Let me try a post in true ! ! style Microsoft has been granted a patent on double clicking! Imagine the royalties! Even .00001 cent per double click will be a fortune! Why didn't I think of that
One shouldn't worry too much about this. One company also supposedly owns the patent on "Hyperlinks". You don't hear too much about that. Microsoft would get so much bad publicity, they will never do anything about it (unless they start going under like SCO).
I noticed that it relates to a "hardware" button as against software dcs here - do you think that is different?
What exactly does this patent allow them? How did they go about attaining a patent of something that physically happens outside of anything related to MS? Or is it simply the double clicks on MS products they patented?
The patent appears to pertain to special "launch-application" buttons appearing on hand-held computers too small for conventional input. It looks as if they have simply extended the mouse/trackball double-click concept to those specialized launch buttons. Speaking as a nonexpert, this looks like a nuisance patent, in the sense that it puts a roadblock up that probably could not be defended if attacked with vigor, as the patent--again, to a nonexpert--seems wildly unlikely to be above challenge on the grounds of failing the nonobviousness and "prior art" tests.
For what I understand of the patent, I think it's the technology developed by M$ that identifies dfferent clicking behaviour and acts differently accordingly. I.e click once and still happens (select), click twice quicly and it will open, etc. etc. So it's not so much the action of double clicking but more the reaction. And the double click seems only to be a part of it. But like ThinkBling says, like the people who patented hyperlinks, I can't see it going anywhere useful for M$. It keeps surprising me though the patents they request and the silly lawsuits over it. If only they invested that time, energy and money in creating bug free applications, there would be a lot less people hating them so much.