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Mobile phonesMobile phonesPosted May 20, 2004 22:14 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753)Parent article: Stupid patent tricks The description in the article immediately made me think of mobile phones and Microsoft's ambitions (not yet too succesful) to become a big player in mobile phone software. These are limited size devices compared to PCs, so getting many functions under one button is implemented in some way in all of them. I think this is the actual field of application where MS might try to assert the patent, not ordinary PC software. I also think it likely that some phone model or other would contain prior art for this rather obvious idea.
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Mobile phones Posted Jun 1, 2004 16:14 UTC (Tue) by penfold (guest, #21150) [Link] I remember, years ago, seeing a show about some "geek toys" for lack of a better term.IIRC, there was someone from berkley or the like, using a handheld device that a attached to a display in his glasses. They couldn't exactly show the device in action, but they did show him operating it to write notes, messages, etc. with about 6 buttons. The image in my head is him sitting on a park bench or under a campus tree just clicking away. To my knowledge, this was back in the late 80s when text messaging on cellphones wasn't even on the horzion. This patent does sound to me like something they would target for PDAs in general and cellphones in particular. While I have no idea if this device is an example of prior art for this patent, it seems like it might be an excellent place to look.
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