Apple snags blockbuster multi-touch patent Apple was granted two dozen patents in the US Patent and Trademark Office's weekly patent-palooza, held each Tuesday, providing Cupertino's legal team with a new cache of ammunition to be fired up in future patent wars. Snuggled in amongst Tuesday's hoard is a patent entitled "Multipoint touchscreen" that could potentially be …
Apple didn't make or design these screens, right?
So isn't that like me buying PC's from Levono, say, and then patenting a computing device capable of running an operating system and accepting input from a multitude of sensors and devices?
Sounds a bit like patenting driving a car, it's what the car was designed to do.
Bizarre., but then it's Americaland, isn't it. Perhaps everyone should sue the hell out of Apple outside the USA and just ignore the US market. Not like The Rest Of The World is a smaller userbase, is it.
In fact thinking about it, I bet the screens' data sheets actually have multitouch diagrams in them with examples of use and maybe even some development code to illustrate it in use for system designers.
Most electronics has this, surely this patent is pretty much a photocopy of the manufacturer's (Samsung?) screen's data sheet. You can patent THAT ?
Obviously you can over there. This would be obvious even to my feckless teenage offspring.
I dont think a patent should be allowed for natural use of the human body. We use Multi touch naturally and i have done since birth. If i wish to touch and manipulate things with multiple fingers i should be allowed too.
You shouldn't be able to protect rubbish like that just the technology to do it. In fact do Apple have any patents that related to actual innovation? or is just the colour of socks and council house grey for shops?
The American Patent system should not be upheld by the rest of the world.
David 138, USA patents have no legal extraterritorial effect, with one exception: it is illegal for someone here without the relevant USA patent rights to manufacture components of an item that is covered by a USA patent for final assembly outside of these USA. The rest of the world thus has no need to uphold USA patents, although it might be in the interest of some nations to come to bilateral agreements for mutual enforcement of similar national laws.
Honestly folks, you need to read up on how patents work. The have to be novel, use and inventive step and there has to be a reduction to practice step. Now, when this was filed (that's the important bit not whne it's published or granted) it was non-obvious that you could do this. The reason they refer to other patents is becasue they have to. You have to draw attention to any document that you think is relvant at the time fo filing. That doesn't mean they are prior art. It's up to the patent office to determine if they are. So In suspect Apple was very confident that these documents, while relevant, didnt contitute prior art. The other really really important part is reduction to practice. I can conceptually imagine a cure for breast cancer but I actually have to invent something that does that. So while the concept of multi-touch might have been described, nobody had a method of making it real. And real in this specific way. You can't really patent a concept and if you try to you'll get thrown out at Patent Office presecution stage or in court when it gets challenged. If somebody can come up with a different way of doing the same thing, they can get round the patent. A different display type would be enough. So this does screw a lot of other companies but there are ways round it. They just have to doa bit of work.
"So this does screw a lot of other companies but there are ways round it."
You can't be sure of that, given only the content of this article. In fact, it's possible -- if not reasonably likely -- Apple's patent does not apply to any of the other multitouch devices currently on the market.
Given what I know of US law (IANAL) plus that cornucopia of prior art refs, Apple would seem to have patented only the specific methodologies involved...not overriding concept of multitouch via capacitive display. Thus, far from any requirment to come up with a (entirely) 'different display', it's a fair bet that all a competitor need do is devise a unique mechanism and/or firmware for sensing/parsing the multitouch input.
Is that patents were originally intended to provide a limited minority to the original inventor in order for them to profit and have incentive to continue to innovate with confidence that they would profit from their R&D investment.
Is there anyone who is prepared to stand up and say Apple has not profited from touchscreen technology, and actually requires these patents in order to ensure they make a profit? Is there anyone who can say that Apple and other patent holders lack incentive to innovate further due to patents pending?
Patents aren't just destructive, their original purpose also seems to be irrelevant - particularly when the patent holder's idea has already been implemented, become ubiquitous, everybody has got rich, and it's reached it's development peak - i.e. a perfected invention.
