IBM Patents Checking a Box

theodp writes "What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? Answer: US Patent 7,278,116. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an 'X'. Isn't this essentially the same concept as the older Lotus Notes selection model that IBM was recently asked to reintroduce?"

Comments

If someone patents something stupid, do we care?

[KingSkippus]

First of all, it's not just "checking a box." It's clicking to toggle a checkmark, and dragging across a bunch of other checkboxes to toggle them all on (or off, depending on the state of the first one you clicked).

Second of all, I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, it really bothers me in a cosmic sense that there was a patent granted for something so patently stupid. (Pun slightly intended.) I'm sorry, but this falls squarely in the realm of obvious to me. I mean, really, are programmers expected to patent every single frickin' thing they do out of fear that someone else might? Because that's the world we're living in, and I'd really like for it to change.

On the other hand, I'm sorry, but the Lotus Notes selection model is one of the most frustratingly stupid things I've ever encountered in my life. Almost every other piece of software follows the old click-first-item, shift-click-last-item model. (Or ctrl-click individual items.) It's been in use since... Well, as long as I can remember using a GUI, and I'm really hard-pressed to think of any other way that selections work. Except for Lotus Notes, where they use this asinine system of selecting messages which means that if I have several pages of stuff to select, I have to scroll past each. and. every. one. Frankly, if IBM is the only company that can do this and it prevents any other company that has the bright idea from implementing something like this, then I can almost bring myself to say that this is a good thing.

Re:If someone patents something stupid, do we care

[HTH NE1]

This is another example of a really obvious patent that adds NOTHING to advance the state of the art. At the very least there should be a "de minimis non curat USPTO" grounds for rejecting patents like this ("the USPTO is not interested in trivial matters").