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Scary Smartphone Motion Control Patent Granted
An anonymous reader writes "On March 16th, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a very broad patent on motion control in computing devices, one that seems to cover any smartphone that uses a built-in accelerometer. It was filed in July 2006 and preceded by a nearly identical patent granted in 2004 after a 2001 application. So it predates many of today's popular smartphones — the iPhone, the DROID, the Nexus One, etc. What will happen if the company that owns the patent asserts it?"
Here's how you hack a patent. From claim 1:
As long as the iPhone or Android do not use one threshold and are more generic than detecting reverse direction, they do not infringe on that patent. Whoever wrote that claim made it way too specific, and easy to work around it.
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co-founders wanted.
Inertial navigation systems use accelerometers as input to a computer for controlling its output (Navigation readings, autopilots, etc), and have been used in (civilian and military) aviation for decades. Doesn't that negate this patent as prior art? Or can you now patent the application of an idea to a market? Or am I misunderstanding how vague this patent is?
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
I had a pedometer in the 90s that used motion to record events, each motion event would trigger an update on the display, it was hand held when reading the display, and it was a computing device that would calculate distance traveled (not to mention history). Sounds like it covers just about every aspect of that patent.
When I first read the headline, I was expecting to read about a new phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard wherein the slide-out mechanism moves in a manner akin to Lovecraftian abominations, defying our understanding of the laws of physics and driving people irrevocably mad from the revelations, all while trying to text their friends.
But disappointingly, it's the PATENT that's scary, not the smartphone motion. Ah, well. I'll just have to find some other way to get those dang texting kids off my lawn.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
How so? It's more likely that Apple & Co will just pay that company.
Especially if that company doesn't make a single thing (except lawsuits), and thus infringes on zero patents.
How's that for patents encouraging innovation...
Got to wonder how aggressively the people like Analog Devices, Honeywell, Motorola (Freescale) will do to invalidate this patent, since they own the manufacturing process. I sincerely hope they look not just to invalidate this patent, but all other patents "owned" by these applicants as payback. What the [Obscene Gerund] were the Patent Office reviewers thinking?
"What will happen if the company that owns the patent asserts it?"
Easy answer. Negotiations will start.
Patent lawyers will sit down and debate the issues.
They will either agree and buy or license the patent or litigate and then win or pay a license fee.
Happens all the time.
I'm curious how this is legitimately patentable. I can understand patenting an accelerometer, and even understand patenting the software techniques for motion sensing (even if I disagree with software patents), but how exactly do you take two technologies that already exist, tie them together in an ever so slightly different way, and call it patentable? The only difference between this and something like the WiiMote is that the input from the WiiMote's accelerometer is transmitted wirelessly to the console base station. How does putting the CPU in the WiiMote itself, connecting the accelerometers with a wire instead of a signal, and allowing it to make phone calls somehow make it original enough to warrant patent protection?
It's like would be like patenting sticking a compass in a car and connecting the needle to the GPS system so the car can determine orientation. When no one had done it, it was new, but it wasn't exactly novel; no one had done it because there was no GPS to connect to. Similarly, motion sensing has existed for quite a while, but no one connected it to a smartphone because:
Patenting the techniques used to miniaturize it and make it battery efficient would make sense, but patenting the mere combination of technologies seems ludicrous.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
I don't understand why when one person invents the wheel, someone else can 'invent' rolling it. Isn't rolling the wheel inherent to the invention of the wheel?
the iPhone, the DROID, the Nexus One
You said popular! Try Nokia and Samsung. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
From the patent application:
First: Note the question mark in the subject of this post. Then read the following;
Inventors: Uhlik; Christopher R. (Danville, CA), Orchard; John T. (Palo Alto, CA)
Appl. No.: 11/497,567
Filed: July 31, 2006
http://home.pacbell.net/cuhlik/cu_resume.html
Dr. Chris Uhlik
7/2002 to present, Engineering Director -- Google, Inc. Mountain View, CA
http://www.spoke.com/info/p2WHRbr/JohnOrchard
John Orchard, Dir Engineering, Vyyo Inc.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
At http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&asned=DURHAM%20LOGISTICS,%20LLC we find that all twelve of Durham Logistics' patent assignments were from smart antenna maker ArrayComm (remember Martin Cooper)? Further, they were all assigned on the same day. I haven't checked them all yet, but one of the assignment applications was on August 31, 2006. Wonder what was happening around then? Oh yeah, ArrayComm was teaming with KT for a Korean WiBro network.http://www.mobilehandsetdesignline.com/192200181;jsessionid=PVVYX1VQ5EXXGQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?printableArticle=true Think those patents might be under Samsung's control now? Anyhow, they were clearly intended for applications in signalling, not user interface.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.