Slashdot Mirror
Micron Lands Broad "Slide To Unlock" Patent
Zordak writes "Micron has recently landed U.S. Patent 8,352,745, which claims priority back to a February 2000 application---well before Apple's 2004 slide-to-unlock application. While claim construction is a highly technical art, the claims here are (for once) almost as broad as they sound, and may cover the bulk of touch screen smart phones on the market today. Dennis Crouch's Patently-O has a discussion."
The USPTO is holding roundtables with software developers to ask for suggestions. If anyone can add to what's there already, I've some suggestions on this wiki:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Suggestions_for_the_USPTO_in_2013
(But remember, the patent office has only a small role in patent policy. Most substantial changes will have to come from Congress or the Supreme Court.)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I believe in being as honest as possible. When I see things like this where people take advantage of loop holes it makes me mad. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm still waiting for someone to try and patent the wheel.
once my twist to open patent is approved.
Someone will probably reply with a link to a story about someone patenting the wheel in Australia. But it's not true.
Or, it wasn't a "patent". It was an "innovation patent", which is something completely different and doesn't get any substantial examination by any examiner. They just check the formalities and rubber stamp it (and the examination happens if, and only if, there is litigation, which never happened with the wheel innovation patent).
But there are many silly patents in the world:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Silly_patents
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
The claim still requires a 'processing circuit coupled to the touchscreen.' The disclosure also talks about a 'compare circuit.' I would think that a software implementation would not be covered by at least claim 1 of this patent. They may be able to argue software implementations are covered under doctrine of equivalents, but personally, I would think that dedicated hardware does not function in 'essentially the same way.'
... on a Computer. ... on a Phone.
Gee, it must be some new mystical technology to deploy a sliding door lock on a computer or phone.
I'm not a patent expert, although I did once watch a very informative video about how patents work. This makes me eminently qualified on the subject by slashdot standards.
Looking at the independent claims, it looks like at least the lock screen as implemented by Samsung (starting at the unlock button, drag a certain distance in any direction to unlock) and possibly other Android phones out there is safe from this patent.
Since the system on Samsung phones works no matter which direction you drag, it looks like the "slide to unlock" implementation in Samsung phones is clear.
However, I think this patent may very well be applicable to the "pattern lock" of android phones.
Seriously. Shouldn't we be asking this question of every single patent?
I'm not a fan of software patents and believe we should abolish them, but while they are there we need to ask this, because not doing so is too expensive and that cost undermines the value of the patents in the first place.
Software patents really need to just dissapear... it has gotten to the point where software developers are afraid that they will get sued every time they create something... this is just absurd.
I have an application to patent "intent to unlock" comprising mind-reading and intentional software.
However, bugs in the dynamics of intentional flaws intended to unlock locked the unlocked locks tight. I always managed to unlock my neighbor's lock but my locks tended to become more locked. My intention is to lock the unlock code into the cloud to create a crowd-sourced intentional unlocking mechanism locked into a plurality of metaphoric intentions.
Would think the common door or gate deadbolt is prior art. Or is this something different because it's a displayed cartoon?
Dirty little secret - Google actually intentioned things to be like that to AVOID any patents held by Apple, Microsoft, etc!
And yes, Android is better for it - like the home screen and app launcher that Android has over the springboard that iOS has, which added innovation and diversity to the phone UIs out there.
I believe the TFA states that Samsung already had a 10yr deal with Micron re: this
And how would the slide to unlock implementation for Samsung be any different from iPhone?
Disclaimer: I have never come within 1.6 km of a machine running Win8. But I've seen the slick TV commercials showing people logging on by drawing shapes on the screen. If this patent in fact covers "slid[ing] in any direction" does it cover Win8 ?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Actually yes, it does. You can patent the *specific* hardware implementation of a task. Someone else could then do the exact same task with a different implementation and bypass your patent.
Honestly I'd have no problem with software patents if they just followed the same rules as hardware - you patent the implementation, not the effect. Of course the versatility of software means that would render almost all software patents trivially easy to bypass, but I don't see a problem with that. Let's take real world "slide to unlock" functionality - I can think of a half-dozen different deadbolt and related designs offhand, and I bet all of the modern implementations are/were patented, and none of them violated the patents of the others.
Would that mean you can't meaningfully patent your brilliant software idea? Almost certainly, but then ideas are *explicitly* denied patent protection to begin with.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Someone needs to patent making patents and sue the patent office.
