Comments on: Microsoft wants to patent smilies

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:45:00 +0000

Quick: Someone in the Linux community patent the GUI, then allow only GPL OS’s to use it.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:19:18 +0000

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 18:25:43 +0000

The headline is wrong – this is not about patenting smilies! If the author would have read the patent application cited in the article, he would have found that the inventors do not want to patenting smilies. Instead the invention is about adding complex emoticons to a lean message without increasing the data size of such a message. In other words, this new technique helps to keep chatroom conversation or instant messaging performing fast.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 16:10:40 +0000

Imaging what happen if the supreme court had granted that the windows display patent to apple ?.

Then MS will not exist.

MS has forgotten about peoples’ need.
All is about $$$$$$$.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 04:14:18 +0000

http://www.modern-communism.ca/mc21103.htm

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 02:15:19 +0000

Yesterday while surfing the net I blundered on a place to download animated 3D smilies by (you guessed it) MSN. Get them here free it said. Ok, I attempted for the heck of it to do so. Admittedly, I was curious as to how many and what they were. Amazingly, I found that it would not do so. I got instead that MSN didn’t support my browser. Imagine that? I run Linux.

The whole patent granting machine has gotten completely out of hand. I think it was last year, microsucks patented the double click function for opening programs. This is a very basic skill needed to operate the computer and has no reason to be able to grant mircosucks a patent on it. They just as well go ahead and patent the qwerty keyboard while they are at it. By patenting the double-click, what has been done is denying the computer world a standardized method of implementation. This isn’t an advantage anyone and certainly should not have been granted.

The idea that microsucks should be able to receive a patent on smilies is absurd. Smilies have been around since the days of text messaging in the early days of the internet. Microsucks didn’t invent that, people did. Here you have another grab, not at something they invented and not for something they will gain profit from but rather to deny the average programmer some tool to make internet experience an enjoyable experience. This too, will result in breaking down any attempt at a standard for the world that isn’t in microsucks best interests.

So whats next, a patent on food, air, and water? Oh wait, I forgot, Monosoto already has a patent on some of that, don’t they?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 23:56:06 +0000

I must have taken a looooooong nap… I remember it wasn’t long ago that patenting was someting to do with protecting new stuff… since when is a smiley included in a message (like email) a new thing?

How about prior art? What’s next – someone patenting fork and spoon?