These are the list of frivolous, prior art ridden patents Microsoft used to try and extort money from Barnes and Noble. When the trial was about to go to court a magical partnership was established between Microsoft and Barnes & Noble and the lawsuit was dropped. It's a pity more companies don't stand up to these patent trolls.
Microsoft vs.Barnes and Noble
5778372
6339780
5889522
6891551
6957233
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5778372.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6339780.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5889522.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6891551.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6957233.html
U.S. Patent No. 5778372 Remote retrieval and display management of electronic document with incorporated images. A browser remotely retrieves electronic documents from a remote computer network for viewing by a user. For enhancing responsiveness, the browser initially displays an electronic document without a background image so that the electronic document is initially displayed more quickly. The browser also prioritizes downloading of embedded images of the document by their incorporation in the currently visible portion of the electronic document. Further, the browser dynamically creates additional connections for retrieving resources incorporated into the electronic document from the remote computer network.
U.S. Patent No. 6339780 Loading status in a hypermedia browser having a limited available display area. Described herein is a portable computer having a limited display area. An Internet or other hypermedia browser executes on the portable computer to load and display content in a content viewing area. During times when the browser is loading content, the browser displays a temporary, animated graphic element over the content viewing area. The graphic element is removed after the content is loaded, allowing unobstructed viewing of the loaded content.
U.S. Patent No. 5889522 System Provided Child Window Controls. New varieties of child window controls are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit. The preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a dynamic link library (DLL) for implementing the new child window controls as part of an operating system. The new child window controls include a header bar control for providing header bars in application programs. The new controls also include a hot key control that allows a user to view and edit hot key combinations. The new controls further include a tab control for establishing tabs that differentiate amongst pages in user interfaces provided by application programs. An image list data type is defined and functions are provided for manipulating the image list data type. Image lists include multiple like-sized images that are stored efficiently in a single bitmap.
U.S. Patent No. 6891551 Selection Handles in Editing Electronic Documents. A computer system and method for highlighting and selecting elements of electronic documents is disclosed. In one embodiment, a selection area identifies an initial selection of data, and one or more selection handles appear on the selection area to allow dynamic resizing of the selection area to select a larger or smaller portion of data or number of items.
U.S. Patent No. 6957233 Method and Apparatus for Capturing and Rendering Annotations for Non-Modifiable Electronic Content. A system and method for capturing annotations for a non-modifiable document is disclosed. Once it is determined that an annotation is to be created, the system determines the file position of the selected object. The file position of the selected object is stored along with the created annotation in another file or a non-read only portion of a file storing the document. Using the file position, the annotation may be properly identified with the selected object without modifying the non-modifiable document.