Microsoft Patents Double-Clicking
“Microsoft has successfully patented using short, long or double clicks to launch different applications on ‘limited resource computing devices'” (link here, from Fuzzy). When electronic buttons have been around for decades, you’d think that clicking of any kind would be unpatentable. Well, one of the issues with the folks down at the patent office is that they are pretty swamped with patent applications. In the interests of efficiency, and keeping that pile of paper down to some manageable amount, they have a habit of not being very thorough with approving patents. In this, I suppose they rely more on the community to pick out the problematic patents, which more often enough emerge when a court action of some kind arises because a patent holder decides to sue.
6:59pm (GMT +10.00) 
