Slashdot Mirror
Apple Awarded Patent For iPhone Interface
Toe, The writes "Apple's 358-page patent application for their iPhone interface entitled Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics has been approved after more than two years of review by the US Patent Office. Apple's claims include: '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. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.' As Apple seems eager to defend their intellectual property, what will this mean to other touch developers?"
It means 20 years of waiting for the patent to expire before this kind of interface can be advanced at all.
In 2001, while on a visit to Toronto, Canada, I remember using a touch enabled computer screen at the employment center. It was a memorable thing to me since I had never seen such technology before. Isn't this an example of prior art?
While many people paint Apple as a friendly company, (who wouldn't sue a school), the fact is that COO Tim Cook said recently (at a quarterly earnings conference call):
and
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
A computer-implemented method...
Oh God, is iPhone becoming self-aware?
Apple is the new Microsoft.
It's basically a patent on how Apple handles scrolling on the iPhone. They've patented:
- Using a touchscreen to scroll in one dimension
- Using a touchscreen to scrollin two dimensions
- Using a touchscreen to shift between items in a list
Basically, scrolling in your address book, in Safari, and coverflow. The "heuristics" are all about analyzing the inputs and motions in the context of the application, and not interaction with any onscreen element.
Now it's HTC, Google, and Palm's turn to scramble for prior art. The attempt to claim this with single inputs even, however, may weaken the basis.
IANAPL. HAND.
Heuristics, by definition, are just an educated guess. If you write software that gets it right without guessing you can circumvent the patent entirely.
Besides, didn't the palm pilot already do that for Graffiti back in the 20th century? Sans multi-touch of course.
Can you patent a hand gesture? A little birdie told me one for these guys...
This patent seems pretty bound to fingers, so multi-touch toe interfaces are wide open, folks!
How about the Palm gestures?
I did not RTFA so I don't know how much this patent covers but nobody can deny that Apple came up with an innovative good interface that everybody is trying to copy now.
Sure it sucks to be a copycat now but maybe it will push these people to innovate like Apple did.
If the patent does not include every single interface using some kind of touch or multi-touch technology (which it might...) there is still room for innovation.
It's sad that nobody came up with a clean UI like that before but you have to give credits to Apple for that.
I really like the iPhone UI but it's far from perfect. I could think of lots of different ways to improve on that.
If I can do it, I'm sure some phone makers can do it too.
Impress us!
I sincerely hope they are willing to be generous with license agreements to competitors since Apple products suck.
Yeah, I said SUCK. I already have my DragonArmor vest on, the windows are boarded up, and I think I will survive the siege with a few tons of hot pockets. I await the storm...
Apple has been so disappointing as they have repeated Sony's mistake about obsessively locking down their products. The iPod on its own is a great product. The software support for it is horrible and Apple has made it incredibly difficult to use anything but iTunes to manipulate the music stored on MY FREAKIN DEVICE. iTunes does not offer the features and abilities I want and I have always found it to be unstable on every system I have put it on.
There are plenty of other examples, but I don't mention this to bash Apple. Truly I don't. I mention this since it would make it nearly impossible for competition to survive the LawyerPult over at Apple HQ.
If nobody else can use this technology for 20 years (possibly more since we are going nutso over IP protection) then Apple will have far less motivation to make a great product, develop better software for those products, and service them.
It's the beginning of a monopoly over a human interface. Any company having that makes it bad for the consumer, but Apple has demonstrated to me, that it already does not care about my needs as a consumer.
Apple has been given a patent for applying heuristics to the touch screen interface. Any interface that does not use heuristics (an educated guess)but instead uses exact or even relative positioning will not infringe this patent. touchscreen displays have been around for a long time, touchscreens which use traditional UI elements (buttons, sliders, etc) are safe. Even some heuristics would be hard for apple to defend because as anyone who has worked with touchscreen interfaces can tell you, you have to do a lot of guessing to figure out what the user is doing. Absolute on/off is easy, but sliding fingers around the display, holding a finger down for an extended period of time (timeout on shutoff for instance), even using a slider requires some heuristics. My guess is that Apple will use this as the deeper patent but concentrate on specific gestures for their main defense. Using this more generalized patent will be tough as the interpretation of when heuristics come into play, especially since there is a lot of prior art around single finger interactivity will be very subjective and open apple up to having the patent overturned.
Minority Report (2002)
iPhone multi-touch (2007)
I for one, welcome our Thetan overlords.
