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Reasonable in the eyes of patent law != reasonable to an ordinary engineerReasonable in the eyes of patent law != reasonable to an ordinary engineerPosted Jul 25, 2005 18:07 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421)In reply to: Microsoft Patents Emoticon (Groklaw) by madscientist Parent article: Microsoft Patents Emoticon (Groklaw)
The problem is that the patent may well be granted, if the specific process of assigning a shortcut string to an image that is sent over an instant-messaging system does not have any prior art that matches those particulars precisely. I agree that it is not reasonable that people can patent things like this, but it may be perfectly "reasonable" in the eyes of current US patent law. (My understanding is that it's extremely difficult for a patent examiner to reject something on the grounds of obviousness, without absurdly close prior art. IANAL, though.)
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