Apple Patents Using Apps During Calls

bizwriter writes "Apple has had quite a week in patents for the iPhone, and it's only Tuesday. First was the victory at the International Trade Commission over HTC. And now there's a shiny new patent on switching to an app during a live phone call (#8,082,523). There may be non-infringing ways of doing something similar, but they probably will be clumsy in comparison."

Comments

Prior art

[Lexx Greatrex]

The IBM Simon was a touch screen smartphone with features identical to those claimed in this patent. It was first announced in 1992. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon

Re:Prior art

[Fjandr]

That's far older than the other obvious prior art: BlackBerry.

Re:Prior art

[Fjandr]

Addendum to my previous comment:

Ah, the filing date does precede the BlackBerry when used with a touchscreen. So, since the method of selecting the app is the only difference, someone needs to file a patent on a method of switching to an app via spoken word, wireless neural net, holographic interface, etc.

A patent being differentiated by flipping a switch with your finger versus flipping the switch with a stick is not a significant enough difference to warrant a patent. The USPTO needs to be burned to the ground, the ground salted, and the patent reviewers driven underground to live forevermore as the troglodytes they really are*.

*Hyperbole.

Re:Prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time all these stupid patents were dismissed.

Can you imagine what the car would be like if they had all these stupid patents in place. You can't use wheels, can't use steering wheel, can't even as much as use a wind shield, and the stupid list would go on. Maybe a triangular shape that cannot take passengers springs to mind.

The dumb assess should be thrown out, prior art or whatever. Bunch of losers.

Re:Prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the prior art clause died a month or two ago. Legislation was signed that turned the whole thing into a "first to file" system. I hope I'm waaaaaaay off base.

You are. Prior art is just as relevant as before w/r/t novelty, first-to-file only affects the case where multiple entities apply for patents on the same valid (i.e. novel, non-obvious, etc. invention.

I could explain at more length, as I did to the two people I've previously corrected on this, but it's getting old. How long till we can have one article about patents without this silly misconception coming up?

Re:Prior art

[NewWorldDan]

It's called multitasking. Electronic devices have been doing this since the 1960s. There is absolutely nothing special here. I've been making VoIP calls on my computer since the mid 90s. Guess what? I could switch to another program without breaking the call. The fact that this all fits in my pocket now is nothing special. Oh, but this takes input from a touchscreen. I guess that's different and no one else is making those.

Re:Prior art

[icebraining]

Prior art didn't disappear with first to file. Just secret prior art. Any product or published document still counts to invalidate a patent.

Re:Prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Aye, been using that on my blackberry for years.... hit back, switch app and boom - still talking and using an app

Re:Prior art

[russotto]

I'm sure there's a particular detail that means that it is not valid as prior art. Of course, the other way around, Apple's patent will in fact cover that device and any other device. Especially Android ones.

Right. Prior art is interpreted narrowly; any minor difference is enough to invalidate it. Claims, on the other hand, are interpreted broadly; any way of shoehorning the proposed infringing device into the scope of the patent claim is accepted. So it's easy to get a patent that covers things done in exactly the same way as the prior art.

Re:Prior art

[EdIII]

I was about to say that.

On a call I can press the back button and it will ask me if I want to "Continue Call and exit to the home screen". I can run any app I want from that point all with the icons.

Been using it for years now to get phone numbers for people, or look at some email, etc.

For the record, this patent was filed on January 6, 2008.

I know that the Pearl and Curve were released to market well before that date and had the same functionality from what I recall. I can't link to a manual or anything, but I distinctly remember being able to access other applications and data very easily while on the phone.

Re:Prior art

[icebike]

Actually you could do this on the old Razr moto phones from the feature phone era.

I suspect Apple is hanging their hat on the phrase "portable electronic device with a touch screen display", believing that doing what had been done all along somehow becomes new and patent-able simply because you added a touch screen into the mix.

I think this gets tossed the first time they try to enforce it.

Re:Prior art

[gman003]

Because death would be too good for them. *

(* still hyperbole)

Re:Prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

That's far older than the other obvious prior art: BlackBerry.