Hopefully this puts a few nails in the coffins of the Chinese counterfeiters. The amount of fake iphones out there on eBay are numerous.
what will this mean to other touch developers?
What about those which developed products with similar features while the patent was under examination?
To they just put their blueprints in the bin and try to find another idea?
I'm actually quite interested, if anyone has an idea, in the answer to this question: if you release a product before you get the patent, and concurent makers release similar products before said patent is granted, doesn't that constitute prior art?
Working in a research lab, we are regularly reminded that we should not publish patentable ideas before having patented them, as such publication would constitute prior art voiding any subsequent patent.
Anybody has clarifications?
it seems to basically cover touch 'gestures'
Circa 1991-2 I was developing for an OS called PenPoint, it implemented gestures using "hueristics".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
if I read the summery right on this, apple is not patenting touch-screen technology, but rather how the device handles certain touch commands. Touch screen devices have been around for years, yet they really amounted to nothing more than pressing a button on a screen. The iPhone adds response to multiple pressure points being contacted at once, such as the pinch-and-pull method for resizing content. Apple advanced the technology more in three years than it was in the previous 20. I say, let them patent it, and let people pay them for their patent
And therefore Apple's patent is invalid, as it fails the test of not closing off the only way of doing something.
Fingers moving about on a point-detection surface are inherently ambiguous in their meaning, and therefore only a heuristic method can handle the problem -- a deterministic algorithm cannot.
The USPTO will happily allow you to patent breathing, but that doesn't mean that it will stand up in court.
It will be interesting to see Apple try to defend their Imaginary Property on this issue.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Ok, so the first version of Firefox's "Mouse Gestures" came out on July 26, 2004 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addons/versions/39#version-0.9.20040725. Which is before this patent was filed. So if we found evidence of someone using mouse gestures with a touch screen monitor, would that constitute prior art?
I think this may be the difference between Apple and the OS community, while Apple patents, the Open Source developers would have been pushing to make it a design standard.
Patents sucks, specially when companies goes blind against development and feels they are knowledge and innovation overlords. Isn't it a subtle version of antitrust. Its like a genocide.
dot slash dot slash dot org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
Oh... wait.
Well, software patents still suck.
So if I want to use a touchscreen of any fucking sort [ONE or more touches?!?], I have to get a license from Apple now?
FUCK. THAT. SHIT.
*Files a patent for patent trolling*
The definition of a heuristic is a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem. Ok, so heuristics -- commonsense rules -- can be patented now. This is so far from the original patent intent that they should basically now be considered as a legal stand-over right rather than as a protection of a novel invention.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/2005/1479/olympus_mr-500i.jpg
Don't you think Jeff Han might just have some prior art on this? This link http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_touchscreen.html shows his multitouch interface more than a year before Apple came out with their iPhone and before the Apple patent was filed.
- Paul
How long will it be before they have to offer Internet Explorer pre-installed as standard?
...pleasant memories.
Well done for your efforts !
iPhone iNterface.... Just call it a Nterface, like normal people!
Wait a sec, did the Linux folks do this a few years ago with a touch screen? I remember seeing something like that, then microsoft did it as well.
http://www.uspto.gov/main/contacts.htm
Maybe if enough people complain to them they'll start to listen.
When did the patent office become a bubble world?
The subjects tend to get upset when one points out that their Emperor has no clothes on...
From the headline: "...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..."
Darn it! All the touch screen interfaces I've seen only allow one or two fingers or then hand to control the interface. I was thinking of octupling productivity!
One thing that does not seem obvious to previous posters is that this is not just about multi-touch, but about "one or more fingers" touching the screen. In other words, gestures.
There is a ton of touch software out there already using this, not just on phones but on tablets and other devices as well.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
I can't believe in 'prior art' clauses, especially on /. there isn't thought to references made to Sci-Fi movies. There's plenty of 1 or 2 finger simulated-touch-screens I'm sure in the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Tron, The Matrix, etc. that might fit the characteristics of the Apple patent.
I propose, to embarass the US PTO and make a useful business communication device, a patent for mobile screen communication device that can be controlled with either: my tongue, nose, toes or elbows. Forked-tongue needs some software patents for the algorithm. You're welcome to design for other appendages. :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If an interface concept is used in a movie and it is eventually turned into a real product and patented, does the implementation in the movie count as prior art?
I have a feeling prior art only applies to real, manufactured products, but I figured I'd ask. Wait... are we talking about patenting IP, where there isn't always a real product?
The attitude seems to be "OMG! They invented a user interface! But user interfaces have been around forever!!!!!"
