Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

8 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. There should be some penalties... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:There should be some penalties... by samkass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's not as preposterous as it seems, especially considering how long these application processes can take. Before the iPhone, almost no one used the term "multi-touch". Here's Google's trending on the term. [google.com] Note that the iPhone was released in 2007. As the USPTO rightly points out, it is more descriptive than distinctive and has rapidly become a common phrase, so they rightly denied the trademark. But it probably didn't seem as preposterous when the request was originally made.

      --
      E pluribus unum
    2. Re:There should be some penalties... by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apple bought it from Fingerworks, who based their innovations on the work of Wayne Westerman's doctoral research, his dissertation explicitly references Bill Buxton's work, including this paper where Buxton uses the term Multi-Touch ...

      This would seem to be a case of this is the common term used in the field, and so not a trademarkable word

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    3. Re:There should be some penalties... by NitroWolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Because they invented it, remember (you know, the multiple fingers thing... pinch to zoom, etc)? And the term "Multi-Touch" was never used before January 2007 (ever by anyone) when it was first revealed.

      Wow, really? Synaptics might have a few things to say about that, since I was using their products and experimenting with multiple touchs on their touchpads in 2003, a full 4 years before it was even a gleam in Apples eye. If I were Synaptics, I'd be suing the shit out of Apple for patent infringement... even though a touch pad and a smart phone are two different things, Apple can sue Samsung for making their tablet, you know.. rectangular! Why not sue Apple for making their phone rectangular, just like a touch pad!

  2. Google Patent lists "multitouch" since 1972... by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. Next Up, Revoke Their Multi-Touch Patents by organgtool · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:Now if only... by gman003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You know, there's a very simple solution to that:

    Allow people to file amicus curiae-style briefs on any pending patent. Bored Slashdot posters alone would be filing "examples of prior art" for pretty much everything.

  5. Re:"Windows" ... but not "Multi-Touch" ? by exomondo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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".

    Is it really still not obvious to some people why Windows is a valid trademark? Same as Apple? Yes they are generic words but they aren't generic words describing the entity/product. Windows (the Microsoft trademarked name) is not a windows, it is an Operating System. Apple (the Apple Inc. trademarked name) is not an apple, it is a Company. MultiTouch would be just describing the invention multitouch, just as App Store is just describing an application (or commonly termed 'app') store.