This would be funny if it wasn't true. Microsoft has been flooding the US Patent office over the past few years with upwards of 2000 (yes two thousand!) new applications per YEAR. This year they are on pace to file 3000 new patent applications. This one (removing or adding white space to a computer document) is just one of the 3000. They all are about as innovative as this one.

Here's the abstract: A method, a computer system and a computer-readable medium having instructions for a processor stored thereon are provided for growing a page on a display. Input indicating a first position or designation of content on a page of an electronic document and an amount of white space to be inserted in the page is received. Responsive to the received input, at least some of the content of the page of the electronic document is moved to insert white space. The moving starts from a point based on the first position. The portion of the content being moved is moved a distance based on the amount of white space indicated in the received input. The page is grown by an amount based on the amount of the white space indicated in the received input. A respective size of other pages of the electronic document remains unchanged. Also provided are a method, a computer system and a computer-readable medium having instructions for a processor stored thereon for deleting a portion of a page and reducing a size of the page.

Here's the complete application (sorry to use tinyurl but the patent office web site loves huge and I mean hugh urls, this one was originally 203 chars)

http://tinyurl.com/e4pov

------------------------ Frank Caggiano frankcag at crystal-objects dot com http://www.crystal-objects.com

The best education for the best is the best education for all. Robert Maynard Hutchins