Doesn't work like that.
This is not a patent on touch screens, or user interfaces. Inventions are incremental. Nobody has previously invented a UI that does exactly what Apple's one does in exactly the same way. this is a patent on a specific implementation of a touchscreen user interface that allows specific functionality and handles noisy input in a specific way. Most touch screens don't do this. They simply detect The centre of the touched locations.
This would be much too big of a blow to touch interfaces in general, someone will fight it hard. And once they do they only need one solid case of "prior art" to kill it, and there are tons of touch devices out before the filing of this patent. Apple may try but it won't stick.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
When he heard the news, Steve Jobs was quoted on his sickbed as saying "How do you like them Apples!?" and chuckling maniacally.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
for anyone gullible enough to think that Apple invented any of this stuff, rather than wait 20 years for the technology to catch up to the theory:
Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved .
I suppose Apple is going to sue my laptop now for having a touchpad?
As much as I love Apple, this has the sounds of retribution for the Mac OS that MS has been stealing for the past 20+ years. Doesn't it just mean companies will have to buy the rights to use this technology/interface? It seems like companies who want to get on the bandwagon are going to fork out the cash or develop their own. Just follow Uncie Bill's lead and steal just enough to make it look like Apple, but isn't really Apple and there "aint" a damn thing Apple can do about it. I mean, when have the courts ever decided in Apples favor in reagards to other people ripping off Apples designs/look.
What about MS's new touch screen stuff...
You think they're going to sit still for this?
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
...I'm pretty sure it would be safe to say that they would be far worse than Microsoft. Apple would be downright draconian. Their vision seems to be "don't touch anything, everything is done my way". I'd much rather have a sneaky bastard than an iron fist tyrant.
That's what the patent is, how they did something.
Not what they did.
So if you do the same damn thing, you aren't breaking Apple's patent since it didn't patent that way of doing it.
Bring it on. My big dream is a huge fucking armageddon where everyone sues everyone else over bogus IP, because that would effectively bring the end to the current IP mess. The alternative is much worse - a chilling effect that isn't seen by the general public.
Quick, someone resubmit that patent for buttocks- and toes-controlled interfaces, before Nintendo starts getting any funny ideas.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Doesn't this just mean that any touch screen device with a similar interface would have problems getting out to market? If that's the case, then considering the other similar interfaces out there and how much they [b]suck[/b] compared to that of the iPhone, I'm thinking that this would actually make other companies think of something new...
Too loosy patent == ignore. Simple that (and if i find a lawer, he will got a shot on head)
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
That was at a rest stop and it used old CRT monitors with a touch screen capability. There was no multi touch capability just single touch to select items/buttons. Apple patented multi touch which is using multiple fingers to do things such as the pinch gesture to scale images on the phone etc.
What a load of bollox this is Apple will be trying to patent wiping your arse next the iphone was NOT the first by any strech of the imagination to use touch screens they may well be the last someone needs to develope something quick and kill apple off once and for all time PS yes i would love to see them vanish completely over rated crap.
Would it not be ironic if Jobs died due to an unergonomic user interface on some medical equipment delaying his treatment?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
a heuristic method can handle the problem -- a deterministic algorithm cannot.
I disagree with this assessment. Given that there are only a finite number of sensors in the touch screen, a algorithm can indeed calculate an outcome for every possible case--completely deterministic.
In fact, heuristics are in almost all cases actually 100% deterministic. Also, on a pedantic note, the definition of algorithm requires the deterministic part. When we talk of non-deterministic machines (where non-deterministic non-algorithms would play) this precludes CPU-controlled devices which are simple finite-state machines.
Your observation, therefore, is even more to the point: So I can't write a program to figure out user input? WTF?
It's not the 1st time Apple does something like this. Years ago after "borrowing" Xerox's GUI they copyrighted the "use and feel" of the Lisa and Mac GUI.
By court orders, Apple completely destroyed Digital Research's GEM user interface. That's proably whu it's so plain. Windows 1.0 was also plain and had a hellish non-overlapping windows GUI, probably because of the horrendously slow Intel 8088 and even slower video card I/O instead of avoiding Apple's lawyers. X clients back then were also horrendously ugly.
Apple's copyright was invalidated by the time Windows 3.0 was released. :)
Bill Buxton's multi touch history (in particular, check out 1992 onwards, starting with a system called "Starfire")..
