Microsoft patents pgup and pgdn

[Kintaro]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/31/2224217&from=rss

An anonymous reader notes that Microsoft has been granted a patent on "Page Up" and "Page Down" keystrokes. The article links an image of an IBM PC keyboard from 1981 with such keys in evidence.

 "The software giant applied for the patent in 2005, and was granted it on August 19, 2008. US patent number 7,415,666 describes 'a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed.'... The company received its 5,000th patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office in March 2006, and is currently approaching the 10,000 mark."

[worker201]

Haha, I'm pressing page up and page down right now on my Mac.

[Kintaro]

And you will be forever because Apple have a lot of defensive patents. Can't say much for the freetards though, but I bet the law won't stop these radicals. Even though they use it as an excuse to push OGG on everyone by not shipping MP3 support already.

If you think they can't, why hasn't freshrpms and a bunch of apt repos for Ubunutu had not one encounter with "the man." It's all bullshit, nobody enforces the MP3 patent, the distros are just run by ideological fucks who want to force OGG on everyone.

[Calum]

first of all, ogg is a superior format, giving higher quality sound with smaller filesizes, but secondly, surely you can see why an international software vendor can't just go "fuck the law, i'm shipping whatever i like with my operating system", well, unless they're as huge as microsoft of course. might makes right, though, isn't that so, kintaro?

the real tards are the ones granting this moronic patent. I suppose microsoft were responsible for the IBM PC101 keyboard were they? i doubt it. Every idea IBM and Microsoft had (in the field of personal/workstation computing and networking) was stolen from Apple (except the ones lifted from BSD/Unix), and virtually all Apple's ideas were developed from concepts originating at Xerox PARC.

[Kintaro]

I just had a look at my 91 mac classic, it has no page up and page down keys either.

OGG and smaller filesizes? You're dreaming!

I don't care about the morality of the patent, at least not enough to comment. The morality is glaringly obvious. However, do you think this will stop Ubuntu breaking it? I don't.

Also, I think they would get away with MP3. It seems everyone else is except Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu.

[Kintaro]

Also this patent isn't on the keys, it's on the functions that make them do anything.

[Lord C]

A large number of different organizations have claimed ownership of patents necessary to implement MP3 (decoding and/or encoding). These different claims have led to a number of legal threats and actions from a variety of sources, resulting in uncertainty about what is necessary to legally create products with MP3 support in countries where those patents are valid.

I think they are just playing it safe on the mp3 side of things, because there have already been active threats etc.

To me, it's a minor point installing ubuntu-restricted-extras. I think it would be nice if it was a tickbox option during install or something, for the newbs.

Regarding the PGUP/DWN buttons. Bleh! I can't see anything changing. It's rediculous. How can someone patent the use of keys that come as standard on most keyboards these days? I'm sure if MS tried to bully companies, the patent would be appealed and denied =]

I think we should just ditch the whole idea of software patents. I think they are a stupid idea. They just halt the progression of new software O-o

[SiMuLaCrUm]

Heh, I never even use those keys in the first place.

[Aloone_Jonez]

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/31/2224217&from=rss

An anonymous reader notes that Microsoft has been granted a patent on "Page Up" and "Page Down" keystrokes. The article links an image of an IBM PC keyboard from 1981 with such keys in evidence.

 "The software giant applied for the patent in 2005, and was granted it on August 19, 2008. US patent number 7,415,666 describes 'a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed.'... The company received its 5,000th patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office in March 2006, and is currently approaching the 10,000 mark."

Lol, whatever next? Microsoft pattents oral sex? Well it's all good when a woman goes down on me but when Windows goes down on me it's horrible.

[SiMuLaCrUm]

It's either that or stupidity. I have a feeling they will patent both.