Microsoft checks off patent win
Found on News.com on Tuesday, 08 June 2004
U.S. Patent No. 6,748,582, granted and assigned Tuesday to Microsoft, covers the use of a "task list" in a software development environment.
The patented technology essentially integrates certain comments left in the source code of an application under development with an accompanying checklist. Leave a "TODO" comment in the source code, and an authoring application automatically creates an item in the task list. Check an item off on the task list, and the corresponding source code comment is changed.
While the new patent is specific enough to software development that vacationers penning "what to pack" lists don't have to worry, it fits with Microsoft's ongoing efforts to enlarge its patent portfolio.
After all those ridiculous patents, the patent office still doesn't think. The whole process needs to be changed drastically; several people simply hold patents to sue users years later.