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What the Mobile Patent Fight Is All About

Posted by timothy on from the want-to-touch-you-here-and-here-and-here dept.

GMGruman writes "Nokia, Apple, and HTC are all suing each other over mobile patents. Google and Microsoft are also in the game. InfoWorld's Paul Krill explains what the fight is all about: control over multitouch, the technology that enables gesture interfaces on iPads, iPhones, and other smartphones. And he explains the chances that the companies will settle their dispute as they jockey for advantage, why Apple has been playing hardball, and why competitors are fighting back just as hard."

12 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. To promote the USEFUL arts by Shihar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The point of patent law is to "promote the useful arts". In other words, better humankind. The way this is done is by granting a temporary monopoly to an inventor for the singular purpose of encouraging more inventions. This bullshit has nothing to do with that. Apple has an utterly bullshit patent that any idiot who has watched any sci-fi in the past half century has seen before. "Multi touch" is not some breath taking innovation. It is a "not shit" next step for touch based devices (which are also "no shit" inventions). Frankly, this just brings to the forefront the glaring flaws in our patent system. The idea that you could patent a broadly defined (and obvious) method of interacting with a device is absurd. Idea should actually have to be novel and non-obvious. When large companies are slinging patents at each other not to protect sunk R&D costs, but just to trip up their competitors in court, you know that this entire system is fucked.

    1. Re:To promote the USEFUL arts by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

      control+alt+delete is a classic multitouch gesture.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    2. Re:To promote the USEFUL arts by Eskarel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There is a slight difference between an idea being new and the implementation being new.

      Just because Star Trek has used it for years wouldn't make the invention of a real transporter any less patentable, knowing that a transporter would be cool isn't the same thing as knowing how to do it.

    3. Re:To promote the USEFUL arts by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Right, but the thing is that, although that's what the patent is supposed to be for, in fact the way they set it up Apple is claiming patents on multi-touch per-se. This is inherent in the idea of patents on ideas (software / business methods / mathematics). It's very difficult to define good legal boundaries which don't have stupid implictions. For example, software patent advocates actually often claim not to be advocates for software patents. They just care about transformations of matter. Including the change in the output of your screen caused by their software! In other words, the boundary which is supposed to limit software to where it's used as part of a machine process instead becomes a tool in manipulating the debate.

      I think the only logical end is a fairly hardline freedom of speech position. Patents, copyrights and trademarks should only be allowed where they demonstrably increase freedom of expression. With trademarks this is easy; if I don't have a proper name for a company which reliably means that company then it's difficult to discuss that company. For copyright, that's quite easy to show, as long as terms are short and DRM (of copyrighted material) is illegal. For normal physical patents, that's likely true as long as the development in the field of interest normally takes place over a term at least a few times as long as the term of the patent. For patents on abstract process that's never going to be true.

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      =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
    4. Re:To promote the USEFUL arts by Arker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Patent law has become completely perverted and is no longer even vaguely related to its constitutional form.

      I remember in school I was taught that a patent had to lay out information so that you could sit down and read it and learn exactly how to do something new and useful and entirely non-obvious. In return for teaching everyone how to do this, the patent holder got a short term monopoly. Even that system was subject to considerable doubt as to whether the cost was worth it, as the normal thing with inventions was that there were several inventors who hit on the same thing very nearly simultaneously. But at least it made some sense.

      Read a patent lately? They usually dont describe anything new or useful, and even when they do, they certainly dont do so in a way that would actually impart the necessary information to do it yourself. The old patent system may have been a bad trade in most or all cases, but it was a trade - now there is no trade at all. Just a pile of impenetrable gibberish filed to get a monopoly.

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      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    5. Re:To promote the USEFUL arts by Wildclaw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The way this is done is by granting a temporary monopoly to an inventor for the singular purpose of encouraging more inventions.

      And yet, over and over again, people seem to come up with very similar inventions independently. It is almost like inventions happen because the right prerequisites are there, and not because of some monetary incentive.

    6. Re:To promote the USEFUL arts by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

      any idiot who has watched any sci-fi

      Sigh. No need to bring that in to it and gloss over the real people involced. HCI researchers have been researching multitouch since the early 80s, or even before.
      http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

      They did all the real hard grunt work making it actually work. Now a bunch of companies want to swoop in and claim the inventions as their own simply because they want to market it.

      For what it's worth, I do not think that pinch zoom obvious. In 1984. When it was invented. By now, since multitouch is so old, to anyone versed in the HCI world, yeah, this stuff is a mix of pretty obvious and been done before.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. HTC havent actually sued Apple by mjwx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They've made a complaint to the FTC.

    Apple is suing because it's being eclipsed by it's competitors.

    Nokia is suing because it got sick of asking Apple nicely to pay for the patents they were using.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  3. If anyone owns the patents... by lowlymarine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...shouldn't it be Synaptics? Their touchpads have been multitouch-capable since Apple was still using PowerPC chips and the iPhone was just some obscure Cisco product.

    1. Re:If anyone owns the patents... by mjwx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...shouldn't it be Synaptics? Their touchpads have been multitouch-capable since Apple was still using PowerPC chips and the iPhone was just some obscure Cisco product.

      This is what makes it so insidious and wrong. Apple don't have the hardware patents, they have software patents on certain processes (using two fingers to manipulate page size and so forth). Synaptic, IBM, 3M and a few others have the hardware patents so all Android phones with capacitive touch screens are capable of multi-touch in the hardware but it's not implemented in the OS precisely because the screen manufacturers bought the patent rights from Synaptics and so forth but Apple will not license the software patents to an OSS project.

      Despite my usual disposition, this is not a rant against Apple specifically but the general uselessness of software patents and their tendency to inhibit innovation and competition. Although Apple, as a main contributor to software patents is far from innocent but they are the symptom, software patents are the disease.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  4. Re:Useless shit by DMiax · · Score: 5, Informative

    If multitouch sensors were that easy to create, don't you think we'd have had them in 1980, along with all the craze over touch screens way back when?

    We did. Sorry if I don't read the rest of the post.

  5. Re:Useless shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    How fucking hard is it to just look it up?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitouch#History