ago.
  • Patents like this are outright ridiculous and a symptom of much greater problems (with law and society).
    Stop searching for prior art, doesn't matter who came up with the idea first when its so obvious and simple as this.
    Just say no.
  • Drag and drop: Hit the joint, and pass out
    _Smart_ drag and drop: Hit the joint, and drop a stamp

    Has no one else here even heard of LSD?
  • The idea of having all of the drop targets appear when you start a drag operation is actually pretty cool. In standard Windows and Linux, they don't. It doesn't make any sense for that to happen because, well, everything would pop up because you can drag just about anywhere. Still, it's not really discoverable for end users and it would be kinda neat if Windows (or Linux), for that matter, lit things up a bit.

    However, this patent wouldn't actually cover such an application, because, under Windows, there'

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