In a possible legal showdown over multitouch patents between Apple and Palm, the Cupertino gadget maker has just looted a decent weapon off the dead body that is the US patent system: a patent on just about all multitouch gestures used in the iPhone and iPod Touch, such as swiping, pinching, and so on. Wielding this weapon, Apple suddenly has a pretty good case against Palm.
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2007-03-26
Member since:2006-12-28
I agree.
There where a few posters sticking up for software patents last story posted. Basically they where saying that because patents are descriptions of what the patented system is suppose to do, they encourage another company to innovate around that patent. I cannot see how, what to me seems an ambiguous and far reaching description at best, could possibly encourage another firm to innovate around it.
No matter how often you attempt to describe a multi-touch interface, it's still a multi-touch interface. Now that Apple has been granted the patent, no matter how any other company decides to implement this system they will have to pay Apple for the privileged of marketing it.
Encourage innovation? Yeah, right!
Member since:2007-09-06
The way it seems to work is the patent office blindly grants any and all patent requests then leaves it to the courts to sort out which ones are junk or previous art. Moving things about on screen using two sensory input points seems like it should fall into the category of "blatantly obvious" rather than "unique" so let's hope the court appoint an educated and brand independent judge if this goes to trial.
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Actually I DID buy one. I tried two actually, and you know what. They both were of poor quality. The AC cords on BOTH of them came loosE from their mother boards. I callled and they wanted to charge me the price of a new one to fix it. Nice support.
Yeah, Apple is so great. Their hardware is awesome. Their DRM is awesome. Their proprietary closed audio codecs are awesome. Apple lovers have their head in the sand or up somewhere else if they can't see the obviously blatant antitrust practices Apple is pursuing with this/these patent(s).
Say what you want, Microsoft is at least trying to look at the market and do something now. Apple is still using antritrust tactics, they just arent in the government sector as deeply so they dont get noticed. As for Linux, it is not mainstream and doesnt purport to be what "everyone (Steve Jobs) needs". Apple is dictating who can do what. Microsoft's time is over and Apple is the new juggernaut of legal hogwash...
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Member since:2005-07-06
and yes. i have a mac pro, 2 macbooks and an iphone.
i used to be the biggest apple hater till well ..i bought one.
Sounds like a religious conversion... maybe you should see a therapist.
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Yeah, Opera had mouse gestures what? 10 years ago? 8 maybe?
A touch-screen is just another input device and mimiks the mouse for pointing things out.
If anything Opera should have the patent, they are the ones who thought about the idea of doing gestures with the mouse first (or well, afaik, there may have been others before them to.)
Only thing good with Apple are their user interface guidelines and ideas, everything else suck.
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I suspect that the "StarFire demo" that Sun Microsystems produced in the early '90's (and presents a lot of the same interface approaches as Minority Report) will qualify as prior art as well:
http://www.asktog.com/starfire/starfire.mp4
Member since:2006-12-07
Member since:2006-09-30
Yeah this is ridiculous.
Even older prior art:
http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
/me hates patent trolls.
Software patents sux. Just have them revoked!
Member since:2005-07-23
"1983: Video Place / Video Desk (Myron Krueger)
· A vision based system that tracked the hands and enabled multiple fingers, hands, and people to interact using a rich set of gestures.
· Implemented in a number of configurations, including table and wall.
· Didn’t sense touch, per se, so largely relied on dwell time to trigger events intended by the pose.
· Essentially “wrote the book” in terms of unencumbered (i.e., no gloves, mice, styli, etc.) rich gestural interaction. Work that was more than a decade ahead of its time and hugely influential, yet not as acknowledged as it should be.
· Krueger, Myron, W. (1983). Artificial Reality. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
· Krueger, Myron, W. (1991). Artificial Reality II. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
· Krueger, Myron, W., Gionfriddo, Thomas., & Hinrichsen, Katrin (1985). VIDEOPLACE - An Artificial Reality, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’85), 35 - 40."
LOL! Good luck with this one Apple 
And first time I saw multitouch and the gestures used was this:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html
Not Apples technology. And sadly for Apple that's a Microsoft project ... The touch may have been sensed in another way but it's still touching, gestures and support multiple fingers. And innovative!
Edited 2009-01-28 04:01 UTC
Member since:
2006-06-09
Thanks Apple for remembering me again why I never bought anything from you.
When it comes to monopolistic and lock-in tactics on your overpriced gadgets (in particular in EU where Apple think one $ = one euro since years now), you're no better than your not-so-long-ago evil enemy on the OS battlefield which you never missed an occasion to whim about.
