1-Click, Short-Click, Long-Click, More-Clicks (New Microsoft Patent)

[theodp]

Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a
patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a 'Time based hardware button for
application launch', which covers causing different actions to occur
depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time,
a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of
time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time
to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?

See the patent at:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,727,830

[Harlan Messinger]

"theodp" <th****@aol.com > wrote in message
news:e7******** *************** **@posting.goog le.com...

Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a
patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a 'Time based hardware button for
application launch', which covers causing different actions to occur
depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time,
a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of
time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time
to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?

Presumably it does it the radio is designed to perform different functions
depending on your interaction with it in the manner you describe.

[Barry Margolin]

In article <e7************ *************@p osting.google.c om>,
th****@aol.com (theodp) wrote:

Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a
patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a 'Time based hardware button for
application launch', which covers causing different actions to occur
depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time,
a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of
time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time
to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?

See the patent at:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,727,830

Most of the claims in the patent are very specific about the types of
alternate actions. E.g. press-and-hold to start the application and
restore it to a previously saved state, or press-and-hold to start the
application with a default document.

Whether the car radio buttons would be prior art depends on whether a
car radio is considered a "limited resource computing device" and
whether the actions that take place when you press one of the buttons is
considered to include "opening an application". In my opinion, the
radio is a single application, and the only button that "opens" it is
the on-off button -- the station selectors are controls within the
application.

The interesting thing about this patent is that it *only* covers actions
that take place when using the mouse to open an application. This was
probably necessary to avoid prior art problems; double-clicking has been
used within applications for as long as the mouse has been in use, and
Apple has used click-hold for at least 10 years I think (e.g. the
"spring-loaded folder" feature of the Finder). But I can't recall
seeing any operating systems that implement the alternate styles of
application launching that the patent claims.

--
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

[Jim Richardson]

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Hash: SHA1

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 16:52:32 -0400,
Harlan Messinger <h.*********@co mcast.net> wrote:

"theodp" <th****@aol.com > wrote in message
news:e7******** *************** **@posting.goog le.com...

Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a
patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a 'Time based hardware button for
application launch', which covers causing different actions to occur
depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time,
a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of
time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time
to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?

Presumably it does it the radio is designed to perform different functions
depending on your interaction with it in the manner you describe.

Given that some desktop computers have for several years, turned off, or
rebooted, based on how long you held the power off button down, and many
laptops, suspend if you just push the button, and shut off, if you hold
it down, I'd say that's prior art. Digital clocks that advance the
numbers slowly one press at a time, or fast, if you hold it down, the
list of such prior art is pretty long.
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.

[Jed Margolin]

theodp wrote:

Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a
patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a 'Time based hardware button for
application launch', which covers causing different actions to occur
depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time,
a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of
time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time
to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?

See the patent at:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,727,830

I note that Microsoft's patent fails to list U.S. Patent 1,647 as a
reference.

JM

[Rahul Dhesi]

Jed Margolin <ne**@jmargolin .com> writes:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,727,830

I note that Microsoft's patent fails to list U.S. Patent 1,647 as a
reference.

As I recall, Claim 8 in patent 1,647 tried to claim the working of the
telegraph in all media to be invented in the future. This claim was
declared by the Supreme Court to be invalid; I believe the Court's
primary concern was that if Claim 8 were to be upheld, this would make
it a lot harder for others to claim the same thing again 160 years later
for, say, mouse clicks instead of telegraph keys. Specifically, here is
what the Court in its wisdom wrote circa 1854:

"If this claim can be maintained, it matters not by what process or
machinery the result is accomplished. For ought that we now know some
future inventor, in the onward march of science, may discover by means
of mouse clicks, without using any part of the process or combination
set forth in the plaintiff's specification. His invention may be less
complicated -- less liable to get out of order -- less expensive in
construction, and in its operation -- or perhaps much more likely to
crash and require a three-finger salute. But yet if it is covered by
this patent the inventor could not use it, nor the public have the
benefit of multiple types of mouse clicks and a multitude of viruses,
worms, and other electronic pestilence, without the permission of this
patentee."
--
Rahul

[Barry Margolin]

In article <s4************ @grendel.myth>,
Jim Richardson <wa*****@eskimo .com> wrote:

Given that some desktop computers have for several years, turned off, or
rebooted, based on how long you held the power off button down, and many
laptops, suspend if you just push the button, and shut off, if you hold
it down, I'd say that's prior art. Digital clocks that advance the
numbers slowly one press at a time, or fast, if you hold it down, the
list of such prior art is pretty long.

Do you consider advancing the numbers to be "opening an application"? I
don't think anyone would seriously consider that to be the same thing as
the patented methods.

The patent is very specific that it *only* applies to using the click
timing to vary the way an application is opened. It says nothing about
alternate actions within an application, nor about shutting down an
application or computer.

--
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

[Matt]

Barry Margolin wrote:

In article <e7************ *************@p osting.google.c om>,
th****@aol.com (theodp) wrote:

Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a
patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a 'Time based hardware button for
application launch', which covers causing different actions to occur
depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time,
a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of
time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time
to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?

See the patent at:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,727,830

Most of the claims in the patent are very specific about the types of
alternate actions. E.g. press-and-hold to start the application and
restore it to a previously saved state, or press-and-hold to start the
application with a default document.

Whether the car radio buttons would be prior art depends on whether a
car radio is considered a "limited resource computing device" and
whether the actions that take place when you press one of the buttons is
considered to include "opening an application". In my opinion, the
radio is a single application, and the only button that "opens" it is
the on-off button -- the station selectors are controls within the
application.

The interesting thing about this patent is that it *only* covers actions
that take place when using the mouse to open an application. This was
probably necessary to avoid prior art problems; double-clicking has been
used within applications for as long as the mouse has been in use, and
Apple has used click-hold for at least 10 years I think (e.g. the
"spring-loaded folder" feature of the Finder). But I can't recall
seeing any operating systems that implement the alternate styles of
application launching that the patent claims.

I understand that a long time back somebody put an eraser on the end of
a pencil and tried to patent it. The patent was denied because the
supposed invention was not a new invention---only a combination of old
inventions.

[Philip Callan]

Matt wrote:

I understand that a long time back somebody put an eraser on the end of
a pencil and tried to patent it. The patent was denied because the
supposed invention was not a new invention---only a combination of old
inventions.

AIUI, inventions that are merely a amalgam of existing ideas are not
'new' unless the amalgam is 'not obvious'.

Like the guys patent on the motor carriage, he went after Ford, but they
ruled that although the internal combustion engine was new, the process
of bonding it to a chassis to make a motorized carriage was 'obvious'
once the motor was invented, so anyone else could have made it, so his
invention was denied.

I guess you have to not only put things together, but do it in such a
way nobody else had, or 'reasonably' /could/ have in order to get a patent.

[Rahul Dhesi]

Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> writes:

Do you consider advancing the numbers to be "opening an application"? I
don't think anyone would seriously consider that to be the same thing as
the patented methods.

What does it mean to "open" an "applicatio n"?
--
Rahul