I don't mind protection of truly novel ideas, but multitouch seems to me like one of those things that would be pretty obvious to any half-decent geek who's been presented with a piece of hardware capable of accurately reading such things.. (witness Jeff Han et. al).. Hell - the movie 'Minority Report' was released before the patent was claimed - doesn't that count as prior presentation of the idea?
It seems to me that iPhone-esque multitouch is the sort of thing that has probably been discussed over beer & pizza by literally thousands of wannabe dreamers who lack only the [ materials science background / electrical engineering knowledge / financial backing / time / etc / etc ] to pull it off...
*sigh*
I recall seeing an article, perhaps here on slashdot, about the invention of the multi-touch interface; wasn't it at a college in the UK or somewhere. That being the case, Apple didn't invent it. It's possible they bought the rights to it - though, other companies have already begun jumping in to the "touch screen" interface market. You'd think that if there were danger of patent infringement, this wouldn't be the case? Doing a Google search for "invention multi-touch interface" brings up a few links, including one from freshpatents.com (patent #20090002328).
An open-source alternative published widely would be an interesting challenge.
How about if a small company was to invent the iphone and patent it, would that be a good thing?
Isn't the idea of patents suppose to encourage novelty and protect those who bring it forward?
Now Apple has accomplished the iphone and not some small company that would easily be trampled by a huge corp. Now what? make two sets of rules for large and small companies?
Patents are the price we pay for our way of life where everyone wants the new shiny thing. If patents were not around most of the things we now take for granted around us would simply not be.
Despite all the FUD in the comments, Apple has patented a very narrow set of gestures. The claims of the patent determine its scope and not anything else. Claim 1 is:
1. A computing device, comprising: a touch screen display; one or more processors; memory; and one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including: instructions for detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display; instructions for applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device; and instructions for processing the command; wherein the one or more heuristics comprise: a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on an angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; and a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.
Although silly and probably invalid, the claim is limited to a very specific method of differentiating 1D vertical scrolls from 2D panning (using an angle of finger movement). One could easily implement multi-touch--and even 1D and 2D screen translation commands--with other methods.
This patent reads to me to be too "finger"-centric. If the claims didn't specifically limit their utility to contact of a "finger" with the device, it could be improved upon if you could press anything (even a stylus) to cause the "touch." The motion and heuristic would still be triggered just by physical contact or close proximity with the detector, whether the detector was the display itself or some other part of the device.
There's lots of ways to design around this patent. It's not the end of the world. Innovators will innovate.
The last time I looked into this (several years ago), it was over $50,000,000 USD to bring a single drug from research to first market in the US. That cost includes development, manufacture, testing, and regulatory oversight. For a drug that doesn't make it through testing, some portion of that is expended with no return (other than knowledge).
I dug a little and found this ...
http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
http://www.smileproject.com
Were you the retarted kid in your class that loved to eat paste?
Have you ever eaten lead paint?
Do you have a serious brain injury that impairs rational thought?
If so, apply now at the patent office.
We don't know what the fuck we're doing!
Actually guys hold up. All Apple did was take advantage of the part of the patent law that says that you can patent an improvement of any process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. So by slapping some best guess software on an invention thatâ(TM)s been around since 1974 â" namely the touch screen â" they get to patent and control the market by standing on the shoulders of those that came before.
Solution? Improve on their idea just enough to slip through this rather large loophole in the patenting process (and survive Appleâ(TM)s armada of lawyers). Or have the patent laws changed so as to end these ridiculous abuses. In reality it should have been their code that they were able to patent but instead they are able to choke out the competition through this little loophole based on incremental change.
There is still hope for the advancement of technology even in the face of this old and painfully outdated system of patenting.
This book completely changed my view of patents, copyrights and the like. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
Isn't there prior art for this stuff? I remember seeing a multi-touch interface done on Linux a few years ago and then Microsoft did one as well. What exactly does this patent cover?
While the iPhone represents a great design effort, there is very little about the interface that is new. I do not expect these patents will get in anyone's way.
The ParcTab at Xerox was a hand-held touchscreen device with similar aspirations as the iPhone, and existed back in '92. The pinch gesture was described by Tognazzini at Sun also in the 90s. Lots of and lots of similar hand gesture and multi-touch work has been in the lab for years before the iPhone. Apple may be able to protect some very specific implementation decisions, but nothing the average user will even notice.
The novelty of the iPhone is the smooth, seamless integration of all these existing parts, but how do you patent seamlessness?
Founders are the same age too. Both did well in the 1980s. 1990s was good for MicroSoft and bad for Apple. Vice-versa for 2000s.
