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Microsoft Patents Timed Button Presses
ScooterB writes "According to TechDirt, Microsoft has patented having the action of a button determined by how long the button was pressed. From the patent listing, it seems to be targeted towards PDA's and other handhelds." Whether patents like this are the chicken or the egg, this relates to an MSNBC article submitted by prostoalex which says "United States Patent and Trademark Office is overwhelmed with incoming requests," and that "Unless the budgeting increases, the review process for a patent could double to 5 years."
Oh, wait...
Hopefully it'll be recognized that this is old. In fact, I believe that there are actual physical switches and buttons that have done this before the rise of Microsoft's empire.
So, to the patent office weenies: PRIOR ART, MOTHAFUCKAS!
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
has played a handheld and/or console game.
Ever.
Whatever, ignore, continue. Who are they going to call on it?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Is for the (in)famous "click and drag"..
Patents for:
;)
Shirt Pressed By Iron
Iron Pressed By Muscleman
Muscleman Pressed By Time
Time Pressed By Space
Space Pressed By Gravity
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
On the Tungsten series, pushing the navigator button quickly does an app-defined action. Holding it for a second or two switches to the launcher. How is this not prior art?
1. Do such an inept job at screening patents that it quietly expands their scope.
2. Watch as a whole industry is created out of filing for these new patents.
3. Watch incoming volume of new patent requests increase astronomically.
4. Whine to Congress about insufficient resources.
5. Swill at public trough.
6. Hire more workers.
7. Get big raise because you now manage many more workers.
8. Profit!!
Wow, that's actually a cool idea. Does anyone have any prior art they could show me? I'm not sure I've seen it before.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Like when on a Mac, if you hold the one mouse buttom for a longer amount of time, you get a menu? Or when I press and hold a button on my radio to set the memory?
Like a severly beaten slave showing the evils of slavery, and extreme example like this shows the evils of patents. It's an illogical system and will not last. If it gets backed up--well that can only be a good thing.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Mac mice are known for their one buttonness. Hold down the button to achieve the same effect of a right-click. Hmmm...
that my limited computing device (radio) with its limited number of buttons in my car, the Bose will need to pay microsoft because i have to press the station set button down for 3 seconds to retain my favorite radio station?
Damn, another stupid patent. Yes I looked at the application and saw that the scope was narrow, but come on, just in front of me right now I have:
Sharp Zaurus: The "Cancel" button sends an ESC char to the OS, but if you press and hold it, it turns the unit off. Also if you press the button while it's off, nothing happens, but if you press and hold, it turns on again. I believe the various application buttons can also be programmed with different apps for press vs. press-and-hold.
VIA Mini-ITX motherboard: I have it set in the BIOS to sleep when the power button is pushed. But if you hold the power button for several seconds, the power light flashes and it powers down.
CRT iMac: power button does sleep, unless you hold it down, then it blinks and powers off.
APC SmartUPS: holding down the power-off button turns the unit off, but if you press-and-hold down for several more seconds, it turns off the battery charger too (you can hear the relay click off inside).
And of course SOFTWARE buttons have been doing this for years (click vs. double-click vs. click and hold). My KDE konsole application has a button that you click for a new session or click and hold for a menu.
The patent office needs to get a clue. PLEASE!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I wrote a program years ago that started a timer when the button was pressed and stopped it when it was released, and would display the time the button depressed.
:-)
*smells lawsuit forthcoming*
I think around $200 million would convince me to license my technology to Microsoft.
bash: rtfm: command not found
Damn, I almost had it, but I couldn't seem to hold the "submit" button down for the proper period...
Do I have to get a license when I need to hold the power button down on my computer for 4 seconds to power cycle it when Windows crashes?
REDMOND, WA--In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
With the patent, Microsoft's rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones--the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programs--unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.
"Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975," Gates told reporters. "For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals."
A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive, claiming that the 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
"While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its core, just a string of trillions of ones and zeroes," said Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment used in many Internet applications. "The licensing fees we'd have to pay Microsoft every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net worth of this company."
"If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but to convert to analog," said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, "and I have serious doubts whether this company would be able to remain competitive selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs."
As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle has embarked on a crash program to develop "an abacus for the next millennium." Novell, whose communications and networking systems are also subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top animal trainers on a chimpanzee-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is developing a revolutionary new steam-powered printer.
Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft.
Above: Gates explains the new patent to Apple Computer's board of directors.
"We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are legally ours," Gates said. "Among Microsoft's vast historical archives are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800 B.C. clearly showing ones and a symbol known as 'sunya,' or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls written by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular notation, or 'one'; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the concept of al-sifr, or 'the cipher'; original mathematical manuscripts by Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed first-edition copy of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness. Should the need arise, Microsoft will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else that we own the rights to these numbers."
Added Gates: "My salary also has lots of zeroes. I'm the richest man in the world."
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsoft's patenting of one and zero have yet to be realized.
"Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero, Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathematics and logic systems, including Euclidean geometry, pulleys and levers, gravity, and the basic Newtonian principles of motion, as well as the concepts of existence and nonexistence,"
Would it be enough to get me thrown out of the patent reviewer pool if I were to point out that this sounds almost exactly like a 1-button Mac mouse? A click, double-click, and click-and-hold have been around since what version of MacOS?
Doesn't just about every game on the gameboy represent prior art in handhelds?
The longer I press the button, the higher Mario jumps.
Unless the budgeting increases, the review process for a patent could double to 5 years
Congress just needs to quit siphoning off the money that the USPTO makes from application fees.
Does anyone else besides me think that this could be a GOOD IDEA on their part? Maybe if they actually took their time to process the patents and run exhaustive prior art checks most of these silly patents they're awarding would be preemptively tossed in the trash.
Gabriel Ricard
definitely not the first, but my phone (and countless others) shows a menu for profile select if you touch the power button, and shuts the phone off if you hold it....
So... lemme get this straight. the patent office if ALLOWING these dumbass requests IN, much less GRANTING them? A friggin CLICK? Not only that, but M$ has the balls to actually WANT to make it theirs. Gimmie a break. This is ridiculous. Slashdot is too good for a story like this.
"...Whether patents like this are the chicken or the egg..."
Patents like this are the dried up shit that stains the outside of the egg.
...hope they don't discover that infringing gas pedal it has!
What will they get away with patenting next!? This is one of the more obscure patents but come on.. patenting a timer to indicate how long a button's pressed? That's sorta like patenting a keyboard's whole design, variable button repeat and all (typically, the resolution of the button presses on a keyboard is tweakable in the operating system, even if marginably). I'm sure there are better, more clear ways of expressing this patent, but it's just horrible that someone could get away with patenting something as fundamental as pressing a button for "n" amount of time, and having the button return n.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
... a special [Asinine] header on fark.com.
Really, though, I'm constantly asking myself when this craziness will end? More importantly, when will the USPTO finally start to do some hard research on these patent requests and reject them?
It's painful to see the system that was designed to encourage innovation so often abused as a tool to stymie it.
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
"Unless the budgeting increases, the review process for a patent could double to 5 years."
redundancy makes it even funnier...
My cell phone has done this for years. Press the "talk" button and it shows the last number dialed. Continue to hold it down and it dials it too.
My keyboard is similar. Press a key and it prints a character, hodl it down and it prints many of the same character. (See below)
a
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Does anyone else see the need for a distributed prior art review. The idea is fairly simple, when a patent is applied for, it is placed into a queue where anyone who wants to sign up for the job can spend a small amount of time looking for any prior art. If any is found, the user is allowed to upload the data as well as some simple references that can be attached to the patent that would be flagged for review. This should at the very least provide some time savings for the patent officers, and allow all of us (myself included) to quit bitching and help out.
I'll sleep when I'm dead, right now I drink coffee and rub my eyes
I'm sorry, but the one-button-mouse Mac has been doing this for over a decade.
... my digital wristwatch of EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO was doing something like this... you needed to hold down one of the buttons for 2 seconds to get it into 'set' mode.
In every Sonic or Mario game, you jump higher if you hold the button down longer. How can MS have a patent on this?
Or how about this:
Instead of increasing the bugdet dramaticly...
Make more strigent and accurate guidelines to what people can patent. ohhooooOOOOOOooo...
Patenting button pressing is BS obviously. It's frivolous at best, plenty of devices time exactly how long you keep a button pressed.
Every set a digital clock, anybody?
It's like the monte python skit.
I have a particular funny walk I want to patent!!! It's different, I created it! It's usefull for getting from point a to point B!!! Weeee.
I only wish Microsoft cared about how long I've held down Control-Alt-Delete.
It's like your ignition key. If you keep it turned for about a second, it starts the car. If you keep it turned for 10 minutes, it burns out the starter.
And there's also auto-repeat.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Are you saying the US Patent office is the victim of a DOS?
I think the obvious prior art would something like the buttons on a remote control. As an example, take the Squeezebox. The longer you hold down an arrow button, the faster it scrolls through the list.
I'm sure their are numerous other examples of things where button behavior is determined by timing. The fact that patents like these are granted is unbelievable.
As an aside, would the patent office be less inundated with requests if it was more discriminating when handing them out. After all, it seems like if they give out patents like candy, companies will start submitting obvious ideas in search of a patent, whether the idea is really patentable or not.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
If setup on some BIOSes, press and release the power button on the case and the system goes into suspend/sleep. Press and hold for 4 seconds, system powers down.
$cat
I am assuming (this is /., why would I actually READ the patent) the patent will be for "software" buttons on screens, and not the physical buttons. After all, how long has Palm used the power button to work as a light switch? And, I forget when the first cell-phones started using the End key as a power button. Not to mention the power button on modern PCs, push and hold for 4 seconds to turn off. The closest software only implementation I can think of are some of the palette options in graphic arts program. Seems like holding the mouse button down while clicking on a tool would pop up an option dialog for that tool.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The clitoris.
(Or so I am told)
I guess my question was too basic to be easily googleable... all I can find is that System 1.0 "also included a separate tutorial disk that taught you how to use the mouse (a device alien to most all users at the time) called Mousing Around, which later became Mac Basics."
http://www.mackido.com/History/EarlyMacOS.html
Just keep your shift key pressed for five seconds in Win2K and you'll find out. Stickey keys!
