Posted on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 14:56 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
DailyTech
noticed Apple was granted two new patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); one patent covers making a scrolling icon disappear, while the other one covers "displaying electronic lists and documents" on multi-touch smartphones.
This week inspectors at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted Apple two new patents that push the bounds of reason and represent, once again, the vast disconnect between the nation's intellectual property office and any sort of technical competence.
The first patent covers making an on-screen graphical element, disappear, more or less. Brand new U.S. Patent No. 8,223,134 claims invention of using "a predetermined condition" to determine when "display of a vertical bar is ceased".
Even in a narrow context, it is somewhat baffling how making a graphic disappear when some program conditions are met is patentable.
