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Apple Denied Trademark For 'Multi-Touch'

Posted by Soulskill on from the have-to-settle-for-imultitouch dept.

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."

7 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Good News by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Good News by cgenman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What does MultiTouch as a trademark even mean? Apple doesn't sell "MultiTouch" phones, they sell iPhones. And sure, those iPhones are Multi-Touch iPhones, but they're also BatteryBased, can connect to WiFi, and HaveColor. They don't even make the screens themselves.

      It's not like they're trying to trademark a business mark they're going to engage in trade under. It's a mark for, essentially, an advertising branding of a component they didn't even make. That's like Microsoft trademarking the START Menu. Or me trademarking ImWearingPants.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
  2. Thankfully by dimethylxanthine · · Score: 0, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Now if only... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that it's relatively easy to conclude that a trademark is descriptive. It's relatively hard, unless you are an expert in a very narrow field, to cut through the B.S. of a typical patent, figure out what it is really supposed to cover, and realize that IBM already did it back in 1963.

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    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  4. Re:There should be some penalties... by E.I.A · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "How could Apple try to trademark 'Multi-touch' with a straight face?" They can't; that's why they do it with a flagrantly crooked one. Regarding penalties, I simply won't touch a Mac, or any Mac product. Especially after they fussed with that patent to remotely disable video on "smart" phones.

    --
    Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
  5. Re:Now if only... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The obvious solution to software patent is to simply not allow them. That requires no expertise in a narrow field, it simply requires that if it is not a mechanical or physical invention, you can't patent it, so applicants can fuck off.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  6. Re:Now if only... by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately, 99.9% of that "prior art" wouldn't actually fit the patent claims, and would be more along the lines of "art that does a similar job differently, and probably happened before the patent". The remaining 0.1% would be mostly things already included in the patent as prior art, but the submitter didn't bother to check that.

    Any time someone suggests letting the public handle anything important directly, I think of 4chan.

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.