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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
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.
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.