Dos noticias sobre patentes andan por los foros: por un lado Microsoft recibio la patente del metodo del "doble click" para lanzar aplicaciones una patente ridicula, y por otro lado la Federal Trade Commission de los EE.UU. esta preocupada por la forma en que se estan otorgando patentes. Technology industry hits out at 'patent trolls' ----------------------------------------------- By Maggie Shiels In California (published by the BBC) Mad cap patents ranging from protecting a method of painting by dipping a baby's bottom into paint or a system for keeping track of people queuing for the bathroom may soon be a thing of the past if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has its way. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3722509.stm 1-Click, Short-Click, Long-Click, More-Clicks - All Patented ------------------------------------------------------------ Contributed by Mike on Tuesday, April 27th, 2004 @ 02:35PM from the click-to-pay dept. theodp writes "Not to be outdone by Amazon's 1-Click patent, Microsoft snagged a patent from the USPTO Tuesday for a Time based hardware button for application launch, which covers causing different actions to occur depending upon whether a button is pressed for a short period of time, a long period of time, or multiple times within a short period of time. So does pressing car radio buttons for different periods of time to change or set stations constitute patent infringement?" What about double-clicking? Seems like a fair amount of prior art. I know my caller ID box requires a "double-click" to delete phone numbers. Also, I may not remember correctly, but I was under the impression that Apple's famous "one-button" mouse allows you to fake a right mouse click if you hold down the button. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040427/1435203_F.shtml Link a la patente en el sitio de la oficina de patentes: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1... Ricardo H. Medel Stevens Institute of Technology ----------------------------------------- .o. Vuestra guerra, nuestros muertos. ..o Your war, our deads. ooo