Microsoft Patents "Pg Up" and "Pg Dn" 350
An anonymous reader notes that Microsoft has been granted a patent on "Page Up" and "Page Down" keystrokes. The article links an image of an IBM PC keyboard from 1981 with such keys in evidence. "The software giant applied for the patent in 2005, and was granted it on August 19, 2008. US patent number 7,415,666 describes 'a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed.'... The company received its 5,000th patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office in March 2006, and is currently approaching the 10,000 mark."
Ok by me. (Score:5, Funny)
That's ok; I don't RTFA anyway.
Re:Ok by me. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I skipped past your reply using my pgDn button. So there.
Re:Ok by me. (Score:5, Funny)
And, in other patent news (Score:4, Funny)
Turtle Wax has been granted a patent for "Wax on, Wax off". A federal judge has ruled that "The Karate Kid" cannot be used as prior art in a US court and Ralph Macchio's character was under a "foreign influence" at the time.
Re:Ok by me. (Score:4, Funny)
Well's that nothing a screwdriver can't fix. I'll replace Pg Up and Pg Down with Scroll Lock and Pause. I can type blind anyway.
Good Luck patenting that ! .
Re:Ok by me. (Score:5, Funny)
You're right - porn.slashdot.org is definitely not responding.
That's a subscribers only section.... try logging into your account ;)
Re:Ok by me. (Score:5, Funny)
ok.. *clicks*
AAAIEEE!!!! JESUSFUCK, MY EYEEEES!!!!!!!!
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2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving a command indicative of a page-based incremental scroll request comprises receiving a Page Up command...
And further down:
So this patent really claims the use of the Page Up key to move a page upwards by a specific amount. I think I'm going to patent a method to insert an 'e' into a digital text by pressing the 'e'-k
No they didn't (Score:4, Informative)
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No, it makes total sense. Microsoft is in the idea business and uses patents to extend its financial viability.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes perfect sense for them, certainly. But could a single keystroke that advances or rewinds the document by 96% of the height of the viewport (fancy for Page Up) NOT be classified as obvious?
Respect to MS for getting the patent I guess (if you're first then you're first; more power to them), but it just goes to prove how fucked up the patent system is.
Re:No they didn't (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a lovely feature. When I was writing up my thesis a few years I found it to be completely invaluable. It meant that I could line up the rendered output of a thesis page on the screen so that the margins were cropped, and the view was zoomed in on the actual text. When I hit forward / backward the viewer would skip the exact same point on the adjacent page. It saved a lot of time, and it's feature that is missing from a lot of document viewers *cough* Adobe Acroread I'm looking at you.
Of course I'm talking about using ghostview which has supported this feature for decades. But I'm sure Microsoft don't believe it's a real patent either. They're just playing the numbers game.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is enough that the problem here isn't MS, it's the patent system. But we knew that. We're vilifying the wrong people. Our efforts should be focused on demonstrating the inferiority of this system, and exposing any corruption involved in maintaining it.
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Okay, where is the corruption involved in maintaining it? Oh, right.
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Really? I thought it was the people (ab)using it.
"Interprocess communication mechanism for heterogeneous computer process"
Wouldn't you think it takes somebody with double-blind eyes to file a patent on this? Actually, this seems to be an attempt to highjack the Internet - who would want to try such a thing?
vilifying the right people (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is enough that the problem here isn't MS, it's the patent system.
The problem MS. Most people learn in kindergarten that just because you can get away with doing something wrong doesn't mean you should.
There is no justification for Microsoft to file these ridiculous patents, and they should be vilified for it.
Not only is the fact that they are applying for these patents evil, it is just as evil that they are clogging up the patent system and patent examiners with this bullshit.
Re:No they didn't (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is enough that the problem here isn't MS, it's the patent system. But we knew that. We're vilifying the wrong people. Our efforts should be focused on demonstrating the inferiority of this system, and exposing any corruption involved in maintaining it.
I have to agree, and if anything MS is demonstrating the insanity of the US Patent system by proxy.
MS has been sued over 100s of insane patents, and so they were forced to patent anything even plausibly theirs to protect companies from getting rich off of stupid patent lawsuits.
(If people look at MS patent history, prior to the mid 90s when they started getting hammered with bogus patent lawsuits, MS had a very limited amount of patents.)
In case anyone doubts MS's filings as being anything but defensive, Google their position on Patents going back to Win 3.x days.