You misspelled Palm.

Re:Prior art

[Zero_DgZ]

I'm sure there's a lot more prior art even than that. My N900 can do this via the touchscreen. You can also switch apps any time when anything else is going on by pressing ctrl + backspace, which even breaks you out of things that are "supposed" to be full screen only. It doesn't predate the release of the original iPhone, but I think its release and certainly its development predates the filing of this patent.

Harken back to the dark days of the original Windows CE/PocketPC based smartphones, many of which had touchscreens (like the PPC version of the Treo) and all of which supported multitasking and had nothing preventing you from tapping Start and going on your merry way to do something else while in a call.

Even my old Samsung R450 let you do limited stuff while in a call, like get at your address book, notes, and calculator.

Re:Prior art

[niftydude]

The original iphones couldn't multitask - even though every other crappy windows mobile touchscreen smartphone of the time could.

I remember at the time Apple was criticised for bringing multitasking into iphones so late in the game.

Now they've added multitasking in, years after everyone else, and they're claiming the patent????

Re:Prior art

[Lexx Greatrex]

No where on that page does it say you can take a phone call, and switch to one of the other apps will still on the call.

From page 34 of the user guide for instance: "You can get to the Mobile Office screen from any screen by touching [icon]" There is no restriction prohibiting this function from the In-Call screen.

User guide (PDF) http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/a/pdf/Simon%20User%20Manuals.pdf

Interestingly the user guide page 20 states: "The ln-Call screen will appear as the Phone feature places the call. For example, this can be useful if someone sends you a phone number in an electronic mail message. Just mark it and dial." Which is also clearly prior art in relation to the Apple lawsuit against HTC.

Re:Prior art

[rtb61]

Apple of course have become the masters of patent first, searching existing product features, checking to see if they are patented, if they are not patented, they immediately patent them.

Apple seems destined to become the number mega patent troll as their range of fad products die off. They are getting uglier and uglier as each day passes.

Re:Prior art

[Kenja]

My old Dauphin 486sx 25mhz tablet computer running Windows 3.1 for Pens was a "portable electronic device with a touch screen".

Re:Prior art

[perryizgr8]

and symbian.

Re:Prior art

[TRRosen]

The iPhone always multitasked. It just wasn't available for third party apps. This patent predates the release of the iPhone and is not about multitasking at all but the specific interface Apple used to make the switch.

Re:Prior art

[IAmGarethAdams]

You do realise that the patent is for a *method* of switching to apps during a phone call, not the *concept* of switching to apps during a phone call? Since the iPhone doesn't have a Ctrl or a Backspace key, that's probably not the method they're patenting

Re:Prior art

[andydread]

I read the patent. No method is elaborated.

Re:Prior art

[BasilBrush]

Apple seems destined to become the number mega patent troll as their range of fad products die off.

Apple - beleaguered company with fad products dying off since 1976. Somehow managing to make it from a garage to the biggest market cap in the world in the process.

Getting sillier by the day.

[Computershack]

This is just getting stupid beyond the point of belief. Next they'll be trying to patent using a battery to power the phone.

What they don't realise though is that shit like this puts people off. Certainly my 3 year old MBP is about ready for replacement whilst it still has some resale value and I am seriously considering whether to give my money to these asshats. Plenty of corporate grade laptops with the same quality for the same money and I'm as happy running Linux as I am OS X.

Doubtful

[SuperKendall]

Do the other applications on that phone change appearance when a phone call is in progress? It would seem not.

What the patent really is going after is the header during a phone call that says "touch to return to call" when you are in applications. I actually think working around this would be pretty easy for any Android device that had software buttons, because you could put the call indicator/return button there... they key is just modifying the UI of the running app during a phone call.

However, even though you can work around it it's still a stupid patent to have granted... The only problem is all of the big companies have such troves of patents now that will any of them be willing to give up the power a majority of the patents currently hold?

Re:Doubtful

[scot4875]

Do the other applications on that phone change appearance when a phone call is in progress? It would seem not.

