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Microsoft Patents 1826 Choropleth Map Technique

Posted by Soulskill on from the right-click-add-to-dictionary dept.

theodp writes "A newly-granted Microsoft patent for Variable Formatting of Cells covers the use of 'variable formatting for cells in computer spreadsheets, tables, and other documents', such as using the spectrum from a first color to a second color to represent the values in or associated with each cell. Which is really not a heck of a lot different from how Baron Pierre Charles Dupin created what's believed to be the first choropleth map way back in 1826, when he used shadings from black to white to illustrate the distribution and intensity of illiteracy in France. By the way, beginning in March, the U.S. will switch from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system of granting patents. Hey, what could go wrong?"

6 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. I reject your patent, M$. by Yuff · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How can We The People put an end to this nonsense? They are not patenting, so much as stealing. How can we petition the US PTO to have a patent re-examined and to have the a$$wipe who accepted the patent application be fired for incompetence?

    1. Re:I reject your patent, M$. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If that patent actually contained source code, maybe you'd have a point. It likely doesn't though.

  2. Time to return to 13 yr patent 17 yr copyright by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is time to go back to a 13 year patent and 17 year copyright cycle, with a renewal of patent available only to a Natural Person (e.g. not a fictional Corporation) holding a patent for one period, and with copyright renewable only by the Natural Person who authored the work, in 17 year periods, assignable to one spouse, children or heirs (other than Fictional Persons such as Corporations), until said person is deceased for three years.

    If it worked for our founding fathers, who didn't have the Internet, and thus had longer lag times, it should work for America.

    Exisiting patent and copyright grants should be allowed to conclude their grant cycle, provided it is less than or equal to said period, with the holder reverting to the Natural Person at the expiry of such lease. But not created and renewed.

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Time to return to 13 yr patent 17 yr copyright by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Corporations are Soylent Green.
      Made of people is not the same as people.

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      Not a sentence!
    2. Re:Time to return to 13 yr patent 17 yr copyright by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Say goodbye to the corporate research lab pioneered by Edison, Steinmetz, Westinghouse.

      We already have.

      How much of a debt does the geek owe to AT&T and Bell Labs, Xerox and PARC?

      See above. Time to stop dreaming about the glory days, because they're gone and not coming back.

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      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  3. Stealing ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They are not patenting, so much as stealing.

    I have a deep suspicion that the United States government is actually encouraging the act of stealing by maintaining the patent system.
     
    By filing a patent on a technique somebody had invented some 186 years ago Microsoft (and the United States Government) is essentially telling people to steal as much as they can, before someone else steals it from you.
     
    BTW, has anyone patented the compass yet?
     

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    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !