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Microsoft Receives Patent For Double-Click
kaluta writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Microsoft was granted a patent for double-clicking on April 27. The patent in question is 6,727,830 and says, amongst other stuff: 'A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time. An alternative function of the application is launched if the button is pressed for a long, (e.g., at least one second), period of time. Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click'. So this is what we have to look foward to in the E.U. now?"
Look, the patent was filed on July 12, 2002. If we can't come up with a single pre-2002 OS that used double-clicking, then we're really, really bad off. I mean, Microsoft itself has used it since about 1991 in Windows...
My Systems
Well, I may not be popular for saying this, but MS did actually invent the FAT file system (ok, they purchased it, when MS bought rights to the QDOS OS, and renamed it MS-DOS).
So, if they were awarded a patent or copyright or whatever it is on FAT, at least they have a moral leg to stand on.
The patent on various ways of clicking a mouse? I don't care if its for PDAs, or what it selects, or whatever. Every possible way of clicking a mouse as been thought of, and there is no original, patentable work to do.
(how is that for a bold statement :)
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
For *possible* prior art, see keylaunch
Released on June 12, 2002, you can launch an app by pressing an application button twice within a limited time.
Also see slowlaunch
Released on May 20, 2002, you can launch an app by holding an application button for a specified length of time.
Neither half of the patent (hey, I read only the abstract, but that's more than you did!) seems to have been novel at the file date, and it's easy to imagine that keylaunch and slowlaunch could have coexisted on the same palm, giving the full functionality described in the patent abstract.
Hate stupid software on freshmeat? Laugh at
I think is the question of whether they even TRY to enforce them.
Microsoft have an excellent record as far as I know, of never initiating a patent battle. MS' patent portfolio is used purely for defensive purposes.
Sure, they're anti-competitive greedy bastards, and they may decide to start trying patent litigation some day, but I think they're happier making their money by selling products.
Politas
I mean seriously! Fucking double clicks????
I wonder if the asshat at the patent office realized that he had to double click at least once during the process of filing the stupid patent. Clearly, the people at the patent office are so far out of touch with reality that they can no longer be taken seriously.
So, I propose this for the new patent system (it's un-Slashdot of me, but not only am I bitching about something, I have an idea on how to fix it.)
Public peer review. Open source meets patent reform.
As soon as a patent is applied for, it is placed up on a website for public review. Then, it's up to the public as well as the patent office to try to find any prior art.
If prior art is found, the patent is denied. Period. And if the prior art is over 5 years old, it's considered a public domain idea, and no longer patentable. That'll keep idiots like the lawyersquad at MS from patenting other people's ideas. Like double clicks.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The patent holders are an interesting pair. A bit of googling produced the following:
Charlton Lui appears to have been a Microsoft manager turned Canadian Baseball CEO(!) "Mr. Lui co-founded the Tablet PC providing the vision and driving product development while working closely with Bill Gates and top industry leaders." Here is the reference.
There is a Jeffrey R. Blum who includes the following in his resume: "Microsoft Mobile Electronics Group, Redmond, WA: Lead Program Manager (8/1994-3/2000)" Here is his resume.
If I got the right people (no guarantees there), it looks like they're both *managers* who worked on mobile computing appliances. Managers who take out patents???
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
Seriously, the company I work for, has a function in our COMMERCIAL software package that requires a triple-click in order to do something. It's been there for about 8 years now - so we already got prior art =P
Is there a "+1 Pity" moderation I can get?
For some prior art, go back to the 1800's, and talk to a telegraph operator. Ask them how a morse code key works, and, the difference between a long click, and a double click.
This patent is a blatant example of why the rest of the world just has to start ignoring patents issued in the USA, they have no meaning. American business is so concerned about intellectual property protection, they should consider that honoring patents is an all or nothing deal, and with stupid stuff like this being granted, the rest of the world cannot afford to honor this kind of silliness. There are many many examples in the real world of 'click once to do one thing, twice to do something else'. Anybody that flies airplanes into small airfields at night knows this (just one real world example). Click you microphone 5 times to turn on the runway lights. Depending on the setup, once they are on, 3 clicks for brighter, 2 clicks for dimmer, is common. This methodology was around long before microsoft plugged thier first mouse into a computer, it's a method that pre-dates the pc. It's common, and it's OBVIOUS, and it was long before the pc even came into the equation, or any 'limited resource' environment as discussed in that patent.