If the technology has already been invented and exploited before the patent has been granted, I think these companies should have to prove:
a) They've made a loss by introducing the technology and having another company poach it, and
b) They're invention can be considered unnecessary or luxury - as in withholding it would not delay progression of science or humanity (e.g. a cure for cancer or safer technology); if not, therefore it should be converted automatically to FRAND regardless of wishes of the holder.
IIRC apple brought fingerworks, whome pretty much invented the capacitive multi-touch tech from my understanding... So I get how they can have a patent on capacitive multi-touch...
But its like dyson having a Patent on cyclonic vacuum cleaners, it still insn't the only bagless vacuum cleaner out there, there will be ways around the patent. and to be honest, I would love a decent touch screen that didn't rely on capacitance to work, then I can write using a stylus accurately, use my phone with gloves on, preasure sensitive would be even better...
All this was designed and discussed 30 years ago.
We called it Gesture based GUI.
The Patents system is obviously broken. Explain to me how much R&D effort there is in this compared with the effort of drawing up the so called "patent"
Apple spends 2% on R&D. How much of that time is spent advising the Patent guys and how much does Apple spend on Patent Paper work?
My phone already does multi-touch on its capacitive screen when I re-size a picture. Why do they let them patent these things already in use. Must be because they make a buck of registering them.
PO- Oh what's that Apple an new patent? Oh I see the movement of the human chest that allows air into the lungs. Yes that seem just fine, now just the little matter of the $50,000.
I refer my honourable colleagues to the Wikipedia article on 'Microsoft Surface', specifically the History section and the video clip to the right hand side of it.
Conceptualised in 2001, made real in 2003. Multitouch, gestures, everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface
From WP's iPhone entry: "Development of the iPhone began in 2005 with Apple CEO Steve Jobs' direction that Apple engineers investigate touchscreens."
Surely the entire MS Natural Surface thing is prior art to everything everywhere? Or did someone buy the IP from MS ?
I claim prior Art on that one. At Eden Group in the late 90's, we worked on resistive touchscreen devices that used a separate low-power microcontroller to scan the touchscreen while the main processor was asleep. We were also shown a processor from a major Japanese manufacturer that contained a low-power state machine, included expressedly for checking the touchscreen while the core was suspended.
"My phone already does multi-touch on its capacitive screen when I re-size a picture. Why do they let them patent these things already in use. Must be because they make a buck of registering them."
It's due to the time it takes from a patent application being filed to it being awarded - of course people may copy it in the meantime but the important date is when it was filed.
1) The Radius Pivot when connected to a computer (Mac or PC) enabled the user to switch from portrait to landscape. The desktop would re-arrange itself . iRotate (previously SoftSpin) has been around since 2004.
2) "The input device can display dynamic graphic content in an input area which is distinct from a display screen of the electronic device". Did nobody look at a Nintendo DS?
1) "Varying user interface element based on movement" – enabling an interface element to change its appearance while being moved around a display
2) "Object transitions" – changing the appearance of an interface element when it is selected or acted upon
1) Drag & drop cursors change as you move a file, resize handles et al also fall into this.
Should I be worried when doing software design about the cursor changing to an I bar when it goes over a textbox, or since that's an OS function it's Microsoft breaching Apple's patent?
Other things I have done is made use of cursor: default on a elements to stop the finger appearing on tooltips on webpages. This is overriding browser behaviour, so I am specifying the variance of user interface element based on movement (specifically by instructing it to not vary)
2) I use buttons, listboxes and scrollbars a fair bit. Each of these has a different appearance when selected or acted upon. (Highlighting selected items, indicating scroll amount, acknowledging press, or emboldening the element to show focus by tabbing. Again, am I in breach of this patent by doing this?
If knocking down patents was as easy as generalizing them, thinking of something similar, and then shouting "prior art", there would be a lot fewer patents in the world.
And if invention was as easy as taking past similar ideas and blowing magic fairy dust on them, there would be a lot more innovation.
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