TVI to Sue Over MS Autoplay Feature

scubacuda links to this Infoworld article, which reads in part "TVI charges Microsoft's autoplay feature infringes on four of its U.S. patents. TV Interactive Data Corp. (TVI) of Los Gatos, California, claims that Microsoft infringes on four of its U.S. patents, three entitled 'host device equipped with means for starting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media' and one entitled 'method for starting up a process automatically on insertion of a storage media into a host device.", writing "I hope no one has a patent on the shift key, because that's what I hit when I insert a CD. (That is, when I haven't already edited the registry)" Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?

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Re:I want to hear from a Patent Examiner

[24-bit Voxel]

I sit down on a bus bench near a flourishing Starbucks. The incredibly gorgeous girl next to me is telling her friend how the most important thing in her world right now is getting a nipple shield like JJ. She holds two or three Sak's Fifth Avenue bags in her left hand. Her right hand is positioned so the forefinger and the thumb form a circle, and she has it over her nipple under her shirt. I avert my gaze and look the other way. Just on the other side of the homeless person reading Shakespeare next to me, I see an HP recycles campaign ad on the bus stop window, then a cleverly placed OBEY sticker catches my eye near the vomit and the urine on the sidewalk.

The topic of conversation from the hottie next to me has changed during my musings. Apparently, oxycontin is her new favorite drug, but every time she does it she wakes up someplace she doesn't recognize. For some reason this makes me think of the game Final Fantasy and my eyes glaze over as I am thinking about the game. I get up to go to Egghead and check out new games.

As I walk into the store, I notice right away that the man behind the counter has no forehead. Years of skinless exposure to the open air had turned his skull slightly green, at least in the parts that showed. Most of his nose was also gone, but he had a good half a nostril at least. In a disturbingly nasal voice he advised me that there is a 25% off sale on some game with naked biker chicks, or something like that. For some reason this makes me think of Shakespeare.

I walk out of the store empty handed and strangely hungry. I look for a spot that's cheap, without resorting to fast food. "Tuna pita sounds good", I think to myself as I grab a small bag of cornnuts in the 7-11. The man behind the counter says that I can't purchase items there the way I am dressed. I asked him if my skull was showing, he said no.