Forever engraved in Microsoft US patent D560,487

Found this slightly amusing. In a patent awarded to Microsoft on 29 January 2008 for their Windows Vista and Office 2007 media packaging design includes a reference to no other than this very blog! The suspect in question is this post I had written in 2006 when I was speculating on the packaging design for Windows Vista after finding some interesting patent applications. Fortunately everything turned out to be true, and I guess Microsoft finally got the patent. My friend Robert McLaws always gets an honorable mention. Here’s to 14 years of fame.

US patent D560,487

23 insightful thoughts

  1. You are like the Benjamin Gates from Treasure Hunters. The only difference is he find things from the past and you reveal the secret of the future.
    Anyways well done and keep working on like this projects.

  2. Congratulations, Long Zheng. The Vista, Office 07,Visual Studio 2008 and all those other products using the same type of packaging really look nice…. no, not that word, pleasant, no……atractive,no……delightful,no……lovely,no……magnificent :;. Yeah, thats the right word 🙂

  3. Patent for packaging? Hmm.

    I think the future is in downloading most software, including the OS, through the Internet. Microsoft should be working on that, then some silly packaging design. And all that plastic isn’t very eco-friendly. Microsoft does allow you to download Office, and maybe even Vista I think, but I heard it was cumbersome to find and download through.

    These days, it’s just downloading.

  4. what’s a patent? can someone explain it to me? Do not use deep words. please. Thank YOU!

  5. @questiona:
    A patent is a government document that specifies who can manufacture a particular product. As it is now, this patent states that only Microsoft can package their software in that type of packing for the next 14 years. I’m not sure about the time, I’m guessing from Long’s message.
    @quikboy:
    Not everyone has access to the Internet, and some people just don’t like buying software online. Besides, have you visited windows marketplace recently? You can download almost all of Microsoft’s software there.

  6. What an honour 🙂 , i suppose this now means you are officially going down in MS history, there is one tie however you can’t change the site name 😀

  7. Surely it’s cool, but I fail to understand why exactly MS would include in their patent a “speculation post” published on a website not affiliated with MS? Can someone explain this to me, please? Thanks

  8. @David Taraso : Tell me, do you often recycle plastic a lot? Would you with a shiny Vista case? Even if you do, I doubt most Americans, or anyone else usually bothers recycling plastic of any kind. And the fact that it’s made by fossil fuels, made in foreign countries to be transported here, and other things, that doesn’t really seem eco-friendly, does it?

    @Chustar: Most people these days use a computer for the sole purpose of just going onto the internet. Most average users that is. Unless you just couldn’t afford it, but then you wouldn’t really use the computer a lot anyways.

Comments are closed.