It's the same damn thing; changing the controls a bit does not make for a legitimate patent, as there is no technical barrier to prevent such a thing. Any programmer could re-implement this in a few minutes given a few words of explanation.
IIRC, a patent can be overturned if it is later shown that the invention was obvious or that prior art existed. This patent would surely never hold up in court, so it's only useful for intimidation tactics.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
What's up with prostoalex? I noticed his name like twice today, so I looked...
211 total articles submitted and accepted?
At this rate, by next year, he'll have more accepted articles than Hemos posted!
And michael said I had no life for simply having over 800 comments.....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
They should fine companies millions of dollars for each ridiculous half-assed unresearched patent filed. That should either slow things down or bring in enough money to deal with crap like this.
--- Nothing To See Here ---
you don't suppose M$ will let me use their toilets once they patent the direction the water flows when flushed???
*sig under patent, please pay to read*
I would like to warn Slashdot users that SCO will be responsible for the licensing of the technology described in this article.
If you are currently using this patented technology please contact SCO Licensing for more details
Yours Faithfully,
Darl McBride
I wonder if the M$ guy that filed this patent got the idea from having to hold the power button down on his desktop for more than 5 seconds all the time?
Casca
Maybe by backlogging the whole office, MS can keep from getting sued for patent infringement (Eolas anyone?) etc for things that they want to assimilate into their product. If it takes five years to patent, the world will have moved on to something new and there will be tons of prior art.
Maybe if they didn't grant so many patents for obvious and existing things, there wouldn't be so many people jumping on the bandwagon!
...that the guys at MS already knows that prior art exists. They probably just don't think that the rule about prior art applies to them
The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
Disclaimer: I have not read the patent. But I think it's got to be for software detecting how long the mouse pressed a GUI button.
Colorgraphics had this on their graphics products back in the mid-1990's, if not earlier. You had a bunch of color boxes with different colors in them. If you clicked on one of them, the current color was set to the color in the color box, but if you "mashed" (defined as clicking on the box for more than 3 seconds), the color in the color box was set to the current color.
Colorgraphics was part of Dynatech at the time. I'm not sure if they even exist any more - Dynatech tried to move the engineers from, IIRC, Madison, Wisconsin, to Utah, and most or all of them found other jobs instead.
The EFF Patent Busting Project: http://eff.org/Patent/20040419_eff_pr_patent.php
Next Micro$oft will claim they invented the light switch after all that is all the button is just another switch.
On an iPod, while browsing songs, clicking the center button selects a song and starts playing it. Holding the center button instead adds it to your "On The Go" playlist.
I filed several patents - the last of which was filed in the spring of 2001. 3 years later NONE of them have issued (including one that is passing 4 years now). I don't see a doubling to 5 years, just an increase to 5 years.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
REDMOND, WA--In what CEO Bill Gates called an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors, the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
With the patent, Microsofts rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones--the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programs--unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.
Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975, Gates told reporters. For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals.
A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive, claiming that the 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its core, just a string of trillions of ones and zeroes, said Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment used in many Internet applications. The licensing fees wed have to pay Microsoft every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net worth of this company.
If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but to convert to analog, said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, and I have serious doubts whether this company would be able to remain competitive selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs.
As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle has embarked on a crash program to develop an abacus for the next millennium. Novell, whose communications and networking systems are also subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top animal trainers on a chimpanzee-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is developing a revolutionary new steam-powered printer.
Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft.
We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are legally ours, Gates said. Among Microsofts vast historical archives are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800 B.C. clearly showing ones and a symbol known as sunya, or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls written by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular notation, or one; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the concept of al-sifr, or the cipher; original mathematical manuscripts by Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed first-edition copy of Jean-Paul Sartres Being And Nothingness. Should the need arise, Microsoft will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else that we own the rights to these numbers.
Added Gates: My salary also has lots of zeroes. Im the richest man in the world.
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsofts patenting of one and zero have yet to be realized.
Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero, Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathematics and logic systems, including Euclidean geometry, pulleys and levers, gravity, and the basic Newtonian principles of motion, as well as the concepts of existence and nonexistence, Yale University theoretical mathematics professor J. Edmund Lattimore said. In other words, pretty much everything.
Lattim
Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click.
Are they trying to get a patent on double-clicking?
Skeptical Limericks
Megaman 3 for GB!
(Yes, charged shots were introduced in MM4 for NES, but for the PDA aspect, the first GB game to feature them was MM3.)
That's how "Fighting Street", the confusingly named version of "Street Fighter" for the Turbo-Grafx 16 worked. There were only two buttons, so to do a fierce punch you hold down punch for a while, and to do a jab you just tap it.
They also patented the double-click with this. The article does not mentioned it, but look at the details at the patent office site. They stole the whole GUI from Apple--and Apple stole it from Xerox.
Among other annoyances, this patent dilutes my bragging rights for my own patent.
Me: Yeah, well, I've got a patent.
Person I'm trying unsuccessfully to impress: Yeah, well, so does Microsoft--for double-clicking. Can't be that hard.
Also, my cell phone (motorola V60) - the buttons do different things depending on how long you hold them down.
Bad USPTO! Bad boy! Down!
Elevators were operated by people who held down a button or a switch. The length of holding determined which floor you went to. This type of tech is ancient.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Talk about your prior art!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
So this patent covers launching different applications based on the duration of a button press, note that this is not same as typing different characters on a keypad or repeating characters when a cat in sitting on keyboard. From the patent text:
... the Palm-size PC contains a plurality of buttons (called application buttons) that are used to launch the more common applications installed on a Palm-size PC. For example, if the application is a notes application, a short button press displays a list of summary information for the stored notes. If the same application button is pressed for a long period of time, e.g., at least one second, an alternative application function is launched.
I admit that is a clever approach for making the most of a few buttons, but is that so unique? Haven't any console video games used similar logic to do functionally the same thing? And what if there is a device that launches the same application each time the button is pressed but the application is in a different mode... I don't see a mention that situation in the patent text.
Whether patents like this are the chicken or the egg[...]
Unless you're a creationist, the chicken came after the egg.
Here's how the government can address the issue of the patent office being overwhelmed: Pass a law requiring that patent applicates be processed faster. *bingo* it's all fixed.
This seems to be the current trend. Never mind figuring out how to fund things or fixing the system, or improving existing processes. Let's just pass another low and magically expect everything to be fixed. It's worked with spam! It's worked with the war on terror and national security. Why not the USPTO?
Read The F&#@ing Patent Application
please go and read the actual patent app. before posting ignorant comments. You might find that your digital watch, cell phone, mouse, pda or whatever has nothing to do with what they are trying to patent.
I dislike MS business practices as much as the next guy, but please be informed....
everything from my pager to my tv remote already does this.... how the heck do these patents keep slipping by?
They must know that this is not a genuine innovation.
/. reader and the time of whoever has to challenge the patent to get it thrown out. Legislate now to save the patent system from abuse.
If the patent bureaucrats are besieged with applications, how about a system that penalises anyone submitting trivial or obvious claims where there is readily available prior art.
Whoever submitted this is wasting their time, they are wasting the patent office time, they are wasting the time of every
Or simply exclude software from the domain of patents.
What's next? Microsoft patents the double click? Maybe the Qwerty keyboard? How about a special way of moving the hand with a plastic tracking device to indicate which part of the screen is being used by the user . . . I don't think that anyone's thought of that yet . . .
Don't blame Microsoft, blame the patent system.
... But there are plenty of smaller companies out there that make money by hitting up the big guys on these silly patents.
...
Microsoft, being the nice fat company they are, is a ripe target for patent lawsuits. If I was them I would also patent all the idiotical things I could get away with, because if I don't someone else will. Use the system or it will bite you in the ass.
I highly doubt Microsoft would ever try to enforce this patent on anyone
So anyway the patent system is broke, we know this, what are we going to do about should be the question
Closer to PDAs are mobile phones. Look for the tapereel/voice mail icon on button '1'. Hold it, and you're calling your voicemail. Not hold it, and... well... you pressed '1' :)
Hyperom.com
...this is another bad patent. At least some people paused to notice that it's not THAT rediculous (compared to, say, patenting reverse auctions on the internet, or Amazon's one-click checkout patent, etc.), just another classic case of why just because it's being done on a computer or on the internet does NOT make it new and non-obvious.
However, I wonder what else a company like MS, or IBM, or Intel can do in a situation like this -- namely, one where they're doing things that haven't been done before that, while NOT patentable in "our" sense of the term, are nevertheless things that DO get patents from the USPTO.
I mean, if you want to do something, and *someone* will patent it because our broken system lets them, shouldn't you try to patent it first? That's what most corporate patents seem to be these day -- defensive patents.
It's the nobody's out there that are really abusing the system -- SCO, Eolas, etc. I'm not really saying they're forcing Microsoft's hand (or IBM's, or Intel's, or AMD's, or NVidia's, etc.) -- but I *am* saying that I think these large research-driven companies are exercising good business sense by trying to defend themselves against the more flagrant abusers of the patent system.
Sooner or Later (I'm guessing Later), even the cost of doing business with defensive patents and cross-licensing will reach that point that the big guys will push for Patent/Trademark reform, and these sorts of problems will finally go away. But, IMHO that day is years away, and the targets for patent abuse have to defend themselves in the meantime.
I just wish one of the big patent powerhouses like MS or IBM would step up and drive a challenge against the existing patent status quo -- either via a Constitutionality argument, or lobbying Congress to get REAL patent reforms going, *something*. It's a gamble right now, sure, but business is all about risk and reward, and the payoffs for being able to get out of the patent litigation minefields that any technology company finds itself in these days would be worth it.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
What about the whole apple macintosh computer system? A computer with one mouse button. There were so many things that were done by holding the mouse down instead of clicking. And double clicking? That's older then Windows.
I wonder how many of the junk patents that have been approved lately were done by the same people. It would be nice to have a better feedback system for Patent Examiners then expensive lawsuits.
Mod this one -1 obvious.
Sincerely,
Bill Y. Gates
Don't know how long they have been around but the remote does different things depending on how long you hold it.
Man are the people in the patent office for real.
I hope that the patent office is paying the appropriate royalties for using Homer Simpson's "use the drinking bird to hit the approve button" method patent. Because apparently they use that method alot.
