[OT] Software patents for the obvious (and not so obvious)

[Bill Campbell]

On Tue, Sep 07, 2004, Klaus-Peter Schrage wrote:
>... navigating among hyperlinks via tab key:
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,785,865.WKU.&OS=PN/6,785,865&RS=PN/6,785,865
>
>Not so ridiculous and more annoying is Microsoft's attempt to patent and 
>lycence "Sender ID", proposed to the IETF as an anti-spam security 
>standard, see eg.

It appears that fetchmail has been using similar techniques for
the last 8 years or so.  Of course this may not mean anything to
the U.S. patent office who allow patents on things like holding a
button down for extended periods of time.

Bill
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