Did 16x16 (and then 32x32, and etc etc) icons get patents? Because someone, somewhere, lost a lot of money - and I got consistently sized icons for many years.
EDIT: This isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. See this 2002 article. BT registered a patent in 1976 for "double clicking hyperlinks" (or somesuch), and then in 2000 they realised that they owned this patent, and a bunch of people were clicking hyperlinks on the WWW, and they started suing people. They lost.
EDIT: This isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. See this 2002 article. BT registered a patent in 1976 for "double clicking hyperlinks" (or somesuch), and then in 2000 they realised that they owned this patent, and a bunch of people were clicking hyperlinks on the WWW, and they started suing people. They lost.
(http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/BT-patent-case-raises-...)
(http://eupat.ffii.org/pikta/xrani/hyperlink/)