Go forth into the real world, there must be thousands of devices in this world that have a single button for input, and differing numbers of 'clicks' or 'presses' on that button, have different meanings.
Lights at certain airports also activate with two or multiple clicks of the radio mic.
And we know that Apple's use of the double click predates this, and I am certain was pre-dated by others.
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid certain government employee can be.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
The Amiga computer, whose UI also supported double-clicking, originally shipped with 256K of ROM, 256K of RAM, and a 7.1MHz MC68000 processor. Does this qualify as a limited-resource computing device? Does my 19-year-old Amiga now infringe on this just-granted patent?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
If I made a really really small PC, could I patent the "Enter" key? How about the "shift " or "control" keys?
/.-ers that hate junk patents would get together to make a mockery of the current system. I bet we've got enough talent here to patent meta-keys (or pressing them, hence the "method"), and word it well enough to sneak through the USPTO. We could all pitch in to cover the fees. Hell, chances are we'd get the patent, then we could get some venture capital from BayStar to go on a legal rampage.
I wish some of us
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
If anyone is interested in some real prior art:
When I was working for my old company (Tuxia), I wrote a linux based system called viper. This had the functionality in the program launcher where if you click on an icon a program will start. But, if you click and hold on an icon for longer than 1 second, a context menu would appear. I quit the in January 2002.
It was mentioned in Linux devices when it was first released to the public (it was open source).
It was hosted on www.tuxia.org (but that is now gone). I still have the source available.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
There might be prior art in, of all things, amateur radio handhelds. Amateur Radio VHF/UHF handhelds have, for several years, typically carried enough functionality that getting to it all given the limited number of buttons on the radio requires the time-based hardware button tricks Microsoft is describing. For example, on my Yaesu FT-51R (purchased in 1998, 4 years before Microsoft's patent filing, and in fact available before then (actually the even earlier FT-530 uses the same tricks)), saving to a memory requires holding down a button for a second, changing to the memory you want to save to, and then pressing the same button within a particular time. That same button, if merely pressed rather than held, causes other buttons of the radio to perform different functions then if it had not been pressed (but only for a limited amount of time). Hence, different functionality depending the length of time the button is pressed.
Note that these radios are controlled by internal microprocessors, and thus might be considered a 'limited resource computing device'. In any case, the idea of having the functionality of a button change depending on how long the button is pressed preceeds Microsoft's patent filing enough that Microsoft's idea should be seen an an obvious transfer of the idea to an only slightly different device.
A privately held, publically funded corporation whose sole mission statement is to challenge any and all patents granted by the corrupt and decrepit Patent System.
This is outrageous! Our civilization has produced too many lawyers... Rule of Law leads to oppression!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Back in the 1981/1982 timeframe, I was in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Gunter AFS in Montgomery, AL. We used a system called NLS/DNLS. This system emplyed special terminals with a mechanical 3-button mouse and a five key keyset attached to a terminal. The keyset could synthesize any printable ASCII character. Anyway, we used the mouse and keyset to manipulate doumentation and traverse help trees. The mouse and the keyset could both be chorded and I believe the mouse could be double-clicked to perorm a different function.
Does anyone else out there have better recollections regarding the use of the mouse NLS/DNLS?
Arf!
My point exactly. A work, once it has entered the Public Domain, should be there forever.
If you look at something over which I have copyright, and make a new work based on it, that will be considered "your own work" if and only if you use less than X% of my material {where X varies dependent upon jurisdiction and circumstances}. Otherwise, I still have copyright over your derivative work, and it's up to me how -- or even if at all -- it's distributed.
With the Public Domain, as the law stands now, there is nothing to stop you taking a PD work, making one tiny change and claiming it as "your own work" {and thereby being granted copyright on it, and by extension control over distribution}.
What I am advocating is that there should be a law against that -- there isn't, but there bloody well should be. Once a work has entered the Public Domain, it should never, ever again be the subject of copyright. According to which, Disney's version of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio should remain in the PD {unless Disney added enough of their own new material to constitute a new work; unlikely, though}.
Sound harsh? You bet. But if you have benefitted from any of the following: fire, weapons, clothing, shelter, agriculture, mathematics, living in cities, electronics, And Many More; then you have benefitted from discoveries made by others. {Electronics being a very good one. Guess how many patents Michael Faraday ever owned? Do you suppose you would still be using that computer if things had been a little different?} Everything we ever do is based on something else someone else already did, and it seems to me to be supremely selfish and destructive to misappropriate all that good work that put us here, for the sake of a quick profit.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!