Member since:2008-10-23
I would like to boycott Apple, but unfortunately, I don't have enough money to buy an Apple computer or gadget in the first place, so I'm unable to boycott them as they wouldn't loose any money since I wouldn't have bought them anyway. If you have enough money to boycott their products, please do it for me.
Member since:
2007-03-29
I fully agree with the comments above. It does not matter if Apple is great at designing softwares and selling them, their attitude is just as bad as what Microsoft used to do. The only difference between Apple and Microsoft is just that Apple is better at designing simple and efficient interfaces. And maybe that Microsoft is trying to play fair now (with the help of a few visits to court for legal complaints, ok...). At least more than Apple. So no matter how good their softwares/hardwares can be, I just cannot buy anything from them.
Member since:2005-07-06
Sorry, but MS is not trying to play fair now. They've got more ridiculous patents up their sleeve than you can shake a landfill full of unsold copies of MS Bob at.
It's just that they're on probation, so to speak, and now they get to rely on Apple stealing the headlines.
I don't support Apple in their patent endeavors, but if I had to choose the more sympathetic source of evil... I'll choose the one that gives me easier-to-use, less irritating products.
Member since:2006-03-27
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One would think Apple would not want to provoke Palm. It's a company with all most 20 years of PDA and phone related patents that it could probably use to make apples life hell in a counter suit since in all likely hood something in the iphone/ipod touch infringes on one of them
Edited 2009-01-27 13:01 UTC
Member since:2006-04-03
Except the Palm PDA's and phones came after the Apple Newton, from which they (Palm) gleaned much of their interface design and functionality...
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2007-11-27
Hi all
from the patent
"
A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command."
So it is "one" or more finger contacts to give a computer a command. Well surely I was doing this with a virtual keyboard on the M505, M515 (still the best palms) and my PSION 5MX before that. Oh and on My Dell PDA on my Palm Tungstens and on and on and on and....
And since it encompases ONE then what about all touchscreen kiosks, lifts etc etc etc.... and tablet PC's?
I'm off to patent interfacing with "NO" fingers and corner the foot fettish computer market. :-)
Cheers
Bob
Member since:2006-02-04
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2006-08-16
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2008-06-02
Apple and their apologists keep making the argument that "Apple deserves to derive financial benefit from something they invented." Which is pretty funny - under that standard, Douglas Englebart would have grounds to sue Apple for... well, just about every product they've ever released.
Member since:
2006-09-27
What's the use in having a patent if competitors can easily work around it? Nay, all patents should be like this one, so that innovation is promoted by giving innovators a monopoly worth its name.
I'd like to greet Apple, US (and elsewhere) legislators, pro-IP lobbyists and everyone who makes this wonderful framework possible, with the obvious, prior-art laden, one-finger gesture.
Member since:
2007-04-11
How can we allow Apple to do this? Why can we not hold the USPTO accountable for antitrust practices.? When will Apple get the patent for wiping in a three directions? wadding up the toilet paper? Using a bidet? I know, let's give them the patent on looking both ways before crossing the street.
Apple really is frustrating me. They lie to stockholders, patent basic human movement, and use DRM. I don't understand how people can think they are so great.
Member since:2005-07-23
"How can we allow Apple to do this? Why can we not hold the USPTO accountable for antitrust practices.?"
Well, they made that "everything has already been patented" or if it was invented or whatever claim there sometimes around 1890. Guess they learned from that that everything wasn't and therefor grant everything instead ...
"I don't understand how people can think they are so great."
I can only answer for myself but I thought the user-interfaces and applications looked great. But now when I have a mac (which was overpriced and poorly configured) I've noticed how much crap it is:
* Most Apple software seem to be built on a good idea but then they stopped developing it. Applications start like something good but they all lack a lot in functionality and usefulness.
* The magsafe connector suck and the cable get lose so you can't charge your machine.
* The mini-tos-link will break the cable all the f--king time, you can buy an airport express, but only with wireless iTunes because Apple is retarded. Airfoil solves this... What it don't solve is that only the Extreme has support for a harddrive, BUT NOT MUSIC, so you need to buy both. I refuse!
* Crappy displays (not the cinema ones ..)
* My backlight spreader must have some flaw because there is weird light behind the pixels.
* A-key has started to refuse responding.
* Battery life is down to around 10 % since Safari and Flash always take all RAM and CPU which make the computer really hot and the battery to degenerate fast as hell.
