No, Seriously: Microsoft Patents Page Up & Page Down

gigaom.com

21 points·ajbatac··7 comments

People just don't get it. Microsoft didn't patent Page Up, Page Down functionality. They patented a specific way of using page up and page down that goes down to the next page at the exact same section as the current page, which as far as I can tell nobody actually cares about.

Tagged - "you_got_to_be_kidding_me." ;)

Patent system is ...as dysfunctional as Britney Spears - love the analogy.

This is too detailed a patent and one can easily set the page down to one line above or below in the scrolled page and claim they don't infringe. Hence this patent is essentially useless.

Most patents provide implementation details just as an example and often have a disclaimer that basically says all other varying incarnations of the idea is covered by the patent. Yet another reason why most software patents aren't helpful.

Incorrect. The only legally valid part of a patent is in the exact language of the claims. Any other description makes no difference, and anything not laid out precisely in the claims is not covered by the patent. In fact, the body, abstract, description makes no difference - it's only to lay the foundation for the claims themselves.

Explanation for the patent in a reddit comment: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xjmq/us_patent...

with our patent system I bet this patent infringes on one of the prior ones, I just don't believe that none of the early keyboard manufacturers didn't bother to patent such an innovative leap in keyboard technology

I can't read the patent because I don't want to infringe it by using my PgDn.

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