Microsoft was awarded a patent this week for a “system and process for allowing a user to treat e-mail addresses as objects” — a patent called “obvious and trivial” by one critic of the filing. “The technique of applying object properties and methods to various data fields in a software product has been standard practice for several decades,” software developer Richard S. Tallent said. “Doing so with an e-mail address is no different than doing so with a file, a Web address, a misspelled word, or any other common data.”
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Award of E-Mail-Related Patent to Microsoft Questioned
Posted by: John P. Mello Jr. May 20, 2005 10:01 AMMicrosoft was awarded a patent this week for a “system and process for allowing a user to treat e-mail addresses as objects” — a patent called “obvious and trivial” by one critic of the filing. “The technique of applying object properties and methods to various data fields in a software product has been standard practice for several decades,” software developer Richard S. Tallent said. “Doing so with an e-mail address is no different than doing so with a file, a Web address, a misspelled word, or any other common data.”