  Selecting an object or element is a fundamental operation in any graphic user
interface. It is necessary to select an object before doing any operation (such
as, dragging, copying, opening, deleting etc.) on that object. The GUI may
provide features to select any single object or even multiple objects. The
feature of selecting multiple objects can provides tremendous power to the GUI
as the user can do complex operations on multiple objects in one go.
  However, the process of selection is not as simple as it appears to the user
of a GUI. The internal logic of a selection mechanism can be very complex in
some situations. The article describes some fundamental difficulties associated
with the selection mechanism, and illustrates the solutions provided by
different inventions selected from US patent database.