This is not prior art, because a watch is not a computer. Well, except a Casio DataBank, but that's not a general purpose computer. Except the Matsucom onHand, which is a 16-bit PDA, but it's not a PocketPC PDA. See, Microsoft's invention is new and innovative.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
here's how:
We need to set up some kind of open source org for generating and funding silly patent applications. With some sympathetic venture capital, we may be able to clog the patent system for the next 50 years!
Not that im gonna do it. Just think it would be neet if someone tried. Of course, the org would have to have protections from not actually inforcing the patents.
The goal here isn't to make good patents. Just to clog the system, so we need not think to hard about them.
just an idea,.
Would a digital watch count? I'm pretty sure my first one would do different things from how long the button was pushed. Granted, it was only generally how it knew you wanted to set the time and switched modes, but it was a pretty limited computer.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
"United States Patent and Trademark Office is overwhelmed with incoming requests," and that "Unless the budgeting increases, the review process for a patent could double to 5 years."
Or better yet, rather than increasing the budget, the P&T Office could start REJECTING MORE patents, and we could get rid of algorithmic patents altogether (software and business practice). That would QUICKLY cut down the load.nstitutionally) much better.
Microsoft patents the color blue.
(blue screen, get it!)
Every golfing game in existance. I remember holding a button down to build up power to a golf swing WAAAAAY back in the day.
meh
An example of prior art:
bash$ xset r rate 250 40
Hmm: Let's see - hold down a key for a brief while:
X
Or hold it down for a long while:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
>United States Patent 6,727,830 Lui,et al. April 27, 2004 Time based hardware button for application launch
This is totally nuts. There are so many examples of prior art running around that I can only think this is a belated April Fool's joke that got picked up. I've written and deleted about six more sentences that all came out either as raving anti-Microsoft flamebait, profanity, or both.Seriously, does anyone see a valid aspect to this? I'm not a hardware engineer, but I sure can't see one.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I guess holdthebutton.com will be closing soon.
They grant patents that should obviously not be granted and claim they are overworked. This kind of patent should have been dismissed by the front door clerk. The patent applicant, if it wants, could challenge the dismissal ... IN COURT.
// quick
Repeat with me:
if( overworked ) dismiss_patent_request();
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
here's a game that has been around for quite a while.
Does anyone have some tape? My mouse could use an "upgrade" for this game...
With a Palm OS device, if you just hit the Address Book button, it takes you to that app. If you hold the button down longer, it tries to beam a record that's been designated as a "business card", if such a record exists.
I don't know how long they've been doing this, exactly, though I doubt it was after M$ started producing PDAs, much less filed for this patent.
Seems they're trying to patent the concept of double-clicks as well... they bloody stole that from Apple!
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
Five years is plenty of time for others to come up with the same idea, take it to market, build a business, and then have it utterly destroyed when the patent is granted. So overloading the patent system results in more profit for the unscrupulous.
At the rate things are going, the best bet for innovators will be to leave the country. That will not bode well for American technical superiority in the long run.
====---====
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Odd, I though my iPod did just that. Hold down menu, turn on back light. Tap menu, navigate directory.
Who cares, dozens of hardware manufacturers will aligh at t his in court.
The mileage/odometer functions are selected this way on electronic odometers.
1)To get to trip mileage, press the button.
2)To clear/reset trip mileage, press and hold button.
3)To return to odometer, press button.
Functions are context sensitive.
Ford are in big trouble!
Microsoft issued patent licensing demands to amateur radio operators, as well as military and commercial radio technicians around the country, warning them that those "dahs and dots" as expressed using their mouse in numerous training and application programs may be a violation of Microsoft's innovative MultiClick Patented technology.
.....
"We're really looking at this as an opportunity embrace a new user group rather than approach the licensing obligation in any threatening manner," said Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer. "I'm certain we can explain to radio operators that they're not required to license and may be equally satisfied with signals of a uniform length."
All kidding aside, I used morse trainers in the late 80s that the length of the mouse click differed the behavior. I can also recall an Apple IIgs shareware football game that based the behavior of a kick or punt on the length of mouse hold as well. Madden football does that as well, if I recall right.
Maybe I'm missing something here. May have to go read the application; certainly there's more to it than this?
*scoove*
That's all.
Let me get this straight... Microsoft just patented the hold-click? That's it, I gotta go patent the double-click before anyone else!
If you take the time to actually read what's claimed in this patent (on /.? yeah right...) this isn't as broad a patent as a lot of readers seem to think it is.
Basically, they've patented the following (all being done on a "limited resource computing device"):
Not ingenious, and of doubtful usefulness in my opinion, but certainly not as bad as patenting the very general "having the action of a button determined by how long the button was pressed" where that action could be anything.
probably because that isn't what the patent claims say
i dont see steps:
(c) opening an application if the application button is released prior to the expiration of a threshold time limit; and
(d) opening the application and automatically causing the application to display the last known state of the application if the application button is pressed, without being released, for a period equal to or in excess of the threshold time limit.
in claim 1
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
if I hold it down for three seconds, it launches the time-setting application.
A digital watch has a CPU, register, memory, and an OS -- it's the ultimate limited power computing device.
If I didn't hold the button down the entire time he was jumping he would never make it across the little holes!!!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Hold The Button? Now they're in trouble.
Games with baseball pitching, golf swing.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Would Morse code count?
unfortuneatly, that doesn't have anything to do with parts c&d in claim one. Most of the other claims are very similiar.
(c) opening an application if the application button is released prior to the expiration of a threshold time limit; and
(d) opening the application and automatically causing the application to display the last known state of the application if the application button is pressed, without being released, for a period equal to or in excess of the threshold time limit.
A lot of people here are saying the same thing, but the claims require more than just holding a button for a set length of time to preform some mysterious action. Each independant has it preform a different function.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Just what we need, an "SCO" of the handheld world. Of course, Pocket PC's running Microsoft CE would be exempt.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
First thing that comes to mind: SimCity 2000 had this. I think I've heard someone say macs have it, too. Oh, and XMMS has it. And FireFox (actually, pretty much any graphical web browser).
But really, this is bad interface design. It's not discoverable, it slovs you down, what else? It makes me laugh to imagine how they are going to geh burned if they actually use this `feature' on a broad scale.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
We are missing the point a bit here. Of course, you are all totally correct, this isnt anywhere near a new thing, but we are missing the whole patent issue. I know you all understand this as well as cookies, but ill say it anyway. Patents protect an IDEA. They dont protect the end result. Hell, imagine if Hoover could patent clean carpets, no one else is allowed to invent a sucky upy thing, since it's patented!
This is exactly the problem with a load of software patents. They dont patent HOW something is done, that patent WHAT is done. It's like trying to patent staying dry and warm, and therefore preventing anyone else building houses! I do believe there are some valid software patents, but that should NOT stop someone else getting to the same result by doing it differently. Just because some guy invented RSA security, does not stop some other guy inventing a totally differnt way to use the same algorithm.
Microsoft can patent the source they used to time this button, if it uses some cool new timing algorithm that works without needing the internal clock, but no way should they be allowed to patent the actual result, a timed button.
And honestly, i dont blame microsoft, i blame the fucking stupid patent clerks and judges who let things like this through. Microsoft are just using the system, we all would given half a chance. You patent people should wake the fuck up and engage brain!
However, you will owe me money, since i own Thought(TM). oh, and i also own "Correct Answer(TM)" and "Common Sense(TM)", all registered trademarks and patents, thank you...
That's right, it's already been said. Perhaps you should violate the patent and hold-click your PgDn button.
All computing devices have limited power. ALso, they have limited computational horizon. You know, I was going to make a joke, but it has left me (perhaps for the better). But, I'm a total pedant, so instead of cancelling, I'm gonna submit. And, I'm not gonna preview either! So the typo I made in the second sentence is gonna STaY tHere! wheeeEEE1!!11 NO CARRIER
what about the text-entry method of most mobile phones? i doubt this is about the PDA market half so much as mobile telephony.
ed
Hey, I seem to remember there were things you could click on the old mac on several user interfaces that popped something up if you held the buttond down vs. clicking. Also, anybody have an old apple newton? I remember something very similar there with the hand writing recognition buttons.
With the Macintosh only having one mouse button, this was already a popular feature back in the 1980s.
Double click and Triple click are well known. But there are also subtle timeouts for click and click and drag. This is because clicking and releasing has a tendency to move the mouse. on MacOS you have to click, hold it for a moment, then move to drag something. renaming things in MacOS works along the same lines.
The article linked also mentions car radios and other gadgets which already had different actions for different button durations. Infact my VCR would "lock" into fastfoward mode if you tapped the button on the remote or console, but if you held the button down for a bit it would fast foward until released. I realize that it's not two different actions, but it's two different behaviors for the same sort of action.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
the other half of the claims have nothing to do with that
(c) opening an application if the application button is released prior to the expiration of a threshold time limit; and
(d) opening the application and automatically causing the application to display the last known state of the application if the application button is pressed, without being released, for a period equal to or in excess of the threshold time limit.
plus how would you show motivation to combine a baseball/video game with the above?
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
"If it's less than some threshold, launch the application associated with that button normally; if it's greater, then launch the application and automatically restore it to it's last known state. "
Please explain again how the baseball pitching and gold swing related to that specific claim.
How can you just patent something that is already being used by others? This Agilent scope has buttons that give help if you hold down the button for a few seconds.
My computer will power off if I hold down the power button for 5 seconds.
(I read the patent)
even if this is meant to apply to virtual buttons, prior art exists in many places: a friend of mine
used to work for Symbol Technology, the bar code scanner folks. he told me about how you determine
if a button is pressed at all; there's an effect he described as "button bounce" where as the button is
depressed, the electrical contact is intermittent for a while until it becomes constant - i.e. don't do anything
until the button has been "on" for 1200milliseconds. he's had to write customized timing code for a variety of
vendors' buttons, since they are all have a bit different 'action'; and since there's generally only one button(trigger)
on a hand-held scanner, they'd have done the same as described in the patent. the extensions
they've applied for seem completely "obvious" to anyone who's had to use/work/design a product with
"limited resources", i.e. buttons.
anyway, deciding what what to do depending on how long a button(real or virtual) has been done for
many, many years:
elevators, digital watches/clocks, PDAs, Apple Newtons and many others previously mentioned.
maybe the patent office should 'open source' the research of prior art(like groklaw?) since they seem to be
incapable of handling any more than a couple of applications per day.
c
"...that's as white as it gets; all the bits are on..."