But even if those phones' applications don't, Android phones' do. Not only does the notification area show the state of the phone call, but the individual applications can query the state of the phone and update their interface if they want. Most don't, because it's generally an unnecessary and barely used feature anyway.

--Jeremy

How do I patent?????

[axlr8or]

Taking a shit while using a phone? I wanna do that. You know, maybe if we just spread a little butter on these people, they will eat each other and their children. Sounds good to me.

Re:Who the heck (what 1 million monkeys)

[jd]

The USPO doesn't review patents. It makes them available in case anyone wants to complain (there's a year window for that) but they leave it up to the courts to handle the legality of patents. The problem is, the courts defer to the USPO and assumes they've handled the legality of patents. If someone actually took responsibility for patents, there probably wouldn't be the current mess.

Are you sure about that?

[Shakrai]

What they don't realise though is that shit like this puts people off.

Who does this "put off" other than techno-geeks that read sites like /.? I don't think the average consumer is taking Apple's heavy-handed patent tactics into account when they are picking out their next smartphone. This is a win-win for Apple; they make it cumbersome for their competitors to have basic functionality on their devices and can use said cumbersomeness to argue that their products are more consumer friendly. Meanwhile nobody outside of communities like this one cares about the tactics they are using. Heck, even within this community we've got our share of apologists for Apple/Google/Microsoft/other-boogieman-of-the-day.

In the long term this argues in favor of patent reform. That will be an uphill battle though; most policymakers are woefully ignorant about this issue and even the ones who are well informed don't find it a sexy enough issue to spend political capital on. One can only hope this issue becomes more mainstream as the court system bogs down under the load of nonsense patent litigation.

Palm Treo is calling from 2002...

[James McP]

For the love of god, who is doing prior art searches? Drunken tweeners who don't know how to use Google?!?

Re:"Clumsy"

[camperdave]

See? Ideas are a dime a dozen! Wish I had the wherewithal to patent this... that's why I'm a poor, starving AC.

I used to be a poor, starving AC like yourself. Then, I got a Slashdot account for free! Now I'm a poor, starving Slashdot account holder!

PLEASE APPLE PATENT MORE!

[bussdriver]

I want this cold-war style phone war to end in everybody getting sued into oblivion! Maybe the crooks in government will fix the patent system when their kids can't buy a new smart phone anymore.

Economics of the Patent Office

[Scowler]

Our US Patent Office is economically incentivized to approve patent applications, regardless of their merits. If a patent review officer approves a patent application, that means revenue rolling into the institution as the patent is granted and registered. If the patent application is denied, that means outgoing $ as the applicant may litigate the matter and/or appeal.

If our "forward"-thinking Congress really wants to do something about patent reform, they should change the economic model of our patent office, such that the funding of the office is neutral in regards to whether patent applications are approved or denied.

Re:Economics of the Patent Office

[Scowler]

Just to follow up, a few ideas that I wish Congress would consider...

#1 Force more patent application appeals into arbitration, and away from the court system. Make the applicant pay for the cost of the arbitrator.

#2 Change the accounting model. Proceeds from granted patent applications should NOT count as revenue towards the patent office and its continued operations, but should directly go into the US treasury.

#3 Provide a formal process for taking into account newly found prior art for patents already granted, including an arbitration process that has the power to revoke such patent. The arbitrator should show some deference to the granted patent, of course, and the cost of such a process should fall squarely on whichever entity is trying to get the patent erased from existence. This would, however, provide us all a way to quantify how well all the attorneys and lawyers involved in a patent application are doing: how many times have they had a patent revoked due to lazy research and missing prior art?

Re:Economics of the Patent Office

[Nethemas the Great]

How about changes the duration of patents from 20 years to 2 years. When these damn things stop looking like assets on a balance sheet companies will move on to other forms of mischief and we can get on with the job of innovation.

Re:Economics of the Patent Office

[green1]

To be perfectly honest, I'd abolish them altogether. I honestly do not believe they are necessary for innovation. I believe that people will still make the "better mousetrap" without being able to patent it simply so that they can make money selling it. First to market is often worth a lot.

