Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Patents Timed Button Presses

Posted by timothy on from the lieutenant-obvious dept.

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."

4 of 552 comments (clear)

  1. obvious is right.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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!!

  2. Re:Prior Art by Flexagon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Even on desktop systems, this is old. Plenty of games have used this technique for a long time. Golf, for instance, in which your swing is determined by how long you hold your click.

  3. yet another reason to support EFF by updog · · Score: 4, Informative

    The EFF Patent Busting Project: http://eff.org/Patent/20040419_eff_pr_patent.php

  4. RTFC [Read The F*ing Claims] by copper · · Score: 5, Informative

    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"):

    Time how long an application launch button has been held down before it's released. 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.

    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.