Microsoft patents task list

[Laukev7]

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/06/08/2319254.shtml?tid=109&tid=126&tid=155&tid=156&tid=187&tid=99

This is getting ridiculous.

[WMD]

quote:The patented technology essentially integrates certain comments left in the source code of an application under development with an accompanying checklist. Leave a "TODO" comment in the source code, and an authoring application automatically creates an item in the task list. Check an item off on the task list, and the corresponding source code comment is changed.

Uh-huh.  As someone at Slashdot said:
 

quote:...the fact that you can patent something that you do (linking a list with source code comments) rather than the way that you do it (using XYZ type of code to create ABC functionality) shows that the patent system is broken.

And there you have it.

[cahult]

This is corny, and silly. To read about this dumbness while listening with a half ear to BBC World about the ongoing process of EU fining Microsoft for 600 million. Task list, maybe they will patent the word list as well!!!  

[M51DPS]

There's only one way to stop the madness... I'm going to patent the patent system and keep anyone else from using it.