The patent office has access to an application from Microsoft that claims to have invented a method allowing a user to run a command as administrator. This is very similar to the UNIX command sudo.

Sudo

As a reminder, sudo (substitute user do) has been designed and implemented in the 1980s by the department of SUNY / Buffalo and can launch a program using the rights of another user, usually the superstar is called as root.

Microsoft

However, the system has been patented by Microsoft strangely resembles that. The firm now has "systems or methods ... that allow a user to elevate their rights" to launch an application that could not run normally.

It seems that the only difference is the presence of a GUI like UAC Vista or Windows 7 instead of the simple command line that you type in Linux or Mac OS X. Even this aspect is already in many operating systems. It will in any case interesting to see what Microsoft has done this patent and it will ask for license fees to all those who have a program to raise the rights of the user.