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Apple Denied Trademark For 'Multi-Touch'
suraj.sun sends this excerpt from MacRumors:
"In a decision handed down by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Apple has been denied an application for a trademark on Multi-Touch. ... For trademarks, 'the greater the degree of descriptiveness the term has, the heavier the burden to prove it has attained secondary meaning.' The trademark attorney pointed out that the term 'multitouch' has taken on generic meaning, being used by a wide variety of publications to describe the touchscreen technology on Android phones, tablets, and notebooks."
Paul Reubens already has the trademark on a secondary meaning for "multi-touch"
It's good to see a common sense result come out of the USPTO, I'm really hopeful that with additional funds gained from the recent patent bill the USPTO will be able to reach similarly sane conclusions when bad software patents are files too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
my catholic school had a priest with a trademark for something like that.
Should've been the iMultitouch. Then I could say things like... iMultiTouch you. Apple dirty....
Hurray!
the USPTO would start rejecting vague software patents instead of granting them to every patent-troll that asks for one, the world would be a better place...
-Keeps dreaming-
Considering a near three-decade long history of Multi touch RnD (starting with University of Toronto, followed by Bell Labs and Xerox, et al...) a patent awarded to apple would be quite a spit in the face of everyone who made the technology possible in the first place.
How could Apple try to trademark 'Multi-touch' with a straight face?
This is like Ford trying to trademark 'Four-wheel drive' or Sony trying to trade mark 'Entertainment Center'.
Blatantly trying to abuse the system like this should warrant a paddling.
This was not about patents (which Apple richly deserves to own). It was about a Trademark.
Correct, BUT.
It's the same general organization. All I am saying is, it's good to see a result come out of one part that is reasonable - and that hopefully the OTHER part will start to issue more reasonable verdicts also when they have enough money to do proper patent examination.
It's a ray of hope from a very large cloud that until now had been raining on us.
It has always seemed to me rather loose language to say something is "multitouch"
Yes, I didn't even know they were trying to trademark the term. it does seem overreaching, and as they said it's obviously a term in widespread use. If they had tried to trademark it many years back, they might have had a case... possibly. The term is awfully generic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It should be easy to come up with a less-descriptive name. They could call it "Squidly", "Octie", "Starfish", or "Tentacular", something that makes people think of multi-touch creatures.
Or they could do it like companies did in the mid 20th century, by deliberately misspelling parts of the name: "Multy-Tuuch", "Mani-Fyngers", or "Repeat-O-Poke". Or maybe something more 90's, like "Apple Bob". In the 2000's Apple did a great job marketing the iFixing of nouns, so they could use something like "iSteve" or "iMultitouch" or "iShocker" (rule 34 dictated I had to place that one in here.) They could stick with the Apple theme and call it something like a "Granny Smith" or "Honey Crisp".
Anyway, there are lots of names they could trademark. They just have to pick one.
John
Go and sob into you megamochawoppafrappylattes, you turtleneck wearing ponces.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Google Patent gave me 991 hits for "multitouch". The oldest was from 1972 and used as:
"In an example of practice of the invention, a foil electret for use in a multitouch selector was prepared from a 1 mil (25.4 micrometer) thin film of polyfluoroethylene-propylene plastic material, marketed commercially under the tradename TEFLON FEP, with a 1,000 A. metallic layer on one of its surfaces."
Sure sounds like people understood the concept of multitouch years before Apple was even founded.
While Apple may have been one of the first companies that implemented multi-touch, there is nothing novel about the concept. It was made possible by the invention of capacitive touch screens (which Apple had nothing to do with - Apple was simply one of the first companies to use a capacitive touch screen) and it was widely known that one of the advantages of capacitive touch screens over resistive touch screens was that capacitive touch screens were superior for multi-touch. Therefore, Apple patented the concept of using someone else's new technology for one of it's primary intended purposes.