As for the benefit of documenting your invention in the patent for when it becomes public domain, that pretty much vanished years ago anyway, and even if not, reverse engineering is often more reliable than reading the patent document anyway.

Slightly Sensational

[Voltage Spike]

This patent covers two items that I am not familiar with today.

1) The application list is displayed alongside the call controls so that you have immediate access to call functions while browsing applications.

2) Applications become call-aware and offer a button to change back to the "phone application" somewhere in the interface.

Android doesn't implement these features, and they are not entirely desirable anyway. I'd much rather have a single interface to accessing applications (hit the home button and then use the shortcut I'm familiar with), and I prefer to have a link to the phone call in the notifications where it is always available.

So a little sensational, but the patent doesn't cover ground-shaking ideas.

Re:Slightly Sensational

[exomondo]

1) The application list is displayed alongside the call controls so that you have immediate access to call functions while browsing applications.

Where was that in the patent? I saw icon replacement and switching but not displaying an application list alongside call controls:

displaying on the touch screen display a first user interface for a phone application during a phone call; detecting activation of a menu icon or menu button during the phone call, in response to detecting activation of the menu icon or menu button, replacing the first user interface for the phone application with a menu of application icons

2) Applications become call-aware and offer a button to change back to the "phone application" somewhere in the interface.

I couldn't see that in the patent application, it specifies that there would be a button to change back to the phone application but not that applications would be aware of or include it.

It does say:
modifying the corresponding application user interface to include a switch application icon

Which could presumably include it listed as a 'toast' notification icon at the top like windows phone does.

Re:Intervention

[geekmux]

I think it's looking like the government needs to intervene and disband Apple as a matter of public interest. If Apple is allowed to proceed, society will be severely harmed because no one will be able to produce anything, do anything, or think anything without violating at least half a dozen of Apple's bogus 'patents'

Yes, because Apple is the only one out there guilty of building up a rather ridiculous patent library...give me a break. Like there's not at least another half-dozen companies guilty of doing the exact same thing.

If you're going to target anyone, then put the crosshairs on who's really to blame here...this abomination of a patent "system" we have./p.

Evil enough yet?

[Coolhand2120]

And exactly when does Apple receive the moniker: "Lord of all evil"? Can we vote to change Apple's logo on /. to a spinning flaming skull circa interweb 1999? Can someone please tell me what it is that Apple has innovated? Not only did they not make their own OS (last I checked FreeBSD is not a product of Apple inc.) but they steal from the open source community. (Logic:if they don't plan on playing nice they really don't deserve to benefit from the eons of man hours that went into creating the OS they so arrogantly tout as their own. That's just my opinion of course.) So what exactly did Apple innovate, invent or create? All I see here is a more up to date version of the windows mobile phones that came out in the late 90's.

Everything they've "invented" is nothing but mashups of technologies that already exist in software frameworks made by people other than Apple. Even the combinations they've selected existed long before the iPhone was created. Voice controlled AI? Ya, we were already doing that a long time before Apple abandoned their PPC hardware platform for the "not as good as the PPC" Intel platform. They are a decade late to the smart phone race, but they claim to be the most prolific innovators in the market. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the patents involved know without equivocation that Apple's arguments are worse than baseless, they are an insult to anyone who has used this technology for the last 20 years. And now they aim to cripple their competition, not thorough making a better product, but by using the perverted rule of law as a cudgel to prevent fair competition.

Apple really is the new root of all that is evil.

Re:Evil enough yet?

[whisper_jeff]

And exactly when does Apple receive the moniker: "Lord of all evil"?

And exactly when will the average slashdot reader learn the real meaning of the word "evil"?

Re:Evil enough yet?

[Coolhand2120]

From: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evil
evil [ee-vuhl]
adjective
1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life. (Apple)
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws. (Apple)
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4.due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation. (Apple)
5.marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.

Three out of five!

What we really need...

[PortHaven]

Is a company with balls...

"Patents, we don't need no stinkin' patents."

COURT: You must respect patents.

COMPANY: "You just lost patent refinery #'s 1, 2 & 3."

Seriously, patents need to go the way of the buffalo. No company should be allowed to own a patent. Just individual inventors.

