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Microsoft Patents The Broken y-Axis

Posted by timothy on from the what-the-heck-it's-only-a-legal-monopoly dept.

theodp writes "Microsoft was granted a patent Tuesday for Displaying data containing outlying data items, covering the familiar concept of broken y-axis bar charts. Oddly, Microsoft's 2002 'invention' is described in detail in a 1999 listserv post and found its way into scientific journals and other sources before the patent's claims were disclosed. BTW, the patent's term was extended by 269 days, apparently the USPTO's way of apologizing for initially rejecting the patent."

6 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. What I meant to say was... by ralphclark · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Shouldn't a patent be struck down *automatically* once indisputable evidence of prior art turns up?

    1. Re:What I meant to say was... by zcat_NZ · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only in a SANE world. The current system is so broken I suspect Microsoft could push through a patent on the wheel or fire, sufficiently obfuscated, and get away with it. Probably the only reason they haven't already is that wheels and fire have very limited use in the world of computer software.

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      455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
    2. Re:What I meant to say was... by tsm_sf · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No dude, the whole idea is to patent a LOGICALLY obvious combination of ideas A and B...

      Idea A: Thee Sledge
      Idea B: Thee Wheel

      TOTALLY NOVEL IDEA THAT YOU SHOULD PAY US FOR: A cart.

      See? Nevermind that the wheel was invented to make the sledge easier to move around, it's fair game since nobody explicitly stated such.

      In the words of Triumph, "did it hurt when they surgically removed your sense of shame?"

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      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    3. Re:What I meant to say was... by cyborch · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Patent the wheel like this guy did?

  2. Just a few notes by Zaffle · · Score: 4, Informative

    Its not patenting the idea of the broken Y axis, its a patent on an algorithm to automatically calculate where and how to break the y-axis on a graph. (Not as bad, but still bad).

    The patent goes in to explicit detail on how the calculation is done, so you should be able to avoid it by simply doing something slightly differently. The "prior art" mentioned isn't applicable in this case, because the patent is on a particular method of doing this that is different to the prior art mentioned

    This however doesn't mean the patent shouldn't be thrown out. Its the equivilant of patenting a sorting algorithm (eg bublesort).

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    I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
    1. Re:Just a few notes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Forget working around; the claims are broader than just the detailed methods in the description. If you do what is in the claims, you infringe.

      The only 'special' aspect is in the end of claim 1: apparently the invention is to only do this trick if you have more than three data items.