Here is a quick link to illustrate:
http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft,%20Oracle%20call%20for%20patent%20reform/2100-1030_3-5683240.html [cnet.com]
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Funny)
I have to imagine that redmond feels frivolous patents like this are an EXTREMELY funny joke. Bet you it went down like this:
SB: come on guys, you've got to think of some way to simultaneously shaft millions and demonstrate, once again, the inadequacy of patent office oversight.
HG: well, we already patented double clicking, how can we top that?
TS: we could patent breathing....
JD: no, that might infringe on Dell's pending (at the time of this conversation) copyrighting of the term "cloud computing"
BG: let's patent being fat, bald, and sweaty. SB needs to have his name on something for once.
SB: fuck it, lets just patent these two buttons on my keyboard, pg up and pg dn. no one but *nix users will notice the difference anyways.
USPTO: allow us to lick your testicles, mr ballmer!
no, that's not a leaked microsoft email, but you and I both know it may as well be.
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Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, someone in QA opened a bug that the Page Up and Page Down didn't do the right thing when the doc was being zoomed. Then there was lots of email back and forth about what "the right thing" was supposed to be, and they settled on one. At the same time, other email chains in the Outlook inbox were reminding developers of the importance of filing for patents early and often, "even if you don't think it is especially original, things could turn out differently", with the implication that one's compensation and prospects for advancement (or not getting laid off) were at stake.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even. They patented a method for scrolling up/down the same amount regardless of any zoom factor. Not all methods, and certainly not pgup/pgdn.
Why is it that every patent story on slashdot always obfuscates the fact that patents cover methods of implementation, and not all encompassing ideas? Is it naive to think that this isn't a purposeful ommission?
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a kdawson post. kdawson is the epitome of stupidity and sensationalism. If a story sounds like it is too ridiculous or belongs in Idle (but is not), it's most likely a kdawson post and you should just disregard it.
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This is kdawson. I can see who AC posts come from, you were logged on
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Never in my life have I wish so badly that I had mod points. kdawson is the new timothy.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
obfuscates the fact that patents cover methods of implementation
Because you're wrong? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents [wikipedia.org]
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The Doctrine of Equivalents still requires something to be done in substantially the same way as a patented method to be considered infringing. It exists to prevent someone from taking apart an invention, changing something trivial, and then trying to pass it off as their own. It does not mean MS or anyone else can patent ideas.
But go ahead, link to a case where someone has been sucessfully sued for infringing on a software patent where the methods of implementation in question were independently develope
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
But go ahead, link to a case where someone has been sucessfully sued for infringing on a software patent where the methods of implementation in question were independently developed. I'd love to see it.
There is absolutely no need for someone t have successfully done that for absurd patents to become problematic. Essentially no one can afford to be sued by, say, MS, even if your implementation of Page Down is provably different to theirs.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, by that logic, any patent what-so-ever is potentially "problematic". So all you're saying is that if Microsoft wants to sue you then you're in a mess of trouble and frankly, that's not very insightful.
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But go ahead, link to a case where someone has been sucessfully sued for infringing on a software patent where the methods of implementation in question were independently developed. I'd love to see it.
Okay... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas [wikipedia.org]
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Um, the Turing-Church thesis promises that every way to accomplish a particular computing task will be "substantially the same" as every other.
Re:No they didn't (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, yeah. But the tricky word is "substantial", and its moving goalposts.
If a particular implementation A of a function M is patented, but M is the type of thing that other software developers need to accomplish too, then I will need another implementation B of that same function.
But since B can differ from A as much or as little as I like, the question is "how much is substantial?" I could just take A, add a NOP at the end, and call it a distinct function. That probably doesn't meet the definition.
Now what about two NOPs? What if I unroll all the loops, or switch around register names, or swap the operands of all the 'Add' instructions?
Turing-Church essentially promises that regardless of a little bit of obfuscation, or a lot, or none at all, the underlying computation going on in B is isometric to that in implementation A.
That there are an infinite number of alternative implementations, will just be used as a slippery slope argument by a good lawyer. "Why, if we allowed the defendant to publish implementation B, because it's a different algorithm, then we'd have to allow every software patent to be violated by anyone who knows how to obfuscate an algorithm! Nazis would once again ride on dinosaurs!"
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that every patent story on slashdot always obfuscates the fact that patents cover methods of implementation, and not all encompassing ideas? Is it naive to think that this isn't a purposeful ommission?
Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor [wikipedia.org]
The only part of a patent that matters are the claims. So, no this patent does not cover all PgUp / PgDn, but only paging that is carried out according to the formula in the claims. Still, it seems that paging through a document as if it were a book with fixed pages and always showing the same part of the page would have been obvious.
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I'm pretty sure I've used more than one PDF viewer that does just that.
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Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even. They patented a method for scrolling up/down the same amount regardless of any zoom factor. Not all methods, and certainly not pgup/pgdn.
Which is obvious to somebody skilled in the art.
Is it naive to think that this isn't a purposeful ommission?
Why is it that every patent story on slashdot always obfuscates the fact that patents cover methods of implementation, and not all encompassing ideas?
Because even the patent office hasn't a clue what is the difference between methods and ideas. The entire patent edifice is based on little more than handwaving, though they try to obscure that fact with lots of terminology and assorted other BS.
They can't even objectively answer whether two ideas are the same or different. Nobody can, particularly in something as amorphous and ill-defined as software (e.g. they are forever confusing new words with new ideas), and the fact they fraudulently claim they can means everyone suffers.
---
Every new patent is a new law; another opportunity for a lawyer to make money at the expense of the wider community.
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Not true.
Patent applications are drafted to be as broad as the prior art will allow. Patents claiming "all encompassing ideas" are usually harder to get than narrow ones and at greater risk of later invalidation, but - as Acacia and other trolls are well aware - they are more valuable: http://w2.eff.org/patent/ [eff.org] and software is particularly troubled by them: http://www.researchoninnovation.org/dopatentswork/dopat9.pdf [researchoninnovation.org]
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To gett arround the patentt, just be sligghtly offf. I ussed a simmilar techniqque to gett arround a speling patentt.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't that what Acrobat Reader does? You hit space, and it scrolls you down to the next screen-sized bit of document. Or, you hit pagedown, and it scrolls you exactly one page worth (which takes you to the same place on the next page).
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Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I thought it was a great patent idea (to me it isn't), kdawson got it wrong, again, as many pointed out.
Just to clarify it, again:
beginning at a starting point offset from a top of the document and from a top of the first page; calculating a height of at least the first page; calculating a row offset of the starting point of the first page; calculating a vertical offset at the starting point of the first page, wherein the vertical offset is calculated according to a formula of the form {[(p-1)/c]h}+r, where p is equal to the number of pages in the document, c is equal to the number of columns of the document which are simultaneously displayed, h is equal to the height of at least the first page, and r is equal to the row offset of the starting point of the first page
I can't make out the details, but what they propose seems to be a somewhat more intelligent scrolling. I myself have at times cursed the PgUp/PgDn for straightforwardly scrolling, without considering horizontal scrolling (zoom).
I for one will be grateful if in future I can read an academic paper of 2 columns by zooming in on the first column, and use PgUp/PgDn to navigate up-down on that same column, with useful steps.
A patent for this: God beware!
Next up: (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft patents the process of securing a patent.
Re:Lawsuit time (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, you're using my patented Intellectual Property Recursive Protection system!
The real patent they need... (Score:5, Funny)
... is the three fingers salute. A "standard mechanism allowing end users to terminate faulty operating system processes without having the possibility to save their current work".
Ok it's an easy one.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Fantastic! They could sublicence it to everyone who ever added a power switch to their computers for extra cash, too.
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Fantastic! They could sublicence it to everyone who ever added a power switch to their computers for extra cash, too.
Yeah, I suggest they try to get a piece of the action for every PC sold by a major vendor.
Oh, wait...
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Wow, Gates really can't take a joke. He looked like he was ready to punch Bradley in the face after that comment.
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How about "A method to horrify employees with the realization that their financial future is tied to your company". The "Dance Monkey Boy" video of Steve Balmer's little motivational "speech" should suffice and heaven knows no one's going to have prior art that covers that. If you can't submit the video, get someone to storyboard it. I think it would make a lovely comic. "Wwwoooooooooooooooooooooooo. Developers, developers, developers. WWWWWWWWWWWOooooooooooooooooooooooooo".
Re:The real patent they need... (Score:4, Funny)
Not at all, the BSOD is the method used to lose your work WITHOUT pressing any keys.
The difference here is the BSOD is an automated process for losing your work, where the three-fingered-salute is a manual process for losing your work. Both must exist, because the automated process is sometimes unreliable. When work must be lost NOW and the automated process fails, users have an alternative.
Same result, different method.
