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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."

10 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. First post by nekosej · · Score: -1, Troll

    I am going to patent the idea of first post

    --
    Never pet a burning dog.
  2. Where's Powwow? by barfomar · · Score: 1, Troll

    Where do I buy the rights's to Powwow?

  3. Help! I think I might be gay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    So I've got this friend, let's call him Cmdr T. No, that's too obvious, let's call him C.R. Taco Anyway, Mr. Taco has been "noticing" other men lately, if you catch my drift.

    It all started out when Taco was at his favorite local bar, the Man Hole. He would go there every night and have a few banana daiquiris and watch pre-taped episodes of The View and Oprah. So there he was in his favorite leather chaps and little else, sipping his daiquiri and watching Oprah when this guy sits down at the stool next to him. One thing leads to another and Taco is in the parking lot bent over his Mazda Miata, taking it up the ass like a champ. His suitor comes hard, and they decide to head back to Taco's apartment.

    So the next thing you know, Taco has this guy strapped to his pommel horse and he's pounding the stranger's ass with everything he's got. All of a sudden, it hits him: "I might be gay!"

    So I'm asking for your opinion here. Do you think that cruising floof bars and having anonymous sex with other men makes me, I mean him, a little gay, or is this perfectly normal heterosexual activity?

    1. Re:Help! I think I might be gay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      To my mind I am a straight guy but sometimes I get this urge to browse for gay porn on the net or do a "hardcore ass gay" video search on Kazaa.

      It's kind of funny. When I hit the net in the early 1990s gay sex disgusted me, but now it does nothing or even turns me slightly on.

      How far would I go in reality? Well, I've been thinking about that too. I wouldn't object to getting a blowjob from an anonymous, clean guy.

    2. Re:Help! I think I might be gay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Welcome to the real world, Neo.

      The internet is a vast gay conspiracy.

  4. patents have to be the answer by dnotj · · Score: 0, Troll
    1. IPO
    2. waste $$$
    3. make something unique
    4. cease to exist
    5. wait
    6. sue M$ for prior art patent violations

    I'm off to create something for micro$oft to steal from me.

    --
    No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
  5. Microsoft Patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Why do companies need to patent this stupid little ideas? Why is it allowed that a company can patent an IM? If an IM is missing a feature people want, and the company won't add it, why can't another company create their own? It should be a monopoly.

    Now this stupid little typing notification patent? Microsoft did not have it first? AND WHO CARES? Why is it allowed to be "owned"? its just some gay little feature that retard end users want.

    i am writing this while taking a massive shit on the toilet. I love laptops and wireless.

    Anyways, this whole thing is just stupid. This is my rant. Answer me this... are companies outside that US that create an IM with the gay "typing noticiation" feature, are they affected?

  6. LISTEN YOU NINNIES by stratjakt · · Score: -1, Troll

    You're all the ones who want to live in the "information age".

    Oh look, lets feel good about our generation, lets name our new age. Its the information age! Information is what's valuable now! It was all so cute to spout off about it during the .com boom wasn't it? A whole new age! Information age! Hooray! A revolution, just like the invention of the printing press or steam engine! Whoopty la de da da do do! ...

    You tools fell for that marketing bullshit. You ALLOWED information, copyrights, patents and trademarks to have more value than tangible goods.

    SO wallow in it you hippy bums.

    How about we scrap this "information age" horseshit, and go back to fucking reality?

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  7. Re:Don't forget by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: -1, Troll

    Wow. An entire article and subsequent discussion devoted to a single tiny patent feature everyone thinks already existed.

    But it's Microsoft. Need the page hits.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  8. moron the corepirate nazi/refudlicking partIE .con by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    spiracIE theorists' lameNT.

    lookout bullow. J.'s peaced off/well beyond dissatisfied with the georgewellian fuddite southern baptist freemason corepirate nazi stock markup FraUD execrable regime, & is looking forward to the genuine momentum associated with the creator's intentions for the planet/population rescue/gnu millennium.

    pay attention (to yOUR environment, for example), which can lead to insights that might help US avoid being relegated to some chapter of bad history/hysteria.

    you all remember what the earlier nazis cullamed to be fighting against?