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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."
has played a handheld and/or console game.
Ever.
Whatever, ignore, continue. Who are they going to call on it?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
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!!
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?
Mac mice are known for their one buttonness. Hold down the button to achieve the same effect of a right-click. Hmmm...
every single watch i have ever owned has done this! you have to hold the set button for a number of seconds before it lets you set it...this by far predates microsoft's empire!
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
... 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.
The source...w ww.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents.html
http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:ZhF3hhvPgwQJ:
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!
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."
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....
That's the point.
Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones; it bones for thee. -Bender
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.
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.
You can arque that in the free software movement, one doesn't get nothing for the work he is willing to do. That's not true, there is still strong incentives for some contributors, like peer recogntion for instance. Unfortunatelly, profit is still the most appealing incentive to production, and patents are the mechanism that guarantee that the creator can profit from his invention
It is not the patent idea that is wrong, is the process of granting them that should be improved and revised to refrain this kind of stupid thing from happening again
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.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
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...
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
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.
on a limited resource computing device
first of all, that technically covers every computing device.
but if i take the non-technical definition, does it include large systems whose resources have become limited due to a bloated os/application set?
Informative? Well then...
I'd call that "prior art" and "limited power computing device."
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?!
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.
isn't something that is "obvious" not patentable?
seems to me i can name a lot of items with buttons that do different things depending on how you press it. and one of the posts above this appeared to have a good list of them.
to me this just seems and obvious application of something that has been used in many different devices with buttons, i guess i just don't see why it is patentable, but then again i don't see why the patent office lets quite a few of the patents through...
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?
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....
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.