And therein lies at least some of the problem with the current system. Even if you're going to allow for software patents, the mere fact that you have implemented something in software that would not be patentable as a physical device ought to be disallowed. The situation has gotten laughable. Common business practice (referals, clerk looking up customer's shipping info) have been granted patents as software implementations. And the EU is apparently going to follow the US down this idiot path.
I was thinking about a similar fix to the politically-correct nonsense sweeping the nation. I bet if we complained about everything collectively, eventually the people who are _supposed_ to be representing us would realize that it is inane, irresponsible, and unnecessary to police our ears, eyes, and mouths.
:D
It all came to me after someone complained about the 'slave' and 'master' settings for IDE drives, supposedly offended that those terms were used.
My boss thinks we should complain about 'male' and 'female' plugs, and connectors, and then there's the whole 'gender-changer' sockets too. That's a whole can of worms just waiting to be opened
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
The scope of the patent is very narrow and covers only a (longish) list of explicit and application-specific extended-push actions, and only on palm-type devices.
Your Palm power button is safe (not on the list), as are the buttons on your wristwatch, Mac mouse, car radio and garden tractor (totally different field of application).
None of 'em is prior art if you buy the "limited resource computing device" constraint. Ok, ok, some people would claim that Macs are the very embodiment of "limited resource computing", but I'm a Mac user, so I don't agree. :-)
hahaha! that's great!
Hold it for a definite period and ellicit a response. Thats what this patent all about.
.
Wait a minute .
Did they patent .
PC power supplies that conform to the ATX specification have different behaviors depending whether the power button is pressed and released, versus being pressed and held for 3 seconds.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
I have an ancient (circa 1997 ?) Compaq C-120 handheld computer that the Windows CE 2.0 operating system does different things based on how long you hold down some of the keys.
Okay, how about the clock on the Newton 100 on up?
- oZ
// i am here.
5 years? That's ridiculous.
I mean, how long does it take to blindly rubber stamp any piece of paper that shows up on your desk? One examiner could do thousands in a single day.
I think the /. folks should start a project to
determine the minimum number of carefully
interlocking but seriously idiotic patents it
might take to cause the patent (and existing
legal) systems to permanently deadlock on
incontrovertible contridictions. Figure once
that happens, we're home-free until everyone
figures out how to sort it out.
I can imagine the headline: "Government demands
society stop inventing new stuff until we can
figure out what the word actually means."
I wrote a game for my Atari 400 in the 80's that evaluated how long you help the "Fire" button down on the joystick. How to I file prior art?
And you have nearly 5200 comments now... that sounds like a lot, but is it?
Well, let's do some math. That comment was posted 2001/12/11 at 4pm (local my time), according to slashdot. At that time you had 713 comments. Now, your usernumber is in the 100k range, so you're not a slashdot oldtimer, but I can't tell for sure when you joined. However, we can look at the time since then.
Let t1 = Time("2001-12-11 16:01") and t2 = Now(). The amount of time passed (t2 - t1) is roughly 75070272 seconds (don't worry, I'll keep precision in the background) and that's about 868 days. In that time we know you posted 5174 - 713 comments, so your posting rate is (5174 - 713)/868, which is about 5.13 comments per day. Every day, for about 2.3 years.
Good or bad, you can decide. Personally I think this may be partially a response to michael's comment.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
...even comparing anybody to Hitler or any group to the Nazi party. Poor Godwin's law didn't even have a chance.
My CD player plays either song 1 or 7 (2 or 8, 3 or 9) depending on how long the button is pressed
The upshot: Everybody can use timed button presses in their applications, without paying royalties to MS. They only have to think for themselves how to do it.
Unfortunately I actually know next to nothing about patent law. Anybody with a fundamental knowledge is invited to set me straight on this.
Y'all know the chords providing electrical power to domestic appliances, right? Well, imagine if we could use similar metal wires to transmit electricity *not* for providing power but to transmit information...!!! Not exactly sure how to do this, but I suspect one would have to try to "chunk" information into small pieces instead of simply using a constant voltage.
"So what?" you might say, "Why the hell would anyone want to transmit information through a wire when we already have more efficient means of communication. Like talking?"
But I say to you: "Think big, my friends!" Sure, there are better ways for two people to exchange information, but imagine the possibilities for computers! They seem adept at this type of task. Hell, one day we might actually see our machines exchanging information directly with each other, perhaps even more than two units connected at any given time...!!!
You think I should secure a patent for this concept? Just to make sure nobody rips off my idea?
I don't have any statistics to back this up but I wouldn't be surprised if over half of the patents issued have not and will never be developed. So much for innovation. Along with filing a patent companies should be required to submit proof of development of the product protected by the patent or incur stiff penalties. Fines could be placed based off of an initial report estimating the cost to develop the product protected by the patent. Patents are supposed to protect people with good ideas who are going to DEVELOP it not for just good ideas to stay locked up in a vault.
If you enter a phone number then hit TALK, the phone dials the number normally. If you hold the TALK for a longer time, it dials the number using a calling card.
It's a very handy feature that I miss a lot - the company gave me a different phone.
But this time it makes me really angry ....
.... so everyone with a button could pay them a fee ?
.... but I hear more and more of that crap every day, and unless it stops for good, we will really end up in deep poo...
Are those people/organizations who grant these patents completely insane ?
and why doesn't M$ patent buttons
Isn't it time to move to an other planet ?
Or just form a country somewhere ?
On the other hand: in a democracy don't people have the right to do something against all these idiotic things that are forced on entire countries by worse-than-a-joke offices, like that one?
OK, OK I am getting overwhelmed
That game, sweet as it was in its own right, actually had three different functionalities based on timed releases.
:/ /. :) )
Hit fire once - you fire
Hold fire for a small time - you set up a shield
Hold fire foo a long time - you fire a *large* blast
Very intuitive, made sense for the game, and definitely added to suspense ("Did I start running soon enough to have time to power up to a large blast ?")
But anyway, not prior art, I guess.
I'm starting to wonder, with all the users on Slashdot proposing prior art (and often debunked), why there isn't a general website - say "www.priorart.org" or so (the domain is being 'squatted', currently). One that could get enough media and political attention for people and perhaps even patent/trademark offices to take serious notice to. Perhaps get some actual legal eagles that are in the patent application business and wouldn't mind devoting some of their time on preventing patents like these from being fully accepted. After all, it may hurt their own business in the long run if they don't (unless they're the one applying for the patent, obviously).
But eh, I'm not a legal expert. Just seems a lot of these discussions on Slashdot get lost in the fact that, well, this is Slashdot
( no offense to
(Well I don't know WTF they're thinking of by restricting this patent to "limited resource computing devices" - but if it takes them 5 years to get the patent granted, by then, today's computers will count as having "limited resource[s]". Is this the latest fad in obvious patents? Have we run out of common activities to substitute into the sentence "An invention for doing X, but on the internet"? Is the template now "An invention for doing X, but on a Palm Pilot"? Anyway...)
In about 1994, I used a desktop publishing program called Serif PagePlus *. This had a toolbar at the side of the window, with buttons for things like placing text, importing graphics, drawing shapes and so on. If you pressed the button and let it go, the mouse pointer would start performing the function associated with that button. But if you pressed and held the button for a little while, a little palette would appear, with buttons related to the function of the main button. For instance, the "shape" button might draw rectangles by default. The palette would have buttons for drawing ellipses and lines. The nice thing was that if you clicked a button from the palette, that would then become the default function for the button on the toolbar.
So this would seem to knock down all the main claims of the patent in one go.
* My memory is a little hazy: it might have been another program from Serif.
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
Didn't older versions and current versions of MAC OS do stuff like this. I know some stuff pops up option boxes when you click and hold. I'm not sure if any buttons did this but maybe.
Bork Bork
Your ad here ask me how!
check . limited resources .. yes.
check . amount of time .. yes.
well..
My Toilet had this feature for years ...
Retep Vosnul
-- forget
But who was going to hold the click-and-hold patent gun to Microsoft's head in this case? I agree with you somewhat that "smaller" companies patenting things just to litigate for money can drive this bad patent cycle but I don't think this particular case fits the defensive patent scenario.
It's pretty clear that no one should be receiving this patent based on its obvious nature. There are some pretty good prior art posts up already, I think one of the best ones pointed out that since the advent of the digital watch you've had to hold the fxn button down to get into set mode.
I think in this case Microsoft wasn't trying to cover its ass against someone picking up this patent, I think more likely they're the ones who were planning to bully with this patent. After all, since Macs only have one mouse button you have to hold it down to get the dropdown menu, a clear infringement of M$'s "Intellectual Property" that I'm sure they'd love to leverage for all Jobs is worth.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
What programmer has stuck around on the same project if not the same company for more than 5 years?
The _NEW_ plan to profit in corporations.
I own a Toshiba e740, which has a major issue with its power button, which is that it can be detected in 2 (almost 3) different ways:
1) The power button is pushed and held down. The handheld toggles the backlight.
2) The power button is pushed. The handheld turns off.
3) The power button is tapped - the handheld completely ignores the input, assuming it was a mistake.
The problem is that (3) can be anywhere from 0-1.5 seconds (approximately) whereas (1) kicks in at about 2 seconds. So it's VERY difficult to turn off the unit without flipping the backlight instead. This is an egregious UI misstep.
Well then, I'm going to patent the button returning to it's neutral state after being pressed. Then I'm going to build a factory that sells disposable buttons.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
The only way to stop them, since the are willing to give away these nonsense patents.. is to overwhelm the patent process. Everyone needs to start submitting patents and maybe there will be some many that nothing gets done.
Again a new day where USA, M$ and patent offices altogether prove their stupidity and greedyness.
A day like yesterday.
-- Dono what tomorrow is made of.**** ATTENTION ****
I now hold the patent for holding ones breath.
Anyone who holds her/his breath from today on, must pay me royalties
or suffer lawsuit from patent infringement.
COme on people this patenting IP is getting ridiculous. Where will it end?
Microsoft now has more money than the National deficit, so why not put a patent on everything.
Green baby poo MS has the patent
Wiping your butt front to back, or back to front MS holds the patent.
Where will it stop?
The day may come where you pay MS not to use their OS, but to use your PC because you guessed it they hold the patent on the PC model.
Has anyone patented the QWERTY layout?
That would be an idea.
%2f Insert evil laugh here %2f
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
http://www.holdthebutton.com
Hold the menu key down for three seconds and the backlite activates without changing the screen location.
Hold down the "select" button during song play changes the time position indicator to a diamond allowing me to fast forward rewind with the jog dial without interuption in playing while holding down the ffw/rwd buttons for 3 seconds allows for skippy-style repositioning.
And what about directly inverse methods?
Car lighters pop out when they are ready...
Toasters pop the toast out when they are done and eggos are button shaped.
And when the elevator door tries to close and it senses an ubstruction, it recoils, if the obstruction persists, it starts dinging cause it's mad at you and wants to kick your ass.
In 1973 I worked for HP's Medical Electronics Division on the 78221 Arrythmia Monitor. It had a hardware box (about 16"x 4" x 12") with 9 buttons on it, a minicomputer and a bit-mapped graphics display (256 x 256 pixels).
8 of the buttons selected individual patients (it handled up to 8 CCU patients). Pushing and holding the button for several seconds would switch between a graphical display of EKG abnormalities and displaying a summary of ALL 8 patients (showing HR, recent abnormalities, etc.).
In fact, we didn't even have hardware debouncing on the button; we used the minicomputer to sample the signal line and detect when it stayed stable for several milliseconds and treated that as a transition....
This would appear to be VERY similar to the claims in the patent.....
I'd call that "prior art" and "limited power computing device."
Jeez - my remote control for my DVD player has been doing this forever! I push FF to accelerate watching, and I tap FF to skip to the next chapter.
I've hated that feature since day one - and I hate it even more now that Microsoft is trying to patent it! *wink*
Education is the silver bullet.
I just read the struts story and some genius posted 'did anyone else read that as sluts'?
No. And neither did you, jackass. Let's file that gag away with 'in soviet russia...'
Just to make sure you got the rest of those smudges and knocked them clingonz into the bowl.
PAY UP! [SCO Business model not patented yet]
Lady demonstrating water purifying equipment: "And it has 'inside' connectors here and 'outside' connectors here..."
My Father: "'Inside'? 'Outside'? What are you talking about?"
Lady (cringes): "...male/female?"
Dad: "Oh, ok."
Lady: "Sorry, the last customers were offended by that terminology..."
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
The BFG is probably prior art...
Some day people will hopefully understand that even though it may be pretty hard to read computer programs, they're just something written in a certain language. Microsoft won't sell you a button at all - it sells you a library with instructions especially sorted out by them to instruct your computer to do something. They differ from a book (ok an eBook) in absolutely nothing except for the language they were written in.
Think of it. Theoretically it is possible to write a compiler that compiles the text of a patent to software that implements it. That shouldn't even have to be so very theoretical if version 0.1 only has to be able to compile one certain patent text. Now all of the sudden the patent itself has become a patented piece of software! If we don't stop patenting software now and one day someone comes up with a fucking smart compiler that can do such things, we'll all be uttering patented programs all day.
The lack of a compiler from natural language to software (and vice versa) doesn't make software any less language. Software patents exist thanks to the utter stupidness of people that cannot see the difference between "an apparatus" and "some text I don't understand and I don't have a translator(compiler) for".
0x or or snor perron?!
But if one reads the patent, it's a little more sophisticated than that.
It's really close to the setting the timer on the watch example though.
Basically, they're claiming they invented another way to use the double click threshold. Click, double click or multiple click, click and hold, and possibly other things each provide a different context for each application. So even with watches, it is still different from that.
On my watch alarm, holding down the set button opens the edit alarm aplicatation, while holding it longer erases that alarm and opens the edit alarm aplication. How's that for Prior art?
what sig?
Iii don't knooooooow how I am going tttttttttoooo oppppperaaaaate thesssssse damn devvvvvvvvices if I HHHhhhhavee to reguuuuuuuuuulllllate how llllllong IIIIIIIII hold dddddddooooown the bbbbbbbbuttonnns on my pooocketpppppppccc.
-Jacooooooooooob
Most anti-IP people are libertarians--especially on /. . Ideas can be copied. Grain cannot. My point is made.
-I am an elective eunuch.
With its single button, it was necessary for Apple to implement this. Holding the button down for a second or so pulls up an option menu, much like a right-click on other machines. Netscape on Mac was an excellent example. I would guess that it goes back at least to '94 or so.
OK, at this point it's probably been said a million times, but if the government increases funding to the USPTO, they're doing us all a disservice (even me, who is not a US citizen).
What they need to do is fix the broken patenting system. Software patents, or the idea that a piece of logic can be patented, are causing more chaos to the average person than good. They're NOT helping innovation, they are in fact doing the exact opposite, by preventing good people who have a great idea from being able to implement it because some small part of their idea is covered by a vague, overly broad patent that never was intended to cover that purpose.
But hey, since when has the USPTO been good for the average person anyway, right? Corporations are getting their much-needed oppression powers from it, so it's all good.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
So essentially, you want to destroy the system by feeding them with money?
simple. Microsoft reminds him of his wong.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I don't think I've seen anyone else mention it, but a possible theory might be that they are intentionally manufacturing a crisis. Microsoft has the potential to be dinged by tons of patent infringement lawsuits based on patents as frivolous as this one. They probably have more exposure here than anyone else. My theory is that it is possible that there might be a lot more of these Microsoft patents in the works. Then, rather than having to fight off all the lawsuits for their patent infringements (some legit, others not) at great expense, and in irrational courtrooms with unsympathetic juries (hello EU), they could create such an overload in the patent and legal system that the only option would be to take a step back and look at how ridiculous the whole patent issue has become. I don't have any facts to back it up, it's just a theory.
I struggled for days and days and all I got was this lousy sig.
This has been used on Aircraft BlackBoxes to drive the test functionality since early 1980's. I wonder if Jeffrey Blum (name on the patent application) from Seattle got this idea when he worked at Boeing in the 1980's.
I guess these guys never used the rocket launcher in Unreal Tournament. Press it briefly and it fires a rocket. Hold it down and it will load up to six rockets and release them when you let go.
:)
Note: Don't try this in a small room or at close range.
If you take the time to read the patent claims, you would see that the patent coverage is nowhere near as broad as the post makes it sound. I really wish the editors would stop posting patent stories to the front page, because they are almost always misleading, if not clearly wrong. At the very least, I think /.ers need a lesson in patent law. As a patent lawyer myself, I'd be willing to answer a few questions to hopefully put an end to the patent ignorance I see here day after day.
what is the button for a 'hard on'?
I've seen keyloggers do exactly that for YEARS.
This patent is weak. Someone challenge it please.
http://www.macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=18084 Looks like Shnano Software better take this game down quick. ;)
So a button press could mean something different if I press it for a short time verses a longer time. Let me ponder this... a short press... a long press...short...long. Maybe they could be represented as a dot and a dash to make it easier to visualize. Like ... --- ... a dot dash code. Of course we'd want to name it after a mighty creator. So we could name it the Microsoft Code. Imagine how well that would work over a telegraph...
Dozings.com -- Its kinda funny... If you're as crazy as me.
My la Crosse Technology watch is prior art. It is a watch that sets itself off the atomic clock in Colorado.
It has one button. Hold it for 3 second and you can set time zone. Hold it for eight seconds and you can change display format and daylight savings time settings. Hold it longer and it will force a resync to the time signal if it can find it.
These obvious patents are getting totally out of control. I would patent the idea of totally obvious patents, but that would be too obvious. (And recursive.)
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Um, isn't Morse Code prior art as well?
/. "filter" won't let me place disparaging remarks about Bill Gates in this post in Morse Code. Bummer.
Unfortunately, the
The Franklin/Rex PCMCIA-sized PDA.
You hold down the "back" button to turn it off. It runs off two watch batteries, so it meets the "low power" requirement, too.
Mine is about 5 years old, and still works (from the bottom of the "obsolete electronics" drawer).
Chip H.
To add to this -- contrary to popular belief, this patent has nothing to do with operations performed by a stylus or mouse. It is carefully restricted to focus on HARDWARE-based buttons of a PDA. Anybody who has a Pocket PC should know what I'm talking about. A similar frame of reference for the rest of you: Most everybody has seen (or owns) one of those "Internet" keyboards that has separate buttons for Email, Search, Browse and Play. These are similar to the application buttons on a Pocket PC. What Microsoft has patented is a method to detect how long these buttons are held down and respond in different ways, depending on the length of the button press. They've carefully limited the scope of their patent to only these "application buttons."
Now, you MIGHT be able to claim prior art with a calculator watch (aka "limited-resource computing device") that did different things depending on how long the buttons on the side were pressed. But I doubt it.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Stories like this keep cropping up, but what can we do to prevent this kind of abuse of the patent system? Contact our representatives? Do they care? What's in it for them?
Well, on my 10 years old Mac (25 MHz '030) I run HyperCard, and 7 years, or so, ago I hacked up a nice little stack, where i used mouseDown, mouseStillDown and mouseUp in the same button script. There you have it all, low power, different actions on the same button.
Maybe USPTO should get HyperCard...
Mac OS 8 ( maybe earlyier? ) had contextual menus that appeared if you did a click-and-hold..
The list goes on.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
The issue of this patent may be finished, but the larger issue of why the patent office is not receiving enough funding is extremely important.
Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments have found a new way of accomplishing it. They arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:
"The crippling loss of nearly one-third of their staff have left our [Oregon State] courts unable to hear criminal cases such as car theft, shoplifting, prostitution, fraud and identity theft. Criminals, meanwhile, have figured this out and in some cases are operating virtually unchecked by a broken public safety system." [From "In Our Opinion", by Charles Williamson. Published in the Oregonian newspaper on 2003-06-24. Available from OregonLive.com for a charge for archive access.]
The U.S. is a rich country. It is not that there is not enough money. This is widespread corruption. This is deliberate degradation of government by those who want to use governmental power to make money.
The corruption in the U.S. government is becoming severe. For example, read the book, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties. (I make no money from book purchases.) If you haven't been reading books and magazine articles about this is the last 20 years, you will learn that a close Bush family friend knows Osama bin Laden, and that George W. Bush served in the national guard with someone who has done a large amount of business with one of Osama bin Laden's brothers, and with the Bush family.
