Hilarity of the day:
Microsoft gains double-clicking patent

Microsoft has successfully patented using short, long or double clicks to launch different applications on "limited resource computing devices" - presumably PDAs and mobile phones. The US patent was granted on 27 April.

Now any US company using a variety of clicks to launch different software functions from the same button will have to change their product, pay licensing fees to Microsoft or give Microsoft access to its intellectual property in return.

British company Symbian, which makes operating systems for mobile phones that employ double clicks and has offices in the US could be affected, as could PalmOne in California, which supplies PDA software.

Several activists who oppose software patents say that Microsoft's patent is not a "sensible use" of the patenting system because the idea of the long, short and double clicks is neither novel or non-obvious.

Both the US and the UK use these criteria to decide whether or not to grant patents. "It is almost beyond parody that Microsoft has been able to do this," says Ian Brown of the Foundation for Information Policy Research in London, UK.
The New Scientist