WASHINGTON, DC — Microsoft has received a patent on the concept behind the computer keyboard commands “PgUp” and PgDn.” U.S. Patent No. 7,415,666 was issued August 19th and brings Microsoft’s computer-related patent count to nearly 10,000 – up 5,000 since March 2006.The patent describes “a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed.”

According to the patent summary, “In one implementation, pressing a Page Down or Page Up keyboard key/button allows a user to begin at any starting vertical location within a page, and navigate to that same location on the next or previous page. For example, if a user is viewing a page starting in a viewing area from the middle of that page and ending at the bottom, a Page Down command will cause the next page to be shown in the viewing area starting at the middle of the next page and ending at the bottom of the next page. Similar behavior occurs when there is more than one column of pages being displayed in a row.”

Microsoft applied for the patent in 2005, listing Timothy Sellers, Heather Grantham and Joshua Dersch as the concept’s inventors. However, “page up” and “page down” keys have existed on computer keyboards since at least 1981, long before Microsoft became a household name.

The Redmond software giant has been criticized often and loudly for patenting or attempting to patent ideas and products based on so-called “prior art”: Work done by others or existing in some self-evident fashion. The company owns the patent for scrolling mouse wheels and double-clicking on icons, both of which resulted in criticism of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s procedures by the technology community.