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Microsoft Patents a Slider, Earning EFF's "Stupid Patent of the Month" Award (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news that the EFF has given Microsoft a dubious award this month for their slider patent. According to Ars: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation's 'Stupid Patent of the Month' for December isn't owned by a sketchy shell company, but rather the Microsoft Corporation. The selection, published yesterday, is the first time the EFF has picked a design patent as the SPOTM. The blog post seeks to highlight some of the problems with those lesser-known cousins to standard 'utility' patents, especially the damages that can result. The chosen patent (PDF), numbered D554,140, would seem to be one of those things that's so simple it raises some basic philosophical questions about the patent system. That's because it's just a slider, in the bottom-right corner of a window, with a plus sign at one end and a minus sign at the other. That's it.
Well, Microsoft *is* the company that invented the slider. Sure, it seems simple *now*. But before they invented it, everyone just thought it was a given that they would have to type numbers into text boxes.
Microsoft changed the world with this new technology, and you are free-riding on their hard work whether you are using their products or not.
You are basically a thief, really.
You do realize he is not using your Windows machine to display his message on your flat screen, right?
goto "The hell you say"
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Oh my god, Microsoft just never stops innovating, do they?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...