A patent for which Microsoft applied on March 6, 1997, has been granted: "Discoverability and navigation of hyperlinks via tabs." In other words, when a computer user uses the Tab key to move the focus from one hyperlink to another on a webpage opened in a browser, the use of that function is now owned by Microsoft.
The Tab patent, number 6,785,865, was granted on August 31st, just one among multiple patents granted to the software giant on that day. Another interesting grant is number 6,784,354, with an application date of March 13, 2003: "Generating a music snippet." Yes, you read that right. Now dividing a music stream into portions is Microsoft's domain.
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