Microsoft might not really have the patent on Zeroes and Ones, but it does appear to have (gag) obtained a patent on double-clicking.
Well, not quite, but the abstract for the actual patent is still appallingly broad.
A method and system are provided for extending the functionality of application buttons on a limited resource computing device. Alternative application functions are launched based on the length of time an application button is pressed. A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time. An alternative function of the application is launched if the button is pressed for a long, (e.g., at least one second), period of time. Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click.
So if you want to invent a device or computer interface where different functions occur when you press a button once, hold it down for a while, or press it down quickly twice, then you’re in violation of Micro$oft’s patent.
Yeesh.
Yet another thing either XEROX or Steve Jobs should have nailed while they had the chance.
I would think this patent should have been disallowed by “prior art” simply because double-clicking was in use before Microsoft patented it. Microsoft probably learned about it from Macintosh, so it seems to be pretty arrogant to try to patent it. Note that in addition to double-click, the text cited above would also appear to patent dragging with the mouse.
I used to work for Xerox. They used double-click long before 1984 when I went to work there, so it should be a slam-dunk case of prior art. When editing text in many of their word processors, double-clicking selected words rather than moving the insertion point. In a special Lisp code-editing application I used a lot, I seem to recall that single-clicking selected atoms and double-clicking selected list structures. In many cases where it might have been useful, applications didn’t use double-click because they always had a menu visible on the screen. I think this was particularly the case in early SmallTalk systems, and I think it was an result of the fact that popup menus were prety new at the time, and they often weren’t used. Another reason Xerox tended not to use double-click was the fact that they had three-button mice. In the Lisp systems, the left button often selected things and the right button popped up a menu with which one acted on the thing that was selected. I think the middle button usually popped up a system menu. I didn’t use their Star office-automation system very much, so I can’t remember how it worked but since it was all derived from work done at Xerox PARC, just down the hall from where the SmallTalk and InterLisp people worked, I would be surprised if it didn’t have double-click and drag built in. Whether or not Star used those techniques, two commercial products did: SmallTalk and Interlisp-D.