united-states patents
Does the vimium Chrome extension infringe on this patent?
<p>So I saw this really cool google plugin called vimium, it allows users to press a mod key (&quot;f&quot;) and then easily access any hyperlinks that are present on the current page by providing visible shortcuts (e.g., &quot;A&quot;) as tooltips on the hyperlinks, and on pressing these shortcuts (e.g., &quot;A&quot;) you can go to the hyperlink associated with &quot;A&quot;. Microsoft has a similar feature in excel and word. And on researching a bit I found this <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/CN101228500A/en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">patent</a>.</p>
<p>Is what vimium is doing illegal? Can an idea like this even be patented? It's not a core technology, they are just trying to show shortcuts in a box. Can someone please explain what this link says, as I'm not sure if this idea is actually patented or just filed for a patent.</p>

<p>A few things here.</p>
<ol>
<li>The patent to you link is actually just the Chinese filing of an original US patent by microsoft <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US7661074B2/en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://patents.google.com/patent/US7661074B2/en</a></li>
<li>Both the US and the Chinese version have been granted in 2010 and they are currently active. So yes, it's a real patent.</li>
<li>The patent appears to be somewhat &quot;weak&quot;, it took 5 years to be granted in the US and it was withdrawn in Europe.</li>
</ol>
<p>Whether Vimium violates this patent or not would require a very detailed analysis of all the claims of the patent against what Vimium is actually doing. That's a lot of work. In addition, the assessment will require a fair bit of &quot;interpretation&quot;. Patent language is notoriously vague to make the applicability of the claims as broad as possible. That's often their downfall too: when being litigated patents can be invalidated because they are too fluffy or accidentally cover prior art.</p>
<p>If push comes to shove: only a court can decide whether Vimium violates this patent or not. Both sides would bring their arguments and interpretations and the court will weigh those arguments and provide a ruling.</p>
