MS Patents Paying Bills, IM Invisibility

Found on Techdirt on Tuesday, 04 January 2005
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"Apparently Microsoft's resolved to leave no stone unpatented, starting out the New Year with patents for Paying Bills ('the consumer is in direct control of the amount to be paid and the payment date') and IM Invisibility ('users may not ever even know that they are viewing inaccurate presence information'). Coincidentally, IM invisibility was the subject of a quip made by MS blogger Robert Scoble a day before the patent was issued." The paying bills patent is a little more involved -- as it's more about " managing" how you pay your bills to avoid overdraft problems. Not sure that's really patentable, but it's not just for paying bills. The IM one is amusing, and you can bet Yahoo will have something to say about that, considering they already have selective IM invisibility enabled on their client (which is also the answer to Scoble's question).

I never thought so, but it looks like patents can get funnier and weirder every day. MS can now happily sue the world for violating their payment patent; and most chatters for using insibility (something eg. ICQ offers since ages). The US Patent Office could be reduced to one person who stamps an "granted" onto every request (without reading it of course).