This week the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case about U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney's secret activities involving large oil businesses. One of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, is a long-time friend of Cheney and is judging this case, even though there are strong rules against conflict of interest.
Remember that it was Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court that decided that George W. Bush would be president of the U.S., not the voters. For more about that, see the book Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz
Here are some tips for those who plan to take an interest in U.S. government corruption:
1) Most people don't read books. Only 2% read non-fiction about subjects other than their work. So, although there is plenty of information available about U.S. government corruption, most people don't know that.
Television, magazine, and newspaper news reporters rely on being granted access to politicians, and therefore cannot say anything very negative without risking losing their jobs.
Only books have comprehensive information. A book author has the luxury of spending two years gathering facts.
Of course, not all books are written by authors who care primarily about the facts. Bob Woodward, for example, is known for being especially positive toward those who grant him access. That creates a kind of blackmail in which people grant him access to avoid having negative things written about them.
Those who corrupt government for money don't care about what book authors say because only 2% of the population reads books.
2) When someone is reputed to be an "oilman", that does not mean he has an interest in geology. That means that he is interested in profit.
It's wrong to say that the U.S. government goes to war over oil. The amount of oil is the same. It is who gets the oil profit that motivates U.S. government violence.
R-Type: Hold down the fire button to charge your laser cannon to a different blast effectiveness or type depending on how long you hold it down for.
I wonder if those who believe Might Is Right ever wonder if they Might Be Wrong...
i remember playing questron on the c64 with a joystick.
you could change the active command by holding down the button until the menu changed colors.
A short press would just perform the active command.
that was around 1984-5.
and that's just the earliest one off of the top of my head.
My TV gets louder depending upon how long I hold down the Volume Up Button on my remote...
will microsoft force me to pay them when I press it?
On my Epson Stylus C82, if you hold the ink button down two seconds, it cleans the heads. One second to change a cartridge.
My Samsung DVD/VCR combo has single fast-forward and rewind buttons that skip to the next/previous chapter if pressed shortly and do normal 2x,4x,etc if you keep them held down.
I hate this behavior, but I guess it still qualifies as prior art.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I suppose I need some text here.
I had a number of digital watches in the 70's that could do that. Short push for date, long push for set.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
"...the review process for a patent could double to 5 years."
I can't believe that examiners are going to start trying to actually understand the application, and find prior art, before granting a patent.
Your idea is a wristwatch! It is also available in white! http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart
Go to your local cellular phone shop and take a look at one of those phones with keyboards. Some of them will do different things when a key is pressed and held.
Thats bollocks. I mean, how far back does that go ?
..
Remember MB Games Simon ? damn it, that was the whole principle of that game! (pressing colours in a timed sequence)...
In anycase if its related to computers, the Amiga which required "Double Click" to launch programs from Icons had a preferences requester to allow you to change the time period used to detect a double click. Damn if there is a case for prior art then this is so unfair. Anyone else care to comment on the undoubted instances of prior art in this situation ?
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
My iPod. Press the play button briefly and it either starts playing or pauses. Press it for longer and the iPod goes into standby.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Smoke detector test.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
on my iPod, the advance button when held down, turns off the iPod.
with all this prior art, I think it's a done deal MS will get this patent. if just to further how how completely screwed up the patent office is.
Well, I think that both a mouse and a computer qualify as "limited-resource computing devices". Unless somebody's replaced my PC's 768 MB of RAM with a chip that has an infinite amount, and/or replaced it with an infinitely fast CPU....
after all, dot or dash anyone?
HP made a pulse injector for troubleshooting that would send one pulse if it's button was pressed, pulses at a 1Hz rate if held down, at a 100Hz rate if pressed then held down, and 1000Hz rate if pressed twice then held down. It was a handheld device.
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
Next they'll patent function returns!
I am going to patent the scientific mixture of breathable air. In 5 years you will all owe me money!
I'm gonna patent something that reacts differently to how the user uses it!
I mean... this isn't even unique. Could this effect hardware? You can make circuits that only turn on after the user has held down a button for so long (like restarting your computer by holding down the power button).
If that goes through, I'm gonna shit my pants (or should i say patents? har har, pun).
Maybe the reason it's overwhelmed is that they've granted all sorts of inane obvious patents and basically opened the floodgates? This precedent has pretty much eroded any "frivolity" deterrent.
I've been using Garmin GPS receivers for years that have a power button that doubles as the backlight brightness control. If you hold the button down, it turns the unit off or on, but if you press it quickly it alters the backlight.
In Soviet Russia, gag files YOU!!
hehe...I couldn't resist.
You can shoot me now....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Mac os, as far back as 6, the oldest I've had contact with, had single, double and long mouse clicks. To change the label on a desktop icon you would click and hold on it long enough for the OS to recognize that it wasn't a single click. I always thought that this was a poor substitute for having a right mouse button.
Have the patent office charge for every patent filed that is not awarded.
n/t
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Quoting you: "The United States is not a democracy. Never was intended to be one."
So, who controls the U.S. government then? That's the entire issue: The people have less and less control now.
Maybe my comment did not go into enough detail. Should we believe an AC or a book by Alan Dershowitz, who is a legal scholar?
The final, unquestionable proof that the USPTO is truly fucked up beyond all recognition. I mean, what do those PTO idiots think it means when their computer repeats keys when the key is held down? I have a laptop from 1982 that does this! Consider God-only-knows what other stupid patents they grant, and this is a true SNAFU: Situation normal, all fucked up.
:)
If you're going to grant every single idiotic patent that comes your way, you might as well just replace it with a motion-activated tape player that says "Patent Granted!"
On a more serious note, I want to know how on earth they could possibly review a patent for *five years* and not see glaringly obvious prior art from at least 20 years ago. They can't all be this stupid, can they? *whispers in my ear* I'm going to go cry now...
Y'Know, I think I'll apply for a patent on "A means to generate an electromotive force by motion of a conducting material through a magnetic field" and for "A means to drive said conductor through magnetic field by union of carbon and oxygen atoms." Not only is it glaringly obvious, but the level of scientific knowledge required to understand it is far beyond anything these morons are capable of. Then you'll all have to pay me for the alternator in your car
You know those indians, they never had any technology before 1995, so everything that gets submitted isnt obvious TO THEM.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
As stated in the patent,
/sarcasm
The length of the button press can either have an immediate action, or can present a menu, as shown in the example of Mac OS 8.0, Figure 42. So clearly , Microsoft's patent is much more specific than your watch.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Of course, we're doing the review after the fact. It would probably be a good idea if patents were required to be posted on Slashdot first, so that the examiner could skim the comments looking for hints.
But maybe not. Slashdot is full of noise (-1, Obvious). And adding financial incentive to a Slashdot discussion could well create a monster that would make Cthulhu himself turn pale and flee. For example... it isn't hard to imagine what companies like Microsoft will do to your Distributed Patent Review system: they will employ minions whose only job is to relentlessly spam your system, in an attempt to DOS it out of existence. Every proposed patent will be greeted by 100,000 robot-generated comments that look like this:
I think it might work, but it would have to be designed rather carefully. You might need to add Meta-Distributed-Prior-Art-Review, or even Meta-Meta-Distributed-Prior-Art-Review...
portable cd player ? I press forward and it skips to the next track. I hold forward and it advances within a track.
My iPod has a menu button that, suprisingly enough, presents menus on the screen. Unless I'm holding it for a longer time frame, then it turns on the backlight.
--Tsiangkun
Many watches DO do something different when you hold a button down - they enter a "set" mode (to input the starting position of a countdown timer, or to set the time). I suppose Casio's Databank watches do too.
Once in a blue moon, I press the shift key on the keyboard so that I could type a capitalised word only to fall into a mind lapse. I hold the shift key down, while thinking about what I was going to type only to hear a "schwoooot!" and find the keyboard no longer does what I tell it to do.
Yeah, most people didn't even look at the specific print.
.
No big surprise.
Regardless, I think I've almost found prior art (this is really close & quite debate-worthy).
1. Look at Mac OS X's "Dock".
A single click on an application-icon or document-icon starts up the app or document as normal.
A control-click, right-click, or long-click causes a menu to drop down from the icon.
If the icon is an active application, the menu usually has some stuff like "hide", "show in Finder", "Quit", and anything else the programmer would have added.
If the active application's icon is an icon that only appears while the app is active (you can have inactive app-icons kept there too) there is one more option, "Keep in Dock"
Though I don't see a perfect claim-match, it's pretty damn close.
Apple might even be able to debate that the "Keep in dock" option is similar/same to "restore it to it's last known state." because by default, the Dock doesn't retain the icon of an app when it quits. You have to have told to keep in dock (not a default).
Wether or not Apple has prior art depends on the interpretation of "restore it to it's last known state".
2. MacOS's "spring loaded folders" also match the timer threshold part, but not the rest of the claim.
3. Though unimplemented, Apple does already hold a patent on an OS interface feature called "piles". Piles could hold folders, applications, documents, etc. As you click & hold, the stacked icons would levitate up so you could see the icons without them overlapping, and you'd release on the file/folder/app you wanted.
No, none of these are a perfect match, but still noteworthy since they are quite similar to the claim.
which covers causing different actions to occur depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time, a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of time
morse code
That would only work if the patent office actually rejected patents.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
Ir ecently spoke with a Patent Attorney. A patent usually gets only 7-14 hours of review at the USPTO. This is hardly enough time to read some of these patents.
The Attorney said that of the 6.5 million patents, given enough time and money, he could narrow it down to definitely less than 1 million by invalidating the rest.
Its the way things work. A patent is nothing...it is the litigation that counts. And litigation is a multi-million dollar affair catored towards large companies.
Funny, my Griffin Powermate does different things depending on the length of the "click", I guess that's just another item on the list of things that already exhibit this behavior...
I'm going to patent the "Method and system for accelerating and prioritizing an elevator". By repeatedly pressing the elevator call button, the elevator will accelerate and bypass other floors, allowing the operator of said button to board the elevator.
Dude, take a chill.
The "purging" was a state required removal of people with felony records who were not allowed to vote. A number of in depth analyses have been performed on this purge and they found that more felons voted illegally than disenfranchised people.
