If patenting the obvious is considered something of an art form in the world of IT, then Microsoft is undoubtedly an old master. The Page Up Page Down patent it has been granted would seem to confirm this...
US Patent 7,415,666 goes under the snappy title of: "Method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments" and is the latest to be granted to that serial patent application junkie better known as Microsoft.
Anyone who has ever looked at technology patents will know that there is a trick to quickly scanning these application titles in order to weed out the genuine ones from those that are, to be fair, just attempting to patent something that already exists.
So what could a method of navigating paginated content, or stuff on the page, using page-based increments possibly refer to? Ding! Of course, the PgUp and PgDn keys.
Look at the abstract description on that patent and you will see that what Microsoft has cleverly managed to grab ownership of is:
"A method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed."
Which sounds remarkably like using the Page Up and Page Down keys. Let's read on:
"In one implementation, pressing a Page Down or Page Up keyboard key/button allows a user to begin at any starting vertical location within a page, and navigate to that same location on the next or previous page."
OK, that pretty much seals the deal does it not? Microsoft chanced its arm and got lucky. Another patent official without the first hint of understanding about technology gets busy with the big 'approved' rubber stamp and says OK.
Surely Microsoft has not really just patented the act of using Page Up and Page Down keys to navigate through content? What does this mean in the long term for technology innovators? What other ideas and concepts has Microsoft tried to patent?
