More Microsoft Patents

An anonymous reader writes "One of the editors of LinuxWorld Magazine has an entry in his blog detailing more patents that Microsoft recently acquired. No, this isn't a rehash of the sudo patent. The new patents include one that seems to patent the use of the keyboard to navigate a web page! See the article here."

Comments

Kudos to Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Now there is a company that is an example of what a technology company should be today. They are not trying to imitate anyone but are innovating constantly.

I mean just image how great it will be when those innovations are actually implemented and we can use them. Simply run a program as an other user, I mean, wow, just think of the possibilities.

Or simply navigating a browser with the tab key, can it get any better?
And in case you missed it, you can't only navigate with the tab key, it will also be visually indicated where in the hypertext document you are. I mean, talk about brilliance. They simply think about every little detail! whoa!

I just can't wait to see these new features on my desktop.

I love this company!!!!!!1111!!oneone!!1

Ignorant patent critics

[0x0d0a]

Once again, patent critics fail to know what they're talking about. The blogger got lucky -- he is probably right on the first patent being BS, though I'm a lot less sure about the second.

When you are determining whether a patent is sane, the abstract content *does not matter*. That's just a tool to help you find a patent you're looking for. Same goes for the title. If you are saying "this patent has prior art", you should never, never, ever even *mention* the contents of the title or the abstract. They don't have legal force.

The thing to look at are the *claims*. The patent covers anything that uses one ore more of the listed claims (these are numbered). Each claim has to be invalidated on its own, so you can invalidate a bunch of claims and not invalidate the whole patent. If there are multiple sections to a claim (these are lettered), then *all* of the sections must apply to a device,system, or whatever before it is infringing.

So if you want to say "this patent has a claim that's bullshit", you need to cite an *entire claim*, including all the subsections of that claim, and show how those subsections already applied to an existing system *before* the claimed date of invention (there's another point; the date the patent is *issued* doesn't mean much). Furthermore, unless every claim is invalid, the patent still has strength on the valid claims.

I don't like Microsoft. I really don't like software patents. But claiming that Microsoft is coming up with bullshit patents based on totally ridiculous grounds doesn't do anyone any good -- it just spreads misinformation among the group of people that could be criticizing Microsoft for one of many legitimate reasons.