Scratch
Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.
Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.
On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.
MS Patents Taskbar Icons
According to the US Patent office, patent #6,756,999 it would appear belongs to Microsoft. Unlike the "double click" patent that was recently in the news, the patent this time is grouping taskbar icons processes as commonly seen now in XP.
On a side not, my interpretation is that Microsoft's "patent for double clicking" actually relates to hardware buttons on palm type devices, and more specifically to the use of timed accesses. Although the media have sensationalised this, it isn't acutally double clicking, is in fact using one hardware button on a handheld to perform three distinct actions using three distinct input methods, not on any of the three methods. The patent therefore would not inculde device that only uses two of the three methods.
Should be interesting to see whether prior art is claimed by Sun or perhaps BeOS. This can only be done on the basis either iff it was in use or on sale or had a description published before the latter of the invention date (which might be hard to prove) or one year before the filing for the patent. Because we are not sure of the invention date, we need to go off of the one year previous rule. Here is an example of something that might help.
Guess we have to sit back and wait to see who, if anyone, infringes the patent to test it's validity.
I wonder whether my Granny, who used to make jam back could sue them. "Method and systems for grouping squashed fruit..." Sounds similar...
2 Jul 2004 8:10 | (0) comments | www