Well, USPTO is getting smarter, but not smart enough. If you are really serious about reform, and you applaud USPTO's rejection of this term, you must also support revoking the Microsoft trademark on "Windows". Let's get on it Slashdot.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
From TFA:
Apple originally applied for the trademark on January 9, 2007, the day the iPhone was introduced.
...and I'm writing this post on a Thinkpad X60 tablet that was marketed as a "MultiTouch" model in 2006.
It's stunning that Apple would even ~try~ to trademark a term that other manufacturers were already using in mainstream marketing & press releases.
The Apple trademark lawyers in this instance were either very stupid, very lazy, or very self-interested. ;)
Sometimes when we touch, the feelings get to be too much.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How would Apple's patent on "Multi Touch" have benefited consumers?
the Patent office has absolutely nothing to do with trademark fanboy
Care to explain to the rest of the class what the "T" means in USPTO?
Go away small-minded Hater, important things are being discussed here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Americans would fund their government departments instead of asking them to be commercially indepedent so that instead of focussing on collecting as many fees as possible they can focus on quality.
But then, an American might have to pay TAXES! Boogaa boogaa! Cut funding to the bone and yet get bare bones service.
The USPTO is as good and as bad as Americans are allowing it to be through their votes for tax cuts.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Give the person who finds prior art , double the fee that the patent applicator paid for. If its ibm or the big wigs, charge them the 'cancellation' fee.
Or like RIAA, make the bogus patent fine, like 1000x the fee.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Judge: So Apple, what would you have as the penalty for those who infringe on this patent?
Apple: Worldwide ban on their products, and tying them down naked in a room full of randy goats.
Judge: Hey Apple, look, somebody did what you're trying to patent 10 years earlier, looks like a worldwide ban for you... bring in the goats!
Fake security is more important, and also they need to hire 50,000 deadbeat theives and sexual perverts who like to finger super models vaginas.
Oh did I say they steal ipads/iphones too.
Makes 1940s germany a very nice place indeed.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/search?e=multi+touch&t=weekly#
Apple?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
If you quietly glance out the corner of your eye, you might glimpse the most successful company in the nation floundering, losing its guts, for want of the vision of a charismatic individual.
OMG! The USPTO actually denied something? Maybe Apple should have tried patenting multi-touch "with a computer," seeing as that phrase is the secret pass code for getting a patent on otherwise unpatentable trivialities.
Just to be absolutely clear, for everyone who doesn't know, Apple's multi-touch technology was bought from a company called Fingerworks, which sold a multi-touch gesture keyboard a decade ago. I bought one then, and still have it. We all called that thing a multi-touch keyboard, and I'm not sure but if Fingerworks didn't trademark "multi-touch", then it seems to me that Apple officially missed the boat.
When Apple released the first mobile multi-touch device. And the trademark application is restricted to mobile applications.
However, it is so basically descriptive I can see denying it. I just hope the USPTO didn't factor in the use of the term today, after Apple already made it popular. That's basically ripping off Apple's work.
"Repeat-O-Poke"
Bill Clinton already owns that trademark, although Berlusconi is now suing him for the rights.
Have you heard the term tyrosine kinase inhibitor? Well people in cancer research know it. If some major cancer cures come out based on it .. it'll be a household term. Similarly people in the human interfaces business have been using the term multi-touch. Here is an example from 1999:
http://www.ee.udel.edu/~westerma/main.pdf
Multi-Touch devices have been around since Adam gave up a rib to have Eve
Umm.. it's a trademark, not a Patent. And don't bullshit yourself. Only one company used the word "multi-touch" before Apple did...Fingerworks. And apple bought them in 2005.
Apple created the universe that uses the name "multi-touch." i'm not saying the technology should inherantly be pattentable, but they do deserve this trademark. Microsoft had more than 10 years of tablet computing before Apple, and Palm and Sony and even Apple themselves, and no one ever referred to multiple input sensing as "multi-touch".
