Kevin Wampler wrote:
> AFAIK Tufte invented sparklines, but I haven't seen them used in 
> spreadsheet software before, so maybe Microsoft is claiming that it's 
> the way they've integrated them into a spreadsheet that's new?

Could be, could be. And it's only an application, after all.

> In any case, I don't think it's worth worrying too much about these 
> specific patents except as symptoms of a broken software patent system. 

The whole patent system is broken. We just hear about the software patents 
more. :-)

> and developers are actively *discouraged* from 
> trying to determine if someone else has invented it before (since 
> there's apparently larger fee for infringing on a previous patent in 
> that case).

You're supposed to report all prior art you're aware of. There's no 
requirement for you to report prior art you're not aware of. There's no fee 
for filing a patent that can't be issued on the basis of prior art in 
another patent, so there's no infringement possible. IANAL.

> I've heard that the reason for this is because, since software patents 
> are sort of broken, 

They're broken in the sense that they're descriptions of formal systems that 
can be mapped arbitrarily to other formal systems. I might patent something 
that says "The user enters a password, and the computer grants access to the 
data", and then later argue that "enters" should be equivalent to "swipes" 
and "password" should be equivalent to "credit card number" and "data" 
should be equivalent to "bank account balance", and suddenly I'm suing a 
credit card terminal company over my clever password scheme.

*That* is what's broken about software patents.

The rest are broken because they're either obvious-to-people or 
non-enabling, yet they pass anyway.

> So it's not necessarily the case the 
> MS even intends to enforce these patents, but rather they're just part 
> of this "patent everything" process.

Generally, yes. Or people will patent things in order to get the patent 
office to do a patent search.  You decide to do X, but you don't want to get 
sued in 5 years when X is successful and someone has a patent on X, so you 
patent it yourself. If the patent clears, you're good to go.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
     Then he is not omnipotent.
   Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
     Then he is malevolent.

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