As the ol' maxim says, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
The whole "war for oil" diatribe is just soooo yesterday. Since the whole UN Oil-For-Palaces (UNscam) fiasco has started blowing up in the faces of the UN, France, and Russia we see who was really pushing for oil in Iraq. None other than France with a deal negotiated for Total-Final-ELF that gave France profit margins unheard of in a normal deal. France's requirement, lifting sanctions on Iraq.
Obviously if you applied ANY critical thought to this you'd see that if we really wanted to control Iraq's oil we could have very easily cut a nice lucrative deal with Saddam, dropped the sanctions, and let by-gones be by-gones.
Of course we'd have to live with those profits to Iraq going to North Korea to buy long range missiles and those $25,000/suicide bomber payments that Hussein was making.
But hey, we're just a horribly corrupt county that is run by it's oil companies.
(Nothing like the UN that made $1.2 billion on the Oil-for-Food program in "administrative fees" and evidence suggesting that the head of the program received a couple of million dollars in oil vouchers as well.)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Take a look here.
I admit that I haven't RTFA, but that sure looks like what you say they've patented. That's not the only example either, it's just what showed up in a quick search.
I think that they should replace the review process with a challenge process. Instead of having patent officers review patent applications, wait until the patent is in question. Then the patent officers can take the time to fully investigate the patent claim. Further, since it is triggered by a challenge, there are now two knowledgeable sides (the one who applied and the challenger) which have the technical knowledge and interest to properly consider the patent claim.
I would also suggest that these challenges be on a loser pays basis. Thus, the patent examiner will be under no quota that forces them to reject/accept applications with only a cursory review. Further, if one side realizes that they are in the wrong, they have an incentive to admit it and not run up the bill more (or at all; they could admit it before the challenge review).
In this system, a patent application would just be filed. No review would be done until the challenge. Note that this also allows for your distributed review. If you wish to comment on a patent application, you should be able to do so. That information would then be available in the case of a challenge.
The beauty of this is that it moves the patent examination to a time when someone has the resources to fully examine the issue. Also, it makes it cheaper to apply for a patent (encouraging an increase in the information sharing aspect) and increases the rigorousness of the patent examination.
Note: this would still require a clarification of the patent rules. The problem that I see with the current patent is the idea that someone could patent "holding the button down to get a different effect than a quick click." Patent a particular physical implementation? Sure. Patent the concept (even limited to a specific platform)? That does not promote information sharing, so it should not be part of the patent process.
Miami Herald, Jan. 23, 2002, Hundreds cast votes illegally in Broward: "The irregularities in Broward cast further doubt on the hotly contested Nov. 7 presidential election and amplify similar findings of illegal voting in Miami-Dade."
Palm Beach Post, May 27, 2002, Felon Purge Sacrificed Innocent Voters .
All three examples you give are good prior art. (and might have been enough to prevent this patent from being issued as is, especially #1), but I just realized something- the initial application for the MS patent was filed Jan. 5, 1999.
That would antedate #1 (unless Apple could show that they had this feature developed if not released before MS had developed their feature).
I don't know about #2 & #3 though and unfortunately, those two don't map nearly as well as #1.
Still, you've made a much better argument against this patent then most. At least if this patent goes to the courts there'll be some ammunition against it.
Damn. I really wish I could remember which title that was. It really screwed up my "mash buttons" style of gameplay, too...
I've never understood why people voluntarily give themselves login names like "The Confused One" as you have done. Didn't it ever occur to you that name might weaken any argument you make?
I had never heard of TotalFinalELF until I read the book, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties . That book says that TotalFinalELF is an investor in the Carlyle Group, a company owned by the Bush family and friends. So, whoever is doing the corrupting, they are doing it together.
That's the rub then, for all microsoft OS's, it does qualify for a patent
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
How about an organization and website dedicated to creating prior art. In other words, we simply document any idea that any of us thinks about. These ideas are then timestamped, so that if someone tries to patent any of the concepts after they were submitted to the website, we immediately have a source and documentation for prior art.
Is this legally feasible? Does prior art begin the day before a company files for a patent? Or is there a grace period that could cause a problem with people patenting things too soon after entries are made?
If it does work, then all we have to do is fill the public database with ideas. Then, any patents covering those ideas filed for after the data of any entries can be easily invalidated, and perhaps with patent reform, even prevented.
What do you think, /.?
HandSpring button push and hold activates backlight,
Apple OS X has time enabled popup menus on buttons too...
This 'timed button push' seems like previous work kind of thing,
so how can it be patented?
Mod parent -1, Offtopic. Only the first paragraph deals with patents at all.
The other 23 paragraphs form a rant which has nothing to do with anything here except for the poster's own political agenda. Given their blatant lack of contextual cohesion, I submit that it was probably written long before the article was even posted.
Do you mods ever -read- the stuff that floats to the top here?
Kid-proof tablet..
Really really lame.
Russian and French diplomats and friends of diplomats are taking oil bribes in the millions of dollars from Saddam and the UN Oil-for-Food farce.
Seriously we're talking $10 Billion (with a B) dollars is the estimate of how much Saddam skimmed off the program. Let's look at the KNOWN MALFEASANCES before we worry about drawn out conspiracy theories.
I suppose I should make some witty comment about the lame nick you've voluntarily chosen yourself.
A nick like 'The Confused One' is like taking a humble name. It helps to give you perspective.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Correction: TotalFinaELF.
Another article: The United States of Oil. Quote from the article: "The bin Laden family and other members of Saudi Arabia's oil-wealthy elite have contributed mightily to several Bush family ventures, even as the American energy industry helped put Bush in office." [My emphasis]
The issue here is that there is a lot more happening than most U.S. taxpayers suspect. They pay for the U.S. government, and they have a right to a complete understanding.
The issue is that what is happening to the patent office is happening in state courts and other areas of government, and is part of widespread corruption. It is not important which party is in charge. It IS important that there be no corruption.
The PTO's reputation for accepting bogus patents is what is reponsible for their recent flood of patents. If they'd done their jobs right, people would think twice before filing for a patent.
I don't blame the patent examiners themselves. They're over-worked. In hind-sight, we should all be realizing that a little extra tax money would have saved the U.S. (and the world) from this horrible fiasco.
This situation is a rolling snowball. The attitude in our culture now is that if you do ANYTHING, you'd better get a patent on it, otherwise someone else will beat you to it and sue you for patent violation.
One way to fix this is to hire more patent examiners. Another is to stop accepting patent applications for as long as it takes for the PTO to review all existing patents and reject any for which prior art can be found. Of course, that could take decades, by which point all existing patents would have expired. Maybe the U.S. should have a 10-year moratorium on accepting patent applications.
"just an idea,."
:-P
patent it and you're one towards your goal
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
By definition: If there's money in this world, that they don't control, then they're 'short'.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
From the patent application for "Time based hardware button for application launch ":
Alternative application functions are launched based on the length of time an application button is pressed.
When the ALT+TAB key combination is held down on many operating systems, different running applications are cycled through and launched depending on the length of the keypress - same idea. My desktop keyboard at home has a single button that incorporates the alt+tab combo in a single key. That's why they seem to want to limit it to "Palm-size" and "resource limited" PC.
Looks like MS is getting into the habit of trivially patenting the patent game with a vengeance now.
What a waste of time for everyone!
Right beside the 'get me a beer' button.
If you read the claims of this patent, you'll see that it is VERY narrow. It is only claiming very specific functions related to the timing of the button press. This is because they couldn't patent anything broader. For example, look at claim 1:
(c) opening an application if the application button is released prior to the expiration of a threshold time limit; and
(d) opening the application and automatically causing the application to display the last known state of the application if the application button is pressed, without being released, for a period equal to or in excess of the threshold time limit.
All this is claiming is what is specifically stated in (d): it will open the application and display the last known state of the app if the button was pressed for a long time. All the other claims are similar to this, they claim only one specific function each.
Remember that in order to infringe on a patent, you must do ALL of the things listed in each claim. So if you don't use the timed button press in any of the specific ways outlined in the patent claims, you won't infringe. In the case of claim 1, if you don't use the timed button to open an application and restore it to it's previous state, you won't infringe. It's also only valid on a "limited resource computing device".
The patent is also a continuation of an application from 1999, which was abondoned. My guess is that they had to keep narrowing the claims to avoid prior art. In this case, the claims are extremely narrow, nothing that can't easily be avoided.
Ummm... My Nokia 8200 cell phone and Treo600 will both dial voicemail if you hold down the "1" key longer than 2 seconds. Does that count?
the patent? It's not patented until its granted. GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Can they get a patent on this? There is too much prior art out there. As an example my Magellan GPS Map330 has a power button that doubles as a backlight switch. A short press turns the unit on/off. A long press turns the backlight on or dims the backlight. The mark/goto button operates the same way. A short press brings up a list of destinations to go to. A long press marks the present location to add to the waypoint list. I'm sure there are lots of other examples of prior art out there other than the handheld GPS that came to mind.
The truth shall set you free!
My old Macintosh moniter is so small I have to save the files, then enlarge them in a text editor. But it can be difficult to mouse over and hold down the mouse button for several seconds to get to the "save link as" menu.
It makes me so frustrated that I want to force a hard shutdown by holding the power button down for three seconds.
The ______ Agenda
..to death?
I think I'll do that. If you have 3 blue
pixels lit in a row, and 2 green ones after
that, you must pay me millions of dollars!
It looks like the patent system needs to be
reworked and be protected against this kind of
abuse. One of the most chilling things that can happen
is the rise of a "patent spammer" who could
come up with tens or hundreds of frivolous
"ideas" like this one, and patent them. Hell,
somebody could write an ingenious program to
come up with all kinds of possibilities
for functions and features, and patent the
resulting "ideas" generated by that program.
Mobile Phones......
qualifies in my books as prior art
Simple example: there is a feature in the DateBk5 app for Palm called 'TapAndHold' which does exactly that, and I'm fairly sure that wasn't just in the latest version (plug: I'm trialling it at the moment - it IMO very good).
;-)
Hey! That means the Gorilla project (funded by the registrations) could go for some dosh from M$ - now THAT would be a fun use of money.
Keep 'em comin'
Insert
On the Sharp Zaurus if you hold down the app button that's second from the right, it turns the backlight on or off. The functionality of these is configurable by the user. This also seems to be very much like what MS is patenting.
