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Microsoft Patents "Pg Up" and "Pg Dn"

Posted by kdawson on from the your-grandfather-had-prior-art dept.

An anonymous reader notes that Microsoft has been granted a patent on "Page Up" and "Page Down" keystrokes. The article links an image of an IBM PC keyboard from 1981 with such keys in evidence. "The software giant applied for the patent in 2005, and was granted it on August 19, 2008. US patent number 7,415,666 describes 'a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed.'... The company received its 5,000th patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office in March 2006, and is currently approaching the 10,000 mark."

6 of 350 comments (clear)

  1. No they didn't by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Informative

    sounds more like they patented scrolling up/down the same amount regardless of any zoom factor.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:No they didn't by DXLster · · Score: 3, Informative

      But go ahead, link to a case where someone has been sucessfully sued for infringing on a software patent where the methods of implementation in question were independently developed. I'd love to see it.

      Okay... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas

    2. Re:No they didn't by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 3, Informative

      The difference is enough that the problem here isn't MS, it's the patent system. But we knew that. We're vilifying the wrong people. Our efforts should be focused on demonstrating the inferiority of this system, and exposing any corruption involved in maintaining it.

      I have to agree, and if anything MS is demonstrating the insanity of the US Patent system by proxy.

      MS has been sued over 100s of insane patents, and so they were forced to patent anything even plausibly theirs to protect companies from getting rich off of stupid patent lawsuits.

      (If people look at MS patent history, prior to the mid 90s when they started getting hammered with bogus patent lawsuits, MS had a very limited amount of patents.)

      In case anyone doubts MS's filings as being anything but defensive, Google their position on Patents going back to Win 3.x days.

      Here is a quick link to illustrate:
      http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft,%20Oracle%20call%20for%20patent%20reform/2100-1030_3-5683240.html

  2. Re:Didn't read article by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 4, Informative

    At least read the summary next time. If you had you'd have noticed it's quite clearly not a patent for the keys themselves, but the practice of scrolling a specific amount regardless of the current view settings (eg. zoom). As such your keyboard is irrelevant, a peice of software that implements those keys in the standard way however is absolutely relevant.

    To quote the patent text itself (emphasis added):

    Briefly, the present invention provides a method and system for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as a row height corresponding to a row of one or more pages of a page set, so as to display a next page set from the precise vertical location into the page that the previous page set started, regardless of the current zoom percentage. For example, if the middle of a page set is at the top of the viewing area, after scrolling, the middle of the next page set is at the top of the viewing area. This operation occurs on receiving specific user input, e.g., a Page Up or Page Down key command.

    Notice that the use of the Page Down/Up keys is an example of input that would be used in concert with the patent, so it's crystal clear that they're not trying to patent the keys themselves.

    Not that what they're patenting is any less ridiculous, but let's at least get straight what ridiculous thing we're talking about.

    --
    Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
  3. The "t" util in Decus C had this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...published, with source code, certainly by 1984 and maybe several years earlier.

    The t utility did not use PgUp/PgDn keys, had some others since it was for most any crt terminal, but it had and used the concept and was certainly published and possible to date publication. There are funny rules about publication, but this is a well documented bit of code, for almost any machine that could compile C code, given away freely.

  4. Re:Why corporations should not be "a person" by vittal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oddly enough, there is some research regarding psychopathy and management. While it would certainly be untrue to say "Most large corporations are run by sociopaths", there are examples of CEO's who do tick the boxes for psychopathy.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html is an interesting article covering some of the work by Robert Hare (the bloke who devised the Psychopathy Checklist used by police departments to profile killers).

    Disclaimer - I have worked for a company where the CEO is in jail for being a cheating, lying toe-rag.