This is getting ridiculous... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Other Inventions (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft announces today the patenting of P-En-IS
Gates: "P-En-IS is one of our most stable products yet! in fact at most it'll need a soft reboot now and then"
Ballmer: "Thats right, Buffer overflows are a FEATURE on this one!"
Better them than a troll (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nonetheless, (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can't remember too many actual real examples of microsoft trying to scare anyone with thier patents. What I do remember is every linuxite freaking out about the fact that Microsoft COULD try to scare people if they felt like it someday.
You haven't been paying attention then:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ballmer+novell+linux+patents [google.com]
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What? (Score:5, Funny)
I think the response my father gave when I read the summary to him nicely sums up what we're all thinking: "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Why corporations should not be "a person" (Score:5, Insightful)
They have no guilt, no shame and no conscience. If corporations were people, there's a good chance they'd be just a little bit embarrassed in filing for a patent as obvious and pre-existing as this.
Instead of a corporation being required by law to be beholden to the shareholders interests, let's have that law changed to make corporations beholden to the interests of the people in their community.
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Instead of a corporation being required by law to be beholden to the shareholders interests, let's have that law changed to make corporations beholden to the interests of the people in their community.
Also, let's make it a law that everyone who asks for one gets a pony!
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In this case it is likely just a simple stupidity by M$ management. They are likely paying bonuses for every patent successfully obtained, M$ lawyers are also gaining payment for every patent gained, ballmer the insurance salesmen that he is, is just to dim to differentiate between useful and useless patents and, establish clear guidelines for patent filing.
So just a rush to gain as many patents as possible in some hair brained B$ marketing scheme to pump up M$ stock values. When they start boasting abou
Re:Why corporations should not be "a person" (Score:5, Insightful)
Most large corporations are run by sociopaths. That's why you're seeing this correlation.
Studies have estimated that sociopaths constitute around 3% of the population. There's two kinds of sociopaths: stupid ones, and smart ones.
The stupid ones are usually called "criminals", and are frequently found in prison. They have no conscience and don't care about anyone but themselves, so they naturally turn to crime to get ahead, but aren't smart enough to do it for long without getting caught. (Note that this doesn't mean that all common criminals are sociopaths; many are just screwed-up people, or drug addicts, who have become desperate or made very bad choices, but still feel some remorse for their actions like any normal person.)
Smart sociopaths, however, are the real cancer in our society. Instead of becoming common criminals, they're smart enough to avoid that trap, and instead go to school (probably cheating their way through), and using their uncanny ability to work people, they work their way up into the top echelons of companies like Enron, Worldcom, Microsoft, etc. Others go into politics, and become Senators and Presidents. They're better at getting into these jobs, precisely because they have no conscience holding them back and keeping them from doing unethical things, and that's why so many of these jobs are held by sociopaths.
Another poster commented that there's no law against being a sociopath, but there probably should be, considering the damage they do to society when they're placed in positions of power over the rest of us (especially in the political or legal fields, where we're trusting these people to do the right thing, and they're using us to their own benefit instead).
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mod +5 amen-brother
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That is unquestionably the best post I have read in weeks.
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Oddly enough, there is some research regarding psychopathy and management. While it would certainly be untrue to say "Most large corporations are run by sociopaths", there are examples of CEO's who do tick the boxes for psychopathy.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html [fastcompany.com] is an interesting article covering some of the work by Robert Hare (the bloke who devised the Psychopathy Checklist used by police departments to profile killers).
Disclaimer - I have worked for a company where the CEO is in ja
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"It is the only way..."
No it isn't. And it fails to ask the question "should abc corporation continue to exist?" It is in the best interests of my cells that I continue to exist, but if I were to go around killing other people, corrupting governments, destroying the environment, and generally being a negative on society, I would be in jail or executed. And it isn't the only way... there was a way before this '80s corporate mentality got started in the first place. There was a time when corporations some
DOA (Score:2)
Wait, there's MORE! Was: DOA (Score:2)
Yes, the idea is to establish a classical Trade Guild [wikipedia.org], in the European sense: Only those groups who have been granted the right to practice some art/craft are permitted, those practicing said art/craft are ready, willing and able to limit the number of practitioners, and those practicing without Guild permission are subjected to occasionally very harsh treatment.
In the current situation, it's the corporations large enough to maintain patent portfolios that they use to prevent competition from small provider
But I've copyrighted "Pg Up." Bwahahahaha! (Score:2)
I've copyrighted "Pg Up," "Pg Dn," and every variation thereof. So, Microsoft can program a couple of keys to perform a Page Up and a Page Down, but they can't call the keys that do it "Pg Up" and "Pg Dn" without paying me a royalty.
