Slashdot Mirror
Apple Granted Patent For Slide To Unlock
generalhavok writes "The United States Patent & Trademark Office has approved Apple's patent on the slide to unlock gesture used on iOS devices. Interestingly, this patent was earlier dismissed in Europe due to prior art. With many Android phones using a similar slide gesture, it will be interesting to see how this new patent will affect the patent wars between Apple and Android vendors."
I think a more likely outcome is something like the patent pool that was forced into place by the US government around the 1920s to avoid a situation where, basically, no company could build a plane without infringing another company's patents. Otherwise, sooner or later, Android will be in trouble, but so will Apple and all other US companies.
Virtually serving coffee
Speaking as an American who lives abroad and works in Europe... this is how it has been working already for some time. The company I work for sells a software product globally. The version shipped into the US market was up until recently crippled to avoid infringing a ridiculous US patent that was granted in the mid-90's and just recently expired. Now we can finally ship a full featured product to the US.
It's utterly amazing that the patent system in the US is still this bad. Where is the reform we keep hearing about?
I know what you mean but you have it backward. Ford was trolled by the Apples of his day (the low volume high cost carmakers) who claimed to have patented everything from the wheel up. He had to spend years and a lot of money fighting them. He won, and the car was democratised. Whatever his faults, Henry Ford ought to have some special place as a Slashdot hero, because in a sense he "open sourced" the motor car.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
It's less amazing when you recognise America's history of protectionism when it comes to this type of thing.
I guarantee if someone like HTC or Samsung had gone for the same patent they would not have been granted it.
"Great American Companies" (tm) have a massive advantage of widespread patriotic bias on their home turf in the courts and at the patent office.
Agreed. Here's more. Did the patent office not look very hard for prior art? I only had to look for about two seconds:
http://www.toolzone.com/acatalog/info_DW1363.html
There it is: a slide-to-unlock mechanism, already implemented, on a handheld device even, available for many decades.
The problem with the patent system is not the theory but rather the implementation we have in this country. Patents are theoretically okay, but they are actually bad. Apparently prior art like I have quoted here, and which is widely available, I'm sure, in many other products, doesn't count -- and that's a problem. It SHOULD count.