Microsoft Patents Group Taskbar Buttons
from the patent-everything dept
theodp writes "What do you call it when three IE buttons on the Windows Taskbar disappear and are replaced with a single 'group' IE button when you open a fourth IE window? Annoying? Nope. The correct answer is U.S. patent no. 6,756,999, granted to Microsoft Tuesday for a Method and system for clustering and grouping taskbar buttons." Indeed, this is one of the very first things that I make sure to turn off on any Windows box that I end up using.
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does gnome infringe?
I don't know enough about patents to tell if something like the gnome tasklist infringes, but I did notice that the gnome taskbar grouping was added to the documentation a couple of days before MS filed this application: CVS entry
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Prior art detected!
Yay! I love the USPTO
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prior art
KDE has had this function for a while now.
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No Subject Given
BeOS had it at least 5 or 6 years ago.
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Re: No Subject Given
Yeah, leave it to Microsoft to patent something innovated by a competitor years earlier.
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