They'll have to use something else, maybe Ctrl-Q E and Ctrl-Q X.
Bwahahahaha!
Don't believe me? Why do you suppose the key that copies the screen says "Prnt Scr" instead of "Copy Scr?" Because I hold the rights to the "Copy Scr" legend!
Easily overcome (Score:2)
Simply make Pg Up and Pg Dn scroll an "inexact" amount of lines, ie, every 4 billion presses make it scroll 1 extra line in a random direction.
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Why bother to overcome it? I bet you can find applications dating back way before the patent was filed to cover almost every use case you could ever want in your app. This ought to be prior-art'd to death.
Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)
Jeez... why did it take them so long? I've been waiting for 25 years for this! This is a killer feature!
Oh, wait.
So, does this apply to.... (Score:2)
If I rotate a book 90 degrees either direction, and turn the pages, I am pretty much doing the same thing.
It is a very specific amount of movement (one page), regardless of how far I have the book from my face (zoom), and I can go either direction, up, or down.
So, they basically got a patent for doing what people have been doing with books for most of recorded history.
They obviously disallow common sense when it comes to patent applications. I guess someone patented it already.
Acrobat (Score:2)
How long has that been around ?
Those Responsible Must Be Sacked (Score:2)
Primary Examiner: Campbell; Joshua D
This is PATENTLY ridiculous. (Score:2)
WHEN is the PTO going to straighten itself out?
Thats great (Score:2)
The "t" util in Decus C had this... (Score:5, Informative)
...published, with source code, certainly by 1984 and maybe several years earlier.
The t utility did not use PgUp/PgDn keys, had some others since it was for most any crt terminal, but it had and used the concept and was certainly published and possible to date publication. There are funny rules about publication, but this is a well documented bit of code, for almost any machine that could compile C code, given away freely.
The number says it: 7,415,666 (Score:2)
"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."
Software patents....Who cares (Score:2)
Software patents are rapidly becoming irrelevant anyway, due to the sheer number of them. I suspect most patents are files just to ensure access to the solution rather than protection of it.
After all, ideas are cheap but turning it into a profitable business is the hard part.
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Well I know many users who tried Linux and laughed at it when they found out it was so primptive that it didn't support mp3s, clear type fonts, and dvd playing.
I explained it did and I used to do it and got a strange look back. The fact that its been removed and many users such as myself switched back to windows to not have to deal with the inconvenience does show that patents are relevant.
My guess is Microsoft is planning to launch the mother of all assaults on the free software foundation, sun Microsystem
Previous Art (Score:2)
Isn't a page down just an ASCII Char(12) anyway?
Have considered actually reading the patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh. Wait. This is Slashdot.
(The patent is still crap, but it is not an attempt to patent PageUp and PageDown keys.)
Next up for M$: (Score:3, Informative)
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Expect the MS DN key to be worn out extremely quickly on the keyboards of most Slashdotters.
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You owe them your soul.
Re:Didn't read article (Score:5, Informative)
At least read the summary next time. If you had you'd have noticed it's quite clearly not a patent for the keys themselves, but the practice of scrolling a specific amount regardless of the current view settings (eg. zoom). As such your keyboard is irrelevant, a peice of software that implements those keys in the standard way however is absolutely relevant.
To quote the patent text [uspto.gov] itself (emphasis added):
Briefly, the present invention provides a method and system for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as a row height corresponding to a row of one or more pages of a page set, so as to display a next page set from the precise vertical location into the page that the previous page set started, regardless of the current zoom percentage. For example, if the middle of a page set is at the top of the viewing area, after scrolling, the middle of the next page set is at the top of the viewing area. This operation occurs on receiving specific user input, e.g., a Page Up or Page Down key command.
Notice that the use of the Page Down/Up keys is an example of input that would be used in concert with the patent, so it's crystal clear that they're not trying to patent the keys themselves.
Not that what they're patenting is any less ridiculous, but let's at least get straight what ridiculous thing we're talking about.
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Keep in mind that the scope of what's patented is contained entirely within the claims of the patent, not in the rest of the specification. (Although, anything in the specification, once published, can be considered "prior art" over future applications.)
In this case, the independent claims get extremely specific, including an indication of the particular formula being used to calculate the amount to scroll. Compare this to the claims as originally filed [uspto.gov].*
(* If that link expires, the application publicatio