Microsoft Patents The Obvious (Again)

Found on Steve Suehring's Web Notebook on Saturday, 04 September 2004
Browse Computer

Looks like Microsoft has yet again patented plainly obvious technologies that have existed for years and years. No, I'm not talking about their patent of the sudo command. This time Microsoft has been granted a patent for nothing less than using your keyboard to navigate a web page!

Patent 6,785,865 - "Discoverability and navigation of hyperlinks via tabs." From the abstract, "A user may discover and navigate among hyperlinks through the use of a keyboard. For example, a user may press a tab key to discover and navigate to a first hyperlink that is part of a hypertext document. The first hyperlink is, in response, given focus and a focus shape is drawn around the text or graphics for the hot region of the hyperlink. If the user again presses the tab key, the next hyperlink is given focus and a focus shape..."

Ok, I think that means that the US Patent Office is completely useless. Things like this should never be patentable; just like walking, talking or breathing. But you just need to make it sound spiffy, and it goes over the heads of the guys at the USPO and turns the dummy mode on. I could as well try to patent the "Usage of fingers to operate an alphanumeric input device for entering readable symbols into computers". Scary thing, I would probably get the patent...