Silly Software Patent #22: Command Line Macros

Perhaps the PTO doesn't have a copy of the PASCAL program I wrote at Computer Camp when I was 12, because they are currently entertaining Microsoft's latest patent application, Method and system for processing input from a command line interface.

The claims are almost laughable. Check out the first four:

1. A method for processing input from a command line interface, wherein the input comprises a macro, the method comprising: replacing the macro with a command; and, executing the command.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising prompting a user to identify the command that is to replace the macro, wherein the replacing step further comprises replacing the macro with the entered command.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: prompting a user to identify a function that is to be used to generate a command to replace the macro; and calling the identified function to generate the command, wherein the replacing step further comprises replacing the macro with the generated command.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising calling a script engine to generate script to replace the macro.

Call me crazy, but command line macros have been around for years, haven't they? (FYI -- the patent application claims April 20, 2001 as its date of invention).

Comments

[Justin]

If you ask me, it's pretty clear that

(a) MS engineers are being told to patent *anything they can think of*

(b) MS patent lawyers are being told not to worry about prior art searches

This is one of those most laughably outdated patent applications I've ever heard. By April 20, 2001, I'd been using that functionality for 12 years -- and I'm a youngster by comparison to some UNIX users I know!

[Trevor Hill]

Yeah, although maybe the form is a bit different, what they are talking about is equivalent to the 'backquote' functionality in bash, or equivalents in other unix shells, where you can do something like:

ls `myscript`

and it will execute myscript, get the output, and replace the backquoted parameter with that output.

HAHAHAHAHA Microsoft is a joke! The next time they will try to patent the mouse, keyboard and printers as their inventions... hahaha