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Apple Awarded Patent For iPhone Interface

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-touch-that dept.

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?"

11 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Waiting.. by adonoman · · Score: 5, Informative

    It means 20 years of waiting for the patent to expire before this kind of interface can be advanced at all.

    1. Re:Waiting.. by Corpuscavernosa · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dude it's only EIGHTEEN years (20 years from the filing date). See, doncha feel better now?

      --
      We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
    2. Re:Waiting.. by Fallen+Seraph · · Score: 5, Informative

      Right, because Apple's been well-known lately to rest on its laurels.

      Yeah! Apple's multi-touch tablet notebook is totally the best thing on the market!
      What's that? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm being told that they don't even have so much as a traditional tablet with a digitizer, let alone one with multi-touch.

      Here's what you're not getting: From the looks of it, this patent basically gives them exclusive rights to a multi-touch gesture system. Now I ask you, how exactly are you going to make an alternative UI for a touch screen that does not use gestures? Or even different kinds of gestures for that matter. Gestures work because of innate instincts and preconceptions about the physical world, as well as our own assumptions. The law cannot change what works and what doesn't as a gesture. Do you really want to have, let's say 3 multi-touch devices, each of which are forced to use 3 different gestures for the same damn action just because they're from different companies?

      In theory, patents are great, but in reality, they've never really worked the way they were supposed to. In the beginning, it was almost impossible to enforce a patent (see Evan's Mill, or the Cotton Gin), and now, it's too easy to do so. 20 years is a long damn time, and the end result is either going to be companies completely ignoring the patent, or Apple setting back any significant developments with this particular technology by DECADES. Think about it, decades.

      You might not realize this, but multi-touch has been around since the early 80s, and one of the reasons no one's cared is because of the patent on it. The reality is that the person/group who invents an innovation is not always the person/group that can best bring it to market, or make the most out of it technologically. 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. Now imagine for a moment that it was the other way around. A small company named Fingerworks wants to build the iPhone in the mid-00's, but can't because a giant company, Apple, holds the patent, but it kind of floundering in its use. Yeah, that's totally spurring innovation right there.


      To be honest, I hope that Apple's just doing this to collect royalties.

    3. Re:Waiting.. by Kalriath · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just as an example: I'll bet Apple patented the magnetic cord of the MacBook

      US patent application number 11/876,733 filed October 22 2007.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    4. Re:Waiting.. by Kalriath · · Score: 3, Informative

      If it helps any, Apple has also patented the Amazon Mechanical Turk (11/729,170), Interactive Blu Ray discs (11/940,297), eCommerce shopping carts (11/898,337), anything which happens to be double shot injection molded (11/782,175), AMD PowerNow technology (11/715,092), Greeting cards with gift cards in them (11/601,292), Microsoft PlaysForSure DRM (11/550,701), ALL Heatsinks (with IBM - 11/344,657), USB battery charging (11/216,321), doing stuff in response to events (11/877,618) and Citrix MetaFrame and every other network bootable OS (10/763,581).

      Usually I like to think that patents do serve a useful purpose. Unfortunately I can no longer hold that opinion after seeing that Apple has patented (or applied to patent) at least seven other companies' products.

      I'd hardly call that innovation. (Even if I did have to oversimplify some of those a bit, it can't be argued that Apple is applying for patents on absolutely obvious crap).

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  2. Consequences for competitors? by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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):

    We approach this business as a software platform business. We are watching the landscape. We like competition as long as they don't rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does.

    and

    I don't want to talk about any specific company. We are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off.

    --
    There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    1. Re:Consequences for competitors? by dangitman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, but not everybody thinks that the concept of Intellectual Property is inherently evil.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
  3. Re:Prior art? by StreetStealth · · Score: 3, Informative

    This could get really ugly really quick.

    Palm has essentially been wielding the nuclear stick of patent-MAD with its most recent response to Apple patent saber rattling.

    Of course, perhaps a patent armageddon is just about due right now.

    --
    Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
  4. Prior Art: Jeff Han's multitouch display at TED by Paul+Bristow · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  5. Re:Basic touch screen plus Firefox mouse gestures? by onecheapgeek · · Score: 3, Informative

    That certainly does seem to cover exactly what Apple has patented here, especially the heuristics used in zooming. Nice catch.

  6. Also: check out this guy's web page... by gundersd · · Score: 3, Informative

    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*