This is the equivalence of patenting "sliding" into a parking spot with your car to park it.
Og slide boulder away from cave to unlock.
Og demand all of tech company money.
Reading the patent this shouldn't apply to phone lock screens, the patent seems to be for a multi-factor unlock system that uses several different kind of user authorisation interactions (password followed by finger print scan followed by a gesture pattern for example), where mobile unlock screens are universally just a single action.
If this patent actually covered mobile phone unlock screens then it would also cover screen-saver wake passwords etc.
That's why I only code in Cobol. You can just tell it what you want in a plain English language!
But I do chuckle when Apple gets out-trolled.
Original idea.
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
All of the claims in the Micron patent refer to the user "drawing" the geometric pattern. The term "drawing" is not defined in the patent, so a court would likely give the term its ordinary and customary meaning given to the term by those of ordinary skill in the art. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). But I don't think "drawing" has a particular technical meaning in this context. The Oxford American Dictionary defines it as to "produce (a picture or diagram) by making lines and marks; produce an image of (someone or something) in such a way."
The Apple unlock mechanism doesn't produce a picture or image or make a line or mark on the screen. The user causes the slider to move, but it doesn't draw a line. Technically the "slide to unlock" text fades out and it could be argued that the user is "drawing" over "slide to unlock" in black, but that's a pretty strained way to look at it. A somewhat firmer interpretation would be that "drawing" can sometimes be used in a metaphorical sense. For example, someone can be said to draw a shape in the air with their finger.
If Micron sued Apple over this patent (or assigned the patent to someone who sued Apple), it's quite possible that the case would hinge on the meaning of that word.
I believe the TFA states that Samsung already had a 10yr deal with Micron re: this
And how would the slide to unlock implementation for Samsung be any different from iPhone?
It's different because it's Google, and this is Slashdot.
#DeleteChrome
you shouldn't be able to patent common sense. Simple as that.
[nt]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Actually yes, it does. You can patent the *specific* hardware implementation of a task. Someone else could then do the exact same task with a different implementation and bypass your patent.
For example, Setuid was patented by Dennis Ritchie in 1972/1979 (applied/granted) based on the hardware implementation, as shown in the patent abstract.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I don't see how this patent is special. Just because it's done on a computer shouldn't change anything. I "Slide to Unlock" my laptop cover. If they want to turn this into a design patent, fine (round edges of button, specific font, etc, etc,) , but the core idea is not new, special, or innovative.
I have a wooden box with a clasp that slides sideways to unlock. The label on the box clearly states made in 1939.
I'd imagine that this technology is more than two thousand years old.
Also - obvious.
The patent has no informative properties at all. It does not explain any process or algorithms used to ie detect that a finger is moving on the screen, which direction its moving in, what shape it draws, whether the shape is "close enough" to the shape in memory etc (though to be fair claim #1 doesn't even check the shape, only that a shape was drawn, claim #2 is to check the shape and deny access if it's wrong). If all of the above is obvious to someone of regular skill in the art, then the claims should be invalid as obvious. If it is not obvious to someone of regular skill in the art, then the patent fails to live up to the Constitutional mandate to advance the sciences and arts by not disclosing how these claims are to be achieved, and if current patent law does not make the patent invalid on this basis, then patent law should be changed to comply with the Consitution.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
ANY is a very specific direction.
And how would the slide to unlock implementation for Samsung be any different from iPhone?
In that way that he just said?
The claim seems to imply that it covers a mechanism whereby you drag your finger in a specific direction to unlock the screen. On iPhones, slide to unlock works by moving your finger along a set little path- which that claim would cover. On a Galaxy, you touch a designated spot and drag your finger in any random direction you like; so not what the claim would appear to cover. As a sibling post mentioned, the Android "draw a pattern on a grid of nodes" thing presumably would be covered by the claim, however.
Although frankly any patent which makes a distinction between "dragging your finger this way" and "dragging your finger that way" is a great demonstration as to how patents have become completely absurd.
Actually yes, it does. You can patent the *specific* hardware implementation of a task. Someone else could then do the exact same task with a different implementation and bypass your patent.
Honestly I'd have no problem with software patents if they just followed the same rules as hardware - you patent the implementation, not the effect. Of course the versatility of software means that would render almost all software patents trivially easy to bypass, but I don't see a problem with that. Let's take real world "slide to unlock" functionality - I