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

Old Patent

[sangreal66]

This patent was filed 7 years ago. They use IE 3 as a reference.

The keyboard navigation patent

[MntlChaos]

Apparently they have never used lynx or links. Those are about as old as browsers get and they have a key (the down key) that allows keyboard-based navigation and highlighting of the currently selected link (inverting colors). And they go over specifying in claim 6 that it basically be implemented in a linked list. As for claim 10 with image links, that's been around a good long time also. Someone must have been very high to grant that patent

Re:The reason...

[sangreal66]

Microsoft is filing all these patents recently is that they see themselves losing market share to Linux. They want to keep their profitability (stock) high by licensing/litigation revenue. I see it as a sign of *cough* (the year of Linux on the desktop) *cough*! Maybe that is a little ambitious, but I think MS is affraid!

Filed: March 6, 1997

Re:Debunking theories here...

[Halo1]

Said "wiser" slashdotter will have a hard time doing that in this case. What is covered by a patent, is what's in the claims. This is claim 1 of the patent:

1. In a computer system having a video display, a keyboard device for providing a key input, a method of discovering each of a plurality of hyperlinks in a hypertext document, said input device having keys, comprising:

(a) displaying the hypertext document on the video display;

(b) organizing the plurality of the hyperlinks in the document into a sequence in an element list, wherein the sequence of the hyperlinks is based on the disposition of each hyperlink in the document, and wherein the element list comprises information describing a location of a next hyperlink and a type of the next hyperlink; and

(c) when a predefined key on the keyboard device is actuated, giving focus to the next hyperlink of the plurality of hyperlinks in the sequence.

So as long as you have

• a computing device, a display, some key-input device, an algorithm to discover all hyperlinks in an html document;
• a) a way to display to the html document on the display;
• b) a way to organise the links into a sequence in a list based on their disposition in the document (e.g. add them to a linked list as you encounter them), with the location of the next hyperlink (pointers!) and the description of the type of the next hyper link (typ: hyperlink_type_t);
• c) when a predefined key is pressed, shift focus to the next hyperlink.

Apart from that you have to keep track in your url list of the types of the links (regardless of the classification you use), all it does cover is indeed plain and pure going from one link to the next by pressing a key.

Re:News?

[FLAGGR]

*sigh* They're posted as the patents are approved. MS just APPLIED for that patent 5 years ago, and for some dumb reason, they're finally starting to get approved. It's news because this means something to open source. Should everyone just nod their heads and ignore it all? I'm sure thats what Microsoft would want.

YATWSDNARTPA

[xigxag]

Move along. It's just Yet Another Topic Where Submitter Did Not Actually Read The Patent Application.

It doesn't patent "the use of a keyboard to navigate a web page." What it patents is, as far as I can tell, the use of the tab key to navigate to and to place a non-rectangular highlight over a weblink, or to place any-shaped highlight over an imagemap.

Re:YATWSDNARTPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does. Every claim is a little patent of its own:

What is claimed is:

1. In a computer system having a video display, a keyboard device for providing a key input, a method of discovering each of a plurality of hyperlinks in a hypertext document, said input device having keys, comprising:

(a) displaying the hypertext document on the video display;

(b) organizing the plurality of the hyperlinks in the document into a sequence in an element list, wherein the sequence of the hyperlinks is based on the disposition of each hyperlink in the document, and wherein the element list comprises information describing a location of a next hyperlink and a type of the next hyperlink; and

(c) when a predefined key on the keyboard device is actuated, giving focus to the next hyperlink of the plurality of hyperlinks in the sequence.
Then follow the other claims. So they do patent "the use of a keyboard to navigate a web page."

Re:YATWSDNARTPA

[xigxag]

Please mod up the above reply. My original comment was wrong. There are a variety of claims here, not just regarding highlighting the weblinks or imagemaps (as I mistakenly said), and the very first claim is in fact a method to use the keyboard to navigate the hyperlinks on a webpage.

Regarding that first claim, Microsoft is claiming to have come up with a different (unique?) method for doing what Lynx and other browsers already did. It is commonplace to patent a distinct method of achieving something which has already been patented in the past. Microsoft's behavior (in this instance) is nothing unusual or improper.

Speaking of hyperlinks, it's both interesting and informative to follow back the trail of references cited in this patent. You'll come across some surprising stuff.

Re:YATWSDNARTPA

[YU Nicks NE Way]

No. Claims are cumulative. So Claim 1 is a basic claim, which is narrowed and refined in subsequent claims. An attorney will tell you that you should always make the most sweeping claims conceivable in your base claims; it does no harm, and might protect you in a later infringement suit. (By the way, a patent is narrowed by strinking down base claims and derived claims until there is held to be no reason for invalidation. Relatively few patents are ever completely invalidated; most are merely narrowed on appeal.)

Re:Remember when...

[atcurtis]

IBM WebExplorer... It was fully keyboard navigable - used the Tab key and all the hyperlinks were also made available in the Links pull down menu.

IIRC, WebEx predated any MSFT browser. Unfortunately, only available for OS/2.

But it was excellent at rendering pages before they had completed loading... even giant HTML tables can be rendered before all the html was loaded.

Re:I'm going to write to my congressman

[Halo1]

If you want an overview of studies on software patents, have a look here. Clickable links to the referenced studies are provided in the bibliography at the end.

Re:Prior art found

[TheNetAvenger]

Actually, I think it has been a standard part of graphical web clients for a long time. Tab and shift tab to any particular form entry, button or link, press space bar or enter to follow it.

Actually IE 3 was the first browser that allowed keyboard Navigation, and was one of the 'new' features of IE3 that gave it a lead on all the existing browsers of the time.

Just because it is COMMON in all broswers today doesn't meant that microsoft isn't the first software company to implement the idea in a Browser.

Which I am sure will anger a lot people here, but they were the first browser to have keyboard navigation features.

Some of us that were here when IE3 was released, remember this, and how handy it was at the time.

Re:It ends when they get some tech folks in there

[MrBigInThePants]

China is a much more important trade partner at this stage, but they have already started negotiating with the US I believe.
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C9D099B97 7363DF6CC256EFC0029C894?OpenDocument

Exactly when was that?

[Reziac]

On my system I have NetTamer (a browser for DOS), which has both textmode and a sort of graphical mode, and allows keyboard navigation (including, IIRC, use of the TAB key to move between links). I don't recall when the program was first developed, but it runs gracefully on an XT, so that should tell you something about its age!! (1993ish origins, I think)

Is this really confusing?

[Pids]

I really dont see the confusion with these type of patents, since the USPTO moved to a totally fee based agency (Since 1991--under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990) they will of course take any and all applications. The more applications they process they more funding they have. They are no longer resposible to the people of the US they are responsible to the people and companies that pay them fees. They take as many applications as they can and let the courts actually do thier job of sorting out if they are even valid.