Imagine where'd we be now if Henry had been allowed to patent the steering wheel ? Still riding horses I guess.
Nobody seems to have brought this up, but Apple patenting this at the level they are basically makes it impossible to develop for the iPhone unless you are using the default framework widgets. If you want to do any of your own event tracking and gesture handling, you are violating the patent.
The UIKit framework provides all kinds of interesting controls for you to use that implement the behaviors they are talking about in this patent, but it also provides a generic touch tracking API that you are supposed to use to do your own gesture tracking. The problem is, anything you do in those touch tracking methods will require you to apply 'heuristics' to determine a 'command'. That is, in fact, exactly the way the low level touch tracking API is designed to work.
Want to have a custom view that allows you to scroll but don't want to use Apple's bundled UIScrollView? You violate the patent. Want to show a list of items and allow clicking one to view details without using Apple's UITableView? Patent violation. Want to follow the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines as published by Apple and make pinch/spread handle zoom but don't want to use a UIScrollView? Violation.
There are already countless applications on the App Store that violate this patent. Can we really expect Apple to start filing lawsuits against the very developers who make the platform interesting? Are they really saying "You can develop for our platform, but you can't actually do anything that includes handling touch input."?
Culture is more than commerce
The question is loaded. Yes the research would get done, because there are other ways to protect investment and fund research than the current patent and licensing methodology.
In the UK, the NHS (national health service) is criticised for not paying £10,000/year for some expensive drugs that may save a person from cancer. The reason is that you can save a lot of other people from other things for that money.
But they do pay for some drugs at that cost. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that they pay for 1000 x £10,000/year drugs from some company.
Let's also say, because this is realistic, that the same drugs could be used on 100,000 people effectively instead, but the NHS cannot afford 100,000 x £10,000/year for the benefit likelihoods.
Research and testing are the reason for the high cost, as everyone points out.
Manufacturing costs are low for many of these drugs. This is obviously true from the low cost of generics as soon as patent protection expires, or in countries where patents are ignored or don't apply.
So, why can't the NHS pay the same company 2000 x £10,000 and have 100 times as much of the drug manufactured?
That would treat 100 times as many people, while providing the drug company with substantially more revenue. Everybody wins.
It would lead to more research than now, because of the increased drug company revenues.
So would the research get done if the investment was not protected at all? Perhaps not if there was literally no protection of any kind.
But it's clear as a bright day that the present system of private patents results in vastly more suffering and death than necessary (100 times as many deaths in this example, which is a realistic figure for expensive drugs which are cheap to manufacture).
Clearly, there is sufficient money, and sufficient organisational scale, to fund the same or more research and get those kind of drugs to vastly more people at the same time.
When that's not happening, the system is broken and should be changed.
Complete dismissal of private investment protection is probably not the answer; neither is motivating companies into keeping secrets to protect their research investments.
An independent body of medical economists and drug company auditors, having the power to enforce prices, and sometimes enforce the ability of generic manufacturers to play a part, in exchange for commitments to buy in large quantities, and required to follow sound, sustainable economic criteria when setting enforcements. That may be part of the answer.
Don't like big government? Before jumping to a gut conclusion, evaluate rationally in which scenario there is most benefit for each party. And when it's a win-win for all parties: the patients and the drug researchers and the drug company owners, it should be considered seriously don't you think?
Summary: Would the research get done if the investment was not patented and licensed as now?. Yes, it would. There is room for great improvement to everyone's benefit.
Apple patent is one of the more ridiculous patents, for many reasons. If this really becomes important, it will be challenged and probably thrown out.
However, I'm not convinced that multitouch is even all that important to begin with, beyond the kind of multitouch that some touch devices have had for decades anyway. In particular, the pinch, rotate, and zoom gestures are mostly gimmicks.
Hell, Apple's the one that bought out FingerWorks, the original patent holder for lots of other multi-touch tech, but wasn't really getting anywhere in their implementation.
Without those patents, would Apple have bothered to buy Fingerworks? Or would they have just used all of the Fingerworks ideas and built the iPhone anyway?
Patents exist in part to protect the small from the large. Without patent rights we'd probably still have the iPhone, but the Fingerworks guys would have gotten nothing in return for their pioneering work. By your line of thinking, we could say that Fingerworks was retarding innovation since they weren't getting anywhere in the market, while Apple had a good use in mind for the IP.
