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Microsoft Patents Keyboard Browser Navigation
Scooby Snacks writes "It looks like Microsoft and the United States Patent and Trademark Office have done it again. It would appear that Microsoft, in their extensive R&D labs, have developed a way to control a web browser through the use of a keyboard. What's next, a method for displaying a plurality of running programs, each in its own defined rectangular viewing area?"
link here
-- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
What's the point of posting this as news...? There's so much prior art (Lynx) that this patent will be thrown away as soon as someone challenges it.
The story should be called: USPTO stuffs up again.
NTSH, MA
Not only was this story posted a few days ago, but the patent was filed seven years ago. I may hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but seven years? C'mon people....
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
Slashdot pattents duping!!
I am going to be karma flogged for this, but it seems in the last 6 months that the editorial staff of slashdot may have been quietly outsourced. Aren't the number of dupes reaching an unprecidented high in slashdot history?
So... they are scared of lynx now?
No, not really.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
They should patent Control Alt Delete for every time IE crashes.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
No, not really.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I can understand how articles now and again get duped -- but how does a seven year old patent get mentioned within a week twice? I find it highly coincidental two people were browsing for seven year old MS patents and happened to stumble upon the same patent.
*TIN FOIL HAT*
Its a consipracy I tell ya!
A user may discover and navigate among hyperlinks through the use of a keyboard. For example, a user may press a tab key to discover and navigate to a first hyperlink that is part of a hypertext document. The first hyperlink is, in response, given focus and a focus shape is drawn around the text or graphics for the hot region of the hyperlink. If the user again presses the tab key, the next hyperlink is given focus and a focus shape (i.e., an outline that surrounds the next hyperlink) is drawn around the next hyperlink. A user may also tab to a placeholder for an image in order to make a decision whether the image should be downloaded or not.
Inventors: Cote; Joseph Paul-Emile Pierre (Issaquah, WA); Cordell; John P. (Seattle, WA); Brown; Christopher R. (Seattle, WA)
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
Appl. No.: 812772
Filed: March 6, 1997
Dang I hate to pay those M$ royalties!
No kidding! They don't even anesthetize you for the operation!
What are they doing with all that back skin, anyway?
~UP
Eat the Path.
Don't give them ideas!
This was pointed out before, but see, this is for CURVED focus shapes, polygons, and the like. Yeah, I think it's brilliant too...
In Windows XP, the top two corners are ROUNDED.... oh shit! There goes my patent idea.
("This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original..." - Wow, that's a new one.)
As the 1980s came to a close, a high tech web browsing tool called LYNX stormed the scene. It was the the browser of choice on my text only VAX account at Wright State University. The arrow keys moved up and down through the links and the spacebar represented the 'click'. I hope microsoft sue on this one, so that they can be laughed out of court. You can still download and use Lynx at http://lynx.isc.org/.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
I've gotten that so many times using "...You insensitive clod!" and "First post!" and some GNAA stuff.
Now all they have to do is moan about stuff copied from the "comment rejected" page.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Will a behaviour which has been available in various applications for two decades be exempt from patenting?
The use of keys to control a GUI is far from novel, and just because it's the damned web I fail to see anything new or original about this.
Waay back when Microsoft applications didn't run in windows or anything, and there was no network to connect to, that whole "alt+f" to bring up the file menu was well established in things like DOS' edit program and has been applied to everything since.
Aeons before that, vt100 terminals and the like could use the tab key to move among fields for data input. Hell, the Motif style guidelines would have included stuff which describes how to do keyboard shortcuts, and it predated Microsoft's patent application by a whole lot of years.
I've said this before, but why the hell is a method of interacting with a piece of software via the keyboard a novel or patentable exercise, or does it count as innovation???
If you've had keyboard navigation in applications for over a decade (almost two!), just because you add keyboard navigation to a new application doesn't mean shit.
Meh.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No, not really
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Houston quick. Someone patent the way the water swirls as I flush my shit down the toilet.