Midway through 2010 the recovery in the corporate governance recruitment market that was evident at the start of the year is now firmly established. As recruitment consultants we have been genuinely surprised at the strength of the recovery. The recovery is focused on the financial sector and is a result of both renewed growth in the sector and greater regulatory oversight. Investment in corporate governance has clearly become a priority.Microsoft patent of the day
Submitted by Kai on Mon, 2008-09-01 06:32.
On August 19, 2008, Microsoft was granted a US-Patent:
Dave Lewis claims this means that Page-up and Page-down is hereby patents owned by Microsoft. I think Microsoft now also have patented using arrows to navigate - if you use your arrow-up or arrow-down in MS Word, you are taken one line up or down - or you are "scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document...".
The same happens using the elevator shafts - moving left/right, or up/down. It may also apply to the shortcuts to jump forward/backward to pages, columns, tables and images.
I agree with Dave that the US Patent system is long overdue for a revision. If it continues like this, anyone with a bit of cash and a way with text can claim patents for anything and everything.
What does this mean to your business? You may risk that someone shows up one day and ask you to pay a license fee for using things you take for granted - like your keyboard. But the most likely scenario is for someone to take your technology - the technology you have spent time, money and effort on developing - and register a patent on it. Using that patent, they own the rights to the technology you developed, and they will cash in on it.
How can you avoid this scenario?
Be sure to register your patents as you go. Spend the money - as it is the only way to ensure that no-one else does it. To SME's the cost of patents may seem high, but consider it an investment - if you fail to register, the whole value of your development is gone (since if your technology have any chances for making money, someone will register it as a patent, and you will pay them to use your own technology...).
What are your experiences with patents?
Sources:
ZDNET
Liquidmatrix (Dave Lewis)
"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”.
Dave Lewis claims this means that Page-up and Page-down is hereby patents owned by Microsoft. I think Microsoft now also have patented using arrows to navigate - if you use your arrow-up or arrow-down in MS Word, you are taken one line up or down - or you are "scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document...".
The same happens using the elevator shafts - moving left/right, or up/down. It may also apply to the shortcuts to jump forward/backward to pages, columns, tables and images.
I agree with Dave that the US Patent system is long overdue for a revision. If it continues like this, anyone with a bit of cash and a way with text can claim patents for anything and everything.
What does this mean to your business? You may risk that someone shows up one day and ask you to pay a license fee for using things you take for granted - like your keyboard. But the most likely scenario is for someone to take your technology - the technology you have spent time, money and effort on developing - and register a patent on it. Using that patent, they own the rights to the technology you developed, and they will cash in on it.
How can you avoid this scenario?
Be sure to register your patents as you go. Spend the money - as it is the only way to ensure that no-one else does it. To SME's the cost of patents may seem high, but consider it an investment - if you fail to register, the whole value of your development is gone (since if your technology have any chances for making money, someone will register it as a patent, and you will pay them to use your own technology...).
What are your experiences with patents?
Sources:
ZDNET
Liquidmatrix (Dave Lewis)
I saw
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