Follow me
Total Commander (formerly Windows Commander) - the Norton Commander clone - displays this behaviour, I think [1]. If you right click on a file in it's list panes, the file is marked. If you hold down the button for a second when right-clicking you get a Windows context sensitive menu instead.
[1] It says "Time based hardware button for application launch" in the heading, but they're refering to an application button in the abstract. What's up with that?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Platform games of old used to make you jump further if you kept your finger on the button longer... (ie pressing harder)...
Morse code parsing, anyone?
I just mentioned the Total Commander (formerly Windows Commander) file manager as showing possible prior art in this comment.
It just occured to me, that the program had it's name changed to Total Commander from Windows Commander back in 2002 after Microsoft's attorneys contacted them. From the site:
So Microsoft must have known about Windows Commander, perhaps sometime before the summer of 2002, but at least during the same summer. Anyway, the patent in question was filed on July 12, 2002. Is this a fantastic coincidence?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Well my NOKIA works like this.. and has for years.
You press 1, you get 1.
You press & Hold 1 you get it autodial your voicmail.
--- This meme is memory intensive
public void ButtonClicked (object sender, ButtonEvent e) {
// arrest me, i'm all urs
if (e.clickDuration > 200 && e.clickDuration < 400)
}
when the male sexual organ is in a state of arousal.. pressing for different durations and releasing can have different effects. i bet this is what microsoft is after.
The U.S. is invading countries and killing people, and you are worried about symantics? The issue of the corruption of the U.S. government is severe.
You know what I mean: The people no longer have control.
I'd say it was a limited resources computing device, it has a microcontroller. The drawer acts as the only button on the front of the device.
When its playing, a press of the drawer makes it skip. A longer press makes it eject. I'd say thats 2 different "applications" depending on the length of the keypress...
hmm maybe patenting the blue screen...will get microschoft to the top... of...
Many watches DO do something different when you hold a button down - they enter a "set" mode (to input the starting position of a countdown timer, or to set the time). I suppose Casio's Databank watches do too.
A Casio data-bank Illuminator watch has the following four buttons on the sides. These have the following functionality:
In normal display mode:
Top-left button - press and hold-down to set mode
Bottom-left button - press to change mode
Bottom right - hold-down for long-time to clear recording
Top-right - press for backlight
In data-bank mode:
Top-left button - Enter and exit databank edit mode.
Bottom-right button - Exit databank edit mode.
Top-right button - Pressed and released quickly - changes current edit character to the preceding character. Pressed and held down, cycles through preceeding characters rapidly.
Bottom-right button - Pressed and released quickly - changes current edit character to the succeeding character. Pressed and held down, cycles through succeeding characters rapidly.
In set-current-time mode, both the top-right and bottom-right buttons have the same behavior as in edit-databank mode.
So Casio databank watches actively use the amount of time that a button is held down to determine the function of that button.
Just about every time-measuring device (cooker, alarm-clock, pedometer) makes uses of this functionality for setting the time.
Microsoft's USP 6,727,830 is for using the length of time an application button is pressed, in various broadly-specified ways. It was issued April 27, 2004, and filed July 12, 2002, as a continuation of an earlier application filed Jan 5, 1999. So the timeframe for unconditional prior art status of printed publications and uses in USA appears to be the timeframe ending on Jan 4 1998.
My HP41 programmable calculator, in use since 1981, was and is a "limited-resource computing device" with (physical) buttons associated with applications (functions). For every button and application there was a period during which the application's name would be displayed for a predetermined period if the button is pressed and held down, and activated if the button was released during that period, but if the button was held down longer, the display would go to 'null' and the application would not be activated on release. (It was a valuable HP41 feature to enable the user to check and get a reminder of what a button would do, without committing to the operation.)
It seems to be only on the last point -- what happens after delayed release -- that the Microsoft patent claims appear to differ
in detail from the HP41.
But the actions specified vaguely in the MS claims do not appear to be matters of principle, let alone invention, they are just choices about which alternative action should happen after delayed release.
I hope this patent would be found invalid at least for obviousness if challenged. But like so many others, MS may calculate on benefiting from the doubt in the meantime, and from the effort and expense of mounting a challenge.
-wb-
Choplifter on the C64 (with a joystick): press fire quickly and it fires. Press it a bit longer and hte helicopter rotates.
Are you a Candy Addict?
After 5 years, most of these patented technologies would be obsolete anyway. Now they just have to stop handing out trivial patents.
My Karma is so low that even my own postings are beyond my current threshold
Perhaps if you actually looked at the cited references (for example 5,007,008 ), they disclose a calculator that does exactly that. There is also a reference with a published date of 85 which is directed towards a similar problem.
Neither of these address parts C&D of each independant claim.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
I'm not an expert, but this definitely looks like it either provides prior art or violates the patent. The patent was filed in 2002. Any idea when QLaunch first came on the scene? That would make a big difference.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
you are worried about symantics
When you use words not in your normal vocabulary you should take the time to check how they're spelled. Symantec is a software company, but you probably meant semantics.
Hold down a number-key on your Nokia phone, after a second it'll call whoever that speed-dial key is associated with.
You might also be able to use arcade games as a previous example. Even back in the late 80s you charged up your attack, not just to do more damage but to switch to alternate modes of attack.
Of course, this is Microsoft. All they need patents for is a reasonable excuse to begin a court action - they'll just bankrupt you without regard for the validity of the patent.
It's a Slashdot comment. I have real work I'm doing; Slashdot is a distraction from it. I'm typing too fast, and not looking at what I've typed. Obviously, semantics.
"Unless the budgeting increases, the review process for a patent could double to 5 years"
I will patent the concept of increasing number of resources assigned to a job when you have more paying customers. They do charge for those panents don't they?
It's the same with the INS(now USCIS). I lost my green card a few years ago and I had to pay over 200$ to get a replacement card and I had to wait in a 6 hour line and wait for it to be mailed for 6 months. That card is about as easy to make as a driver's license which gets made in 5 minutes and costs 4$.
It's the same reason why those institutions can't protect you from terrorists which makes the government have to take drastic measures like the Patriot Act. They simply don't run as true capitalist organizations.
To add to this -- contrary to popular belief, this patent has nothing to do with operations performed by a stylus or mouse. It is carefully restricted to focus on HARDWARE-based buttons of a PDA.
To which I say PFFFFFT! First of all, what happened to the "non-obvious" part of patent law?
Next, consider,e.g., a pinball machine: more than one model has a "choose your mission/bonus" feature, which asks you to push a flipperbutton to select one of a sequence of features as they scroll across a video display. Why is timing when a button is released any different from timing when it is depressed? And in any case I'm sure you could find some instance of a game in which you do hold the button down and release when the event of interest comes into view.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I was not alone; lots of researchers were doing the same thing; some well before that.
I see nothing in Microsoft's claims that isn't present in this prior art.
Is it just me, or haven't the power buttons on newer computers been reacting diffirently depending on how long you hold them down for years?
When does microsoft claim they 'invented' this?
This statement is forty-five characters long.
Will Microsoft apps come with timers for people to look at while pressing a button? This sounds very stupid since it is easily possible to be at the boundary of one action to another. Even when you have vision feedback, you depend on your vision-brain-muscle reaction which may have a long time lag and you may get an action you don't want.
*sigh* Microsoft and innovations should never be in the same city.
PalmGear says it was submited December 27, 2002, but it could easily have existed before then, that's just when PalmGear got ahold of it. I've sent an email to the developer asking when it first existed.
I'm pretty sure there are other apps that do something similar out there, I'll see if I can find any from before July 12, 2002.
Sorry to reply to my own post and so quickly, but I just found 2 apps that are from well before 2002 and have the same functionality as QLaunch.
AardQuick Button Launcher(August 20, 2001)
Button Launch 1.8(October 16, 2000)
Those are just what showed up after about 5 mins of looking, I'd bet that there are quite a few more.
Maybe you have never asked your senators to stop selling the government to special interests. The Saudis leaders are irritated at George W. Bush right now (one of them called him "goofy"), so you are paying more for gasoline. But, of course, the Bush family will make more money, since they are in the oil profit business, through the Carlyle Group, I understand, and through other involvements.
George W. Bush likes to give people disrespecful nicknames. He sometimes calls Karl Rove "turd blossom". Read all about it in the book Boy Genius by Lou Dubose. If you look at the front cover, you see that the word "Boy" is under the photo of Bush, and the word "Genius" is under the photo of Karl Rove. Karl Rove designed the misleading ads about John Kerry that are running now. Before him, the Republican party had Lee Atwater, who also believed in winning through dishonesty. When Lee Atwater got a brain tumor at age 40, he decided that maybe he was dying because of his dishonesty. But it was too late to change his behavior; he died two months later.
If George W. Bush says that the chief architect of his political success is a "turd blossom", who are we to argue? If a Saudi who knows George W. Bush well calls him "goofy", who are we to say the word does not apply?
Macintosh: Click and hold to drag and drop. Dubble click fast to activate.
:)
This was handled by timming.
Geoworks: Click fast to activate click and hold to drag and drop.
Again timming used to determine the action.
Newton and Zoomer.
A bunch of companys desided to create a new "pentop" computer and Apple was in the group untill Geoworks was picked instead of having Apple make the UI.
So Apple split off to make there own Pentop.
And as a result the poorly marketed Zoomer and the well marketed (but a bit expensive) Newton.
The Zoomer died quickly due primarly to poor planning.
The Newton took a bit longer.
If Apple and geoworks preserved the basic interface.. There is your prior art for click and hold on a PDA. However being that click and hold has prior art on a desktop I don't see why it even NEEDS a PDA counterpart.
Then there is the backlight power button on the first PDA to be called a PDA.
And there are some alternet interfaces on the palm.
And Linux on IPAQ using X11.. Somewhere there has to be a Window manager using click and hold.
Ahh to hell with it...
I'm patenting everything being done on desktops today only adding "on an imbeded applience" who tend to be about 10 years behind the curve...
At the very least 10 years later (when my patent dies) when Uber Smuck trys to patent them he'll be denied becouse of my prior art..
I don't actually exist.
Prior art: my NEC cell phone having a button that if pressed and released goes to the voice memo screen, and if pressed and held for two seconds, activates a prompt for voice dial.
Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.