Microsoft's Bold Patent Move

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.

Comments

Re:Obviousness criteria no longer applies

[Misanthropy]

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.