Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's Bold Patent Move

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the is-this-actually-real dept.

theodp writes "On Thursday, the USPTO disclosed that Microsoft has a patent pending for displaying numbers in a box to make them stand out. " Check out the images to see the power of this breakthrough patent. That's almost impossible to do without patents.

5 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. Nice summary. by daniil · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Is it really that hard to write a three-line summary that actually says what the patent is about? I actually had to read the patent application to find out what the article is about.

    --
    Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
  2. Re:Well... by RailGunner · · Score: 4, Insightful
    While possibly of limited use, this does seem to be a unique feature. Now, whether Microsoft (or anyone) should be allowed to patent such thing... I don't know.

    No, because I (personally) can implement this in no fewer than 5 seperate programming languages, and literally thousands of different ways. This patent is bullshit. If they want to copyright their implementation of this, that's fine. But a patent? No.

    For example, let's say I wrote a perl script that converted a text document to HTML. If I wrapped numbers and words believed to be numbers in bold tags, technically I'd be violating this patent.

  3. Prior art + obviousness by coats · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Given that:
    • The fact that the numeric data test can be expressed as a regular expression implies obviousness (and that expression having been described by a slashdot reader within the first fifteen minutes of posting); and
    • The fact that run-time (re-)configurable highlighting has a long history (I point to syntax highlighting in your favorite programming editor; I know that at least for nedit it can be turned on/off by a click)
    implies to me that this is a combination of obviousness and prior art, hence should not be patentable.

    --
    "My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
  4. Obviousness criteria no longer applies by Russ+Nelson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing is considered obvious anymore. After all, if it was THAT obvious, somebody would have patented it already. Yes, the US patent system is broken. The only disagreement possible is in exactly HOW it's broken. If you listen to patent lawyers, it's broken because the USPTO's fees go into the general budget. If you listen to patent victims, it's broken because mere thoughts are being patented. If you give me a problem, and I can solve it in my head using nothing more than pencil and paper as a scratchpad, that solution should not be patentable.
    -russ

    --
    Don't piss off The Angry Economist
    1. Re:Obviousness criteria no longer applies by Misanthropy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if it was THAT obvious, somebody would have patented it already

      I don't think so. The idea being that if something is obvious a person wouldn't bother to patent it.
      I can think of many things that I've "invented" but would never bother pursuing a patent on because it IS obvious.

      What they are trying to patent is basically a document search with the search crtiteria predefined (i.e. highlight numbers).

      It's gotten to the point where companies are no longer trying to patent unique or original ideas; they are trying to patent ALL ideas.