Microsoft Applies For Patent On Private Browsing

PhilDEE writes "Microsoft is in the process of applying for two patents for a private browsing mode in their next version of Internet Explorer — a feature already present in Safari, among other browsers."

Comments

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[AK Marc]

Trademarks can be very valuable, not just to the company, but to the consumer

Go read up on the nut trademarking "stealth" and tell me whether you think they are so good. He's trying to own the word, performing a DOS on the word itself. Trademarking a company name makes sense. Trademarking every single feature with a different name is a useless practice. It's easy to realize that "word processor" means different things if made by Microsoft vs IBM. If there was a shelf in a store with "Microsoft Word" next to "IBM Word" I do not think that a significant number of people would be confused, yet trademark law protects "word" from being used by anyone else. That's where it loses its usefulness.

The trademark identifies the manufacturer, and their reputation gives me an indication of the quality of hidden components.

And everyone tries to trademark every little feature. I've even seen marketing material with "The only Car/TV/chair/whatever with XXX" when XXX is nothing more than a trademarked name for a feature everyone else had. That's deceptive and works to harm the consumer's choice and knowledge, not add to it. Like copyrights, trademarks are a good idea that manages to fail in implementation. Yet no one seems the least bit interested in fixing it.

Re:Typical ..

[DittoBox]

Technically:

1. Search for useful features (history, cache, saved entries)
2. Patent the removal of said features
3. ???
4. Profit!

I see the point of removing or disabling histories in a browserâ"it makes senseâ"but these are just added features that some very old or very basic browsers don't have.

How can you patent the removal of features? It's not "making" anything, it's just tearing down something that already exists and only putting some parts back when you build it again. Obviously not everyone wants those parts, hence "privacy-aware" browsers exist, but you can't patent that!