Property rights--intellectual or otherwise--are always somewhat inconvenient to business. But we protect them anyway since without them there is not much point to being in business in the first place.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
We know from Apple statements that they were working on the iPhone for at least 2 years prior to the public release. They bought Fingerworks in mid-2005, and Fingerworks was founded in 1998 based on multi-touch research done before that in graduate school. This is probably one reason that Jeff has been careful to point out that his work is not necessarily patentable. But that does not mean that Apple's technology is not patentable. If it came to a court case Apple would just need to be able to prove their IP predates other similar developments, like Jeff's. Since they bought IP from Fingerworks that might be true.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
It would not be ironic. It would be fair.
Rudd-O - http://rudd-o.com/
Well actually, "ironic" would be an iPhone-interfaced hospital device failing, causing his death. But there is nothing to suggest that hospital equipment should be outfitted with mobile touch interfaces. It sounds like a terrible idea in fact.
On the other hand, recall that Apple developed unique, sophisticated IP on top of the basic UI concepts originating at Xerox, and those were stolen wholesale by Apple's key software development partner, Microsoft. Much of the world now thinks that MS invented or co-invented much of what it actually ripped off from Apple in the early 80s, and then forced Apple to agree to license to the company in exchange for two years of Excel exclusivity in 1985.
Microsoft continued to steal Apple's IP, including direct theft of portions of QuickTime that MS, using Intel, included in Video for Windows.
So the REAL IRONY would be Apple spending millions to make multitouch usable in a mobile device, and then letting its competitors once again rip it off and claim ownership again.
"Fool me twice... can't get fooled again" or whatever.
Anything in Apple's patents that isn't a valid, unique invention will be thrown out by the courts, just as Apple threw out half of the burst.com patents.
It's also useful to remember that the media is now made up of lying whores who say what they think will get the most attention, rather than journalists who are reporting what is actually happening. There is good reason to believe that Apple will not sue Palm, but is rather wielding its patents defensively, just as it has with the iPod. Remember when Apple sued Creative out of business? Oh right, that didn't happen. It was Creative who sued Apple, which in turn used its patent portfolio to turn Creative into a partner.
Why Apple's Tim Cook Did Not Threaten Palm Pre
Agree with the posts about patents often being restrictive to innovation rather than promoting it. However, when thinking about how one could improve things, the route towards campaigning for patents as a whole being abandoned appears futile given the considerable commercial interests. Now, how about taking advantage of one of the pillars of the patent system, prior art. Imagine a website which would allow anyone to describe an idea at a high level and would certify the entry with a timestamp. This would presumably prevent anyone from being able to patent a similar idea in the future, but allow anyone from picking up the idea, implement it, and profit from it. Think of it as a 'open ideas' repository. Would that actually work? Has it been done? -if not, here's your chance, but you can't patent it ;-)
fair well Palm Pre, we hardly knew ye.
dreemkill.
two competing steam companies couldn't use each other's improvements
They could have licensed their improvements from each other. That way, both companies' products would be efficient, and at the same time, the company that came up with more/better improvements would receive greater financial reward, as it should. The idea of IP licensing probably was not as widespread in the 1800s as it is today; still, there was nothing stopping them from doing so.
suppose someone patented an affordable, powerful, stylish 100 mpg car (urban legend, I know). We'd have 20 more years of other car companies selling gas guzzlers because the one company sat on that patent.
If that company "sits on" the patent, as opposed to putting its 100 mpg car into production, it was probably never a viable product to begin with. (As is the case with many patented ideas that never go into production.)
Or suppose it was medicine -- you'd have people dying because they couldn't afford the prices of the main supplier, and their competitors couldn't use the formula.
Better that only rich people receive the drug for the first 20 years of its existence, than that the drug had never been developed at all due to insufficient incentives. It's not harsh to say that. It's compassionate. Think about it. If you want to make life-saving treatments more affordable for low-income people, by all means contribute to one of the existing charities that subsidize medical care for the poor. But please don't mess with the incentives that have spurred the development of myriad of remarkable life-saving treatments -- and might spur a treatment that will save your own life someday.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Heuristic simply means that your algorithm is not 100% correct. Top level human chess players use heuristics to play, they do not calculate all possibilities. Doing things by heuristics means guessing (and hopefully guessing right most of the time),
I wonder if this can be considered prior art for at least part of this patent (like the statement ' a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command'): http://www2.smarttech.com/kbdoc/190
Yeah, but isn't the real point that this isn't a valid patent?- that the USPTO doesn't really make that judgment very well?- that the patent has been awarded and when it shouldn't have been?