MS Patents IM Feature Used Since At Least 1996

splorp! writes "Once again, a company is patenting a feature that another company implemented years before. C|Net's News.com reports that patent no. 6,631,412 grants Microsoft the rights to 'an instant messaging feature that notifies users when the person they are communicating with is typing a message.' Excuse me? Does anyone remember Powwow (now defunct)? I remember using that one back in '96 and it alerted the other people to whom you were chatting that you were typing. Or, alternately, it allowed you to SEE the other people typing in real time. Yeah, Powwow is gone, now, but that doesn't mean those features never existed."

Comments

Maybe it's a pre-emptive patent

[grasshoppa]

Hey, maybe it's a pre-emptive patent. You know, patent it now so someone with less morals won't screw them over...later...hey, why is everyone laughing at me? :)

Forget the patent...

[tzanger]

Does anyone know if the MSN-T Or nextgen-msn-t is actually stable form jabberd yet? The latest one I tried (1.2.8pre10 I think?) segfaulted in the pthread code about every 3-8 minutes.

Next week: patent for watchdog timer ..

[talexb]

.. which is described in the original patent filing. Is this stupid or what?

Re:WTF Mod Parent Down !!!

[Tyreth]

I was not at all expecting to get modded up for what I said. There was nothing at all useful in my post. So, I agree with you! Amusing though.

FP

[Angram]

First Patent!