Okay, people, it's official: this whole "patent" thing has just gotten way out of hand-- and we're not talking about Apple, either. Sure, we know that there are some people who think Apple's recent patents and applications have gone a little overboard, like the iPod's interface ("Oooooo," you say, "hierarchical menus") and pentagonal buttons ("Genius!"), but give Apple a little credit; at least it didn't try to patent something as ridiculous as the double-click. Microsoft did.

No, honestly, it did! Sort of, at least; faithful viewer Peter Lalor forwarded us a Sydney Morning Herald article (which now seems to have vanished) about U.S. patent 6,727,830, which was awarded a little over a month ago and covers a "time based hardware button for application launch" on a "limited resource computing device" (which is, technically speaking, any computing device, unless you know of one with infinite RAM). The idea is that the same hardware button can be used to perform different functions depending on whether you press it once quickly, once for a longer period of time, or "multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click."

Now, if you actually read the patent, it's pretty clear Microsoft is talking about those physical application buttons like the ones on a Palm PDA with the little notepad, calendar, etc. icons on them, and not double-clicks on a mouse-- which is probably why the alarmist Herald article has since disappeared. But really, if you read closely and apply just a little bit of wiggle room (less than the courts often allow, frankly), you might decide that this patent really could cover a standard double-click as well; after all, a mouse button is a "hardware button," it can be used for "application launch," and the patent specifically states that it "relates generally to computer systems," not just to PDAs.

Then again, it's not too likely we have to worry about Microsoft actually suing anyone for patent infringement because of a double mouse click, since it'd have a doozy of a time pulling it off; all a defendant would need to do is establish "prior art" by proving that the double-click had already been invented by the time Microsoft claims to have come up with it. Double-clicks have been in use on Apple systems since at the latest, what, early 1983 or so, and Windows 1.0 didn't start polluting the groundwater until late 1985. And we can't say for sure about the mouse-driven, GUI-based Xerox PARC systems from the early '70s that inspired the Lisa/Mac projects, but we have to assume that double-clicks existed on those as well. So don't freak out or anything, unless you really, really want to.

Now that we think about it, actually, we're wondering just when Microsoft thinks it invented the time-sensitive button press specifically for PDAs. (By the way, does anyone else think it's totally frickin' moronic that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office doesn't require inventors to state a date of invention on patent applications, so people contesting on the basis of prior art just have to sue and cross their fingers? Talk about keeping lawyers in Beemers 'n' bling-bling). Palm devices predate Window CE ones, and we know that at least some early Palm devices let you press the Phone button to bring up the contact list, or press and hold it to start beaming your own contact record to another Palm. And if you're not limiting prior art to PDAs but to all "limited resource computing devices," we have a digital alarm clock from forever ago on which pressing and holding the minutes button advances the minutes by quarter-hour increments. So actually, the whole patent is probably rubbish in any context.

On the plus side, though, at least Microsoft isn't suing Apple to force it to license the double-click; if that were happening, all sorts of crazy stuff would be fair game. Why, some crazy German who patented a "stereobelt" in the '70s would probably be suing Apple because he considers the iPod an infringement! Ha! Wouldn't that be wacky?

Wait... he's considering it? Holy cats, faithful viewer Small Paul slipped us an article from The Independent that says this "stereobelt" guy just collected a settlement from Sony for the Walkman and is now "threatening to use his payout to sue Apple Computer, whose iPod portable music player is the digital successor to the Walkman." Sigh. Maybe we should all just go back to sticks, rocks, and twine...