It combined a known, existing event (scrolling), with a known, existing action (refreshing). It would be akin to be patenting the ability to right click, hold that right click, and then have a different menu appear.
So, what you do is take all know actions, and all known events, and put them on a big table so you can cross reference them. See which ones you like, and there you go!
In fact, that's so ingenious, (a mechanism to develop knew UI concepts), I could probably patent it under our own system!
Have you read Charles Stross' Accelerando? The main character holds the patent for "using genetic algorithms to patent everything they can permutate from an initial description of a problem domain". I really, really hope it counts as Clarkeian prior art.
The book is here: www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html
So, what you do is take all know actions, and all known events, and put them on a big table so you can cross reference them. See which ones you like, and there you go!
In fact, that's so ingenious, (a mechanism to develop knew UI concepts), I could probably patent it under our own system!