Several patents. Part 2. Microsoft

We violate many patents of the global industry without even realizing it. For example, a patent for picture rollovers (images that change when you hover the mouse over them) from which there is a hyperlink (No. 5,251,294).
Hewlett Packard, Hallmark Cards, Nokia, PepsiCo, Samsung Electronics, Apple, Google and many others (136 companies in total) already deduct about 80 thousand dollars for them.

I have already talked about interesting Apple patents .
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It's Microsoft time.

Patent 5,778,372: Remote acquisition and control of the display of an electronic document containing images;
HTML pages fall under this.

Patent 6,339,780: Displaying the status of downloading an HTTP document in a web browser, with limited screen space;

Patent 5,889,522: System User Interface Controls;

Patent 6,891,551: Controls for selected areas when editing documents (typical for graphic editors are “handles” with which you can move, rotate, resize / shape the selected area);

Patent 6,957,233: Method and tools for capturing and displaying annotations for the content of electronic documents that are not subject to editing.

A patent that provides for a system in which a user’s account is automatically closed, and all his data is deleted if he has not accepted the new rules for using this or that service.

“Fast booting a computing device into a specialized environment” (Fast booting a computing device to a specialized experience) describes the boot process in which a general-purpose operating system (Windows) and several specialized operating systems participate. It is implied that specialized, that is, truncated operating systems will be loaded much faster, providing the opportunity to work with the device in the "home appliances" mode, for example, to consume audio-visual content.

Microsoft owns patents on the synchronization of e-mail messages, calendar entries and contacts.

Microsoft has patented an improved mechanism that will make the operating system shutdown procedure more predictable and insure against the loss of unsaved data.
If you select the “Finish” option, the list of active programs that cannot be automatically closed is displayed. The user can independently decide the fate of applications and data, including canceling the shutdown command or choosing to close the application without saving the data.
The corresponding patent was issued to Microsoft on August 31, 2010, exactly five years after the application was submitted.

Microsoft also owns a patent application number 7617530, which describes a method for running commands with administrator rights.

Microsoft has applied (not yet approved) how to select pixels for creating smiles, assigning a sequence of characters to these pixels and playing the emoticons themselves. In addition to the smiley ":-(", which is owned by Despair.
By the way, in 2001, Despair issued a press release stating that the company is filing a lawsuit against seven million Internet users who use the ":-(" emoticon and thereby violate the rights of Despair.com. The company demanded compensation for damage from each After that, the Despair initiative turned out to be just a joke. A month later, she published a second press release, which noted that “Despair will be happy to sell the rights to the smiley ':-(' to everyone, rather than use first in the form of ':-(' ® ».

A patent on the method of dividing text lines into characters for further linguistic processing.

Also, in a recently announced patent application, ordinary PCs are sold with a substantial discount, which should later be covered by the profit obtained from the services specified in the contract, where, by the way, the period of PC operation is indicated.

A patent that allows you to buy and download additional content directly from the game, without leaving the dashboard. If you explain in more detail, for example, you play with a friend, but it turns out that you do not have a card on which you are going to start the game. A pop-up message will immediately appear prompting you to download this map. If you agree, then immediately pay and download the card, without leaving the gaming lobby.

Microsoft corporations own patents on two standards that still exist in the form of drafts: draft-ietf-marid-core-03 (Sender ID itself) and draft-ietf-marid-pra-00 (PRA algorithm for authenticating letters developed by Microsoft and underlying sender id).

Microsoft also has 235 patents for many standard interface elements that are found in:
Linux kernel - 42 patents;
elements of graphical user interfaces (menus, toolbars) - 65 patents;
OpenOffice.org package - 45 patents;
mail clients - 15 patents;
other open source programs - 68 patents ...

In the patent number 7415666, the invention is described as follows: “a method or system in a program for viewing documents, which makes it possible to scroll through part of a document, for example, one page, regardless of the size of the pages”. In short, these are the Page Up and Page Down buttons.

Also in 2004, Microsoft patented the familiar “mouse” wheel for scrolling. The patent text indicated that the wheel can be used not only in mice, but also in keyboards, trackballs, as well as other computer input devices. In addition, in the same year, the giant company received another pretty comedic patent - on the "button to launch applications."

A little less than a year ago, the corporation filed an application for a patent for "reading thoughts."

I will add that Microsoft owns more than 10 thousand patents.