On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 17:27:38 +1200, Russell McMahon
wrote:

> Microsoft granted patent on button click timing.

I wonder what Xerox and Apple will have to say about
this?  Mice have *always* had different functions
depending on the timing/cadence of a clicks - Macs would
be unusable without this.

This wouldn't have got past the girl on reception at the
UK patent office - and I suspect in most of the rest of
the World too.  You cannot patent an idea (or software,
or genes, or business processes, or a number of other
things) in the UK, only an object.  I think this is true
of the rest of Europe, too.

I wonder why the US has gone so far from the original
principles of patents?

Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England

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