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Comment by fauigerzigerk | Hacker News Reader

The first patent is described as a "system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data," which Apple says applies, for example, to tapping a phone number and being prompted options to call or look it up on the web.

So they have basically patented the context menu. How broken can a patent system possibly become before it crashes an entire economy?

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You must examine a patent based on the specific claims, not the title. Many people make this mistake and assume the patent is much broader than it actually is.

Every patent is different, but the patent system is broken all the same.

Does not mean no patents make sense (although I have yet to see one in software in algorithms; but meaningful hardware patents are not unusual). The system needs to be completely rethought. As of now, the software patent system is not only easily abused, but itself is an abuse of common sense.

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This is a good thing to keep in mind, but in this case, the patent really does appear to be about that vague as far as I've been able to find anyone explainng. The only difference from the title is that the patent requires the contextual action to have been automatically generated based on the content (it does not, however, detail any method for this "automatically generate" step).

It seems to me that Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb ought to be prior art, but maybe there's a technicality I'm missing, because that seems like a big one for the lawyers to miss.

Apple's claim does sound pretty broad and the court apparently found their claim to be legit.

I have not read a single software patent (and I have read some, if not this one) that was not completely obvious to me, and I am "one of ordinary skill in the art".

Apple patented a popup menu. lol

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