Microsoft Patents iPhone Interface

Everyone who knows anything about Microsoft and Apple knows that the former takes every chance they can to copy the ideas, innovation, and intellectual property of the latter. Well, as if that coffee table wasn't enough, Microsoft has decided to take it one step further and patent the iPhone's interface.

The patent, filed July 2007, is titled "Extensible filtered lists for mobile device user interface". It discusses how mobile phones today are so full of features that they have become complicated, making them hard to use. A problem they say is “exacerbated by the generally limited user interfaces” on modern phones.

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The document includes several visual representations of the proposed interface. It's unmistakably a blatant rip-off on the iPhone and how it handles images, music albums, visual voicemail, and just about everything else that Apple thought of to put in there. Their display for pictures is nearly exactly the same as the iPhone's distinctive coverflow.

The speculation of a possible Zune phone was short lived, so it is unlikely that they will be making a competitor in that line. One theory is that Microsoft is planning to use them for a future revision of their Windows Mobile OS. The theory I find much more likely is that Microsoft is attempting to limit Apple's ability to make patents in the future, and has resorted to getting as many iPhone-like patents as possible.

[via The Unwired]