* Safari and flash for OS X suck.
* Mail spam protection suck.
* iPhoto image adjustments suck, and it don't mix well with Lightroom.
* All machines is crippled on purpose.
* SuperDrive is SuperCrappy and always returns and error if I try to burn a disc (and I have Taiyo-Yuden and MCC004/Verbatim discs so don't blame them ..)
* My 8600m GT seems faulty giving me graphics errors.
* Their forum and support suck.
* No documentation on supplied software.
* You can't mail them a question.
So on, so on. I'll never buy a mac again, I'll build a more optimal hack than my earlier one (which was just the computer I happened to have) and use the OS anyway.
Member since:
2008-11-10
Is it against Palm or maybe it is against Microsoft? I think Windows 7 is supposed too support touch screens.
Or is it against touch screens in netbooks - they were suppose to come out this year for both Windows and Linux.
Good what in Europe we can ignore this patent nonsense. Soon probably EU Commission will send Apple to court like they did with Microsoft in the past.
Member since:
2005-07-06
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2005-07-06
I usually find Apple's patent applications either plain stupid, or mildly concerning but ultimately harmless. But this patent goes way too far.
Basically, it outlaws other manufacturers from implementing all pinch, scroll and swipe gestures. What the hell is left?!
I really, really, really hope this doesn't stand up to further investigation. I honestly don't see how it could given the work people like Jeff Hahn have done:
www.perceptivepixel.com
Edited 2009-01-27 22:25 UTC
Member since:
2006-01-09
This is crap. This is why patents on software and such need to go away. I own a Touchstream LP and have been using multitouch years before Apple had it (they bought Fingerworks who made the Touchstream) and this should be invalidated. They haven't developed the tech any further than it was 6 years ago when I bought it. I could do all this pinch, zoom, swipe, etc on that thing, and still can, as it let me program my own gestures. The Mac's prefs sure don't let me do that...only Apple's predefined things, which is really a hinderance.
I wish Fingerworks hadn't sold out, and furthered the tech and made a cool System Pref to configure it with.
Member since:
2005-07-23
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2007-08-11
I found it funny that this article is right above one that tells how to get multi-touch working on your Android phone. 
Simple Patents like this suck. So what if someone copied your great idea? If they did a better job, then isn't that worth merit?
With patents like these, no one would be able to create a better "mouse trap". And yet I thought patents were intended to help competition/innovation.
Member since:
2006-05-26
have actually read the entire patent application, including Thom Holwerda, to know and actually understand all that it details? Yeah, that's what I suspected :p
Chances are high that they can't defend all claims in court, but if in the context of all the other things that can't be defended on their own, they have claims that tie into them that have no prior art and are sufficiently non-obvious/novel compared to what previously existed, then it could actually be useful for them. If nothing else, it'll slow down others in court because it'll require substantial time to parse and mount a defense.
And despite all that, the world (at least all current and potential users in the market) are left puzzling over at least one missing feature: where is cut/copy/paste???!
Member since:
2006-10-02
Apple is making notice to scare away some potential competitors but the chances of them suing and succeeding in stopping Palm Pre are close to zero.
1. Large corporations almost never sue other corporations for patent infringement. They sue the small fish.
2. Palm holds hundreds of patents (a Google patent search shows a list of PAGES PAGES of different patents, http://www.google.com/patents?lr=&q=%22PALM+inc%22&sa=N&sta...), almost all of them in their line of business (PDAs and Phones).
3. If Apple sues, they run the big risk of getting this ridiculous patent invalidated due to tons of prior art that dates from the 80's and 90's. See http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
4. Palm will certainly countersue with their own patent infringement. Since they have a huge PDA/phome patent portfolio it is almost certain that the iPhone infringes one or more of their patent, and that is all that is required to get the iPhone off the market. It certainly will be Apple. In the jargon of patent it's called MAD (mutually assured destruction). Who will loose more in scenario like that?
5. If Apple presses Palm, Palm can look for a white knight bringing Microsoft to the picture by buying Palm, Microsoft will use their muscle and financial resources to beat back Apple and gain a door opening to a very attractive smartphone. Will Apple risk pushing Palm into their archenemy's hands? HP or even IBM can potentially become white knights and help Palm.
6. Most likely and to save face they will reach and agreement for licensing each other patent portfolio.
7. YAWN, we will see Palm Pre whether Apple likes it or not.
Member since:
2006-10-28
