Kudos to Microsoft for pushing the envelop and highlighting the absurdity of these types of patents. Of course it is all self-interest since they have to be concerned that they are infringing on the copyrights from Office Space (printers) and the Sopranos (people), "whacking" indeed. And might I remind everyone that patents last only 20 years, while copyrights on new material are well on the way to lasting forever.

My favorite John Brunner book is The Crucible of Time, I also like Poul Anderson's Tau Zero. And they aren't exactly forgotten as at least one is a Hugo winner but no one has listed them yet: Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. :::_Possible Spoiler Alert_::: If you like the moment at the end of Robert Sawyer's Flash Forward (Book not the series) when the narrator sees himself unimaginably far in the future, the first two are for you.