Re:Electricity

[prefec2]

Why should they do something. Such patents are the only thing US companies have to fight on international markets. All beside the design of the iPhone comes from South Korea, China, Japan, or Taiwan. The display and the video processor is from Samsung or LG, the A5 is an ARM-based design manufactured by Samsung, the touchscreen is from Balda AG a German company which produces in China (so the manufacturing skill are in Chinese hands), Bluetooth comes from the UK, the Baseband IC comes from Infineon, etc. Apple only provides design and the software. And most of the hardware comes from outside the US. Dominantly from Taiwan, but also from South Korea, Japan, and Germany. If the US would let go of the patent system, they would lose more ground. as they already lost production skills to Taiwan and China, and they lost development skills to Taiwan. The remaining US parts are WiFi-chip, touch-control chip, CMOS and flash IC, which are also available from non-US companies. The US has first to start to be innovative again, before it will be beneficiary to let go of such rigid patent system. Or they have to fool around a little longer, so they are overtaken on all fields by Asia and then drop the patent thing, as the US has to pay.

Re:Apple files Patents, Google delivers features

[Scowler]

Wrong.

Google delivers technologies. Apple delivers products.

Re:litany of the obvious

[shutdown -p now]

Patenting the obvious is par for the course in the industry, yes. Proceeding to sue everybody and their mother over it, though, is a bit different. Especially when you seek to block the competitors from using your "unique feature" at all, rather than license it to them at a reasonable cost.

is there a last straw?

[PopeRatzo]

I'm curious: Have any of you committed Apple fans started to see that there is just something fundamentally wrong with Apple's behavior regarding these patents? Is there any point at which you would say, "You know, this crosses a line, and I just can't support this company any more. They've provided me with a lot of pleasure over the years and their products really made me feel good, but this is just too much. I won't give my money to a company that is dedicated to using a shitty law to kill competition. If there had been a company doing what Apple is doing in 1981, there never would have been a Macintosh or an OSX or an iPhone. They're not the only company doing this, but I'm just not going to be a fan of any company that does."?

Or have all you pole-smokers just decided you're going to turn yourselves into human shields and protect Apple's quarterly profits at any price, even at the cost of further innovation in the future by any company not named "Apple"? Will you just rationalize it all with "It's just the way business is done" and dutifully line up days before the iPhone is released, believing that the ends justify the means?

Seriously, I'm wondering if there's any breaking point, or would Apple actually have to start massacring babies and puppies before you'd consider taking Steve Jobs' corpse's rusty trombone out of your mouth long enough to draw a breath?

Comptuers == prior art

[JSBiff]

First off, we really need to draw a line in the sand here: A modern phone is just a very small, battery powered computer. EVERYTHING that's ever been done on other computers before it was done by Apple on the iPhone should count as prior art unless the courts are completely retarded.. Apple tries to get around this by specifying in the patent a "mobile device", but that's a false distinguisher. Since mobile devices are computers, anything done on a computer should count as prior art.

Therefore:

Windows has been multi-tasking and allowing task switching since the 80's. Unix since the 70's (or late 60's?). Every computer system has had a menu button on the keyboard or a menu icon on screen to allow you to task switch.

Specifying a specific type of app to task switch is completely moronic. Your OS supports task switching or it doesn't. What's next, the "Task switching from a Word Processor app" patent? The "Task switching from a web browser app" patent? Task switching from a game, or calculator, or spreadsheet, or database, or email client?

Apple chose to abuse the patent system

[walterbyrd]

Yes, you do have to be in freakish cult not to see that Apple is abusing the patent system in order to restrain free trade. The patent system does not force Apple to file a new bogus lawsuit every day.

I'm going to end this right now

[symbolset]

A method, comprising: at a portable electronic device...

All of these software patents require a device to instantiate. So sell a mobile phone that downloads on activation all of the OS and user experience. The device on sale doesn't violate the patents because it doesn't include the feature, and the software download that includes the feature doesn't either because the patent requires a device and the software doesn't include a device.

Problem solved. Maybe I should patent that - but I won't.