Since trademarks are about protecting punters from being confused by similar but confusing branding, there does need to be something distinctive about Apple's "multitouch" that would make someone buy a "multi-touch device", thinking it was Apple when, in fact, it was, say Motorola.
If there's nothing to get confused about, then there's nothing to trademark.
PS isn't it a little two-faced for Apple Computers who used a logo *confusingly similar* to that of Apple Records, agrees to restrict themselves to computers so that their trademarks don't clash, then moves into the music label business and now is claiming trademark on everything that anyone else is doing?
The USPTO described how the term has taken on generic meaning, specifically mentioning its use on Android phones and tablets. My problem is that they all started using this term well after Apple applied for the trademark.
The USPTO's two-year wait before official decision itself may have allowed the term to become generic. Had it been awarded within a year, Apple would have had a trademark to defend before Android was even released.
That's not to mean other reasons for denial are invalid, but this one does stink.
That's easy. The software deals in a perfect world, where the universe is precisely defined. Your analogue circuit has to deal with electrical interference, the cost of manufacture, the speed of the device. The software one has zero cost of manufacture and you just get a faster computer to speed it up.
But someone who works out how to fit the circuit on 10% less real estate will have something valuable and patentable: the builders using this will save costs. Someone who works out how to eke out a smaller signal path and make it work faster will have a valuable and patentable improvement: the builders using this will have a faster product.
Hardware has to be built. Shaving costs on manufacture is a patentable improvement.
Buying a faster CPU isn't a patentable improvement.
and they shall burn in hell for shunning apple
Even easier solution: If the patent examiner can't conclude it, the patent or trademark is refused.
If the patent examiner can't understand it (they ought to be at least normally skilled in the art), then the patent is unclear and therefore invalid.
If the patent examiner understands it, then they can make a call as to whether it's specific to the implementation of the solution, as opposed to a rewording of the problem, in which case it isn't patentable, and they can make the call as to whether it is obvious to one skilled in the art.
And if the patent examiner is overwhelmed by work, they won't have time to understand the patent and it gets blocked.
somone get on MultiPass
And don't bullshit yourself. Only one company used the word "multi-touch" before Apple did...Fingerworks. And apple bought them in 2005.
Such absolute bullshit. Not to mention all of panasonic's multitouch whiteboard products.
No-Touch and One-Touch are current trademarks for devices that operate with no touch or one touch.
Pretty hilarious, this intellectual property stuff, huh?
I think it is actually NoTouch and OneTouch. Neither "no" nor "one" is a generally accepted prefix to a word, so those two words are nonsensical unless they are a product name. You could still advertise your product as "backup with just one touch" and be okay, whereas if you said "backup with OneTouch", you'd be in trouble.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No Touch, One Touch and Multi-Touch are descriptive.
Notouch, onetouch, no touch, one touch, no-touch, and one-touch are all active trademarks.
"Uni-Touch" and "unitouch" were also active trademarks (since abandoned). "Duo-touch" is an active trademark, as are "micro-touch" and "autotouch." Uni, duo, micro and auto are generally accepted word prefixes.
"Manipulate your screen using multiple touches" vs. "Manipulate your screen using Multi-Touch®"
Copyright and patent can be general. If you're first to invent (or, now, file) or first to write, you get it.
Trademark, not being based on constitutional authorization, is a lot more squirrely. It's about consumer protection, it's just business trade law, and it is extremely dependent on the individual case, that specific use and the market.
I haven't been able to read the whole rejection notice yet, so I don't know any specific reasons for the rejection. I'm just saying that in general "multi-touch" can't be rejected just for being descriptive.
I also don't think decision of it being generic should count the time after Apple applied for the trademark. Imagine a term wasn't in popular use for the specifc market you're in. You decide to use it with a product you release, and simultaneously apply for a trademark. Two years later, due to your product being successful, the term is in common use in your market, so the USPTO rejects your application.
That is total BS. By this logic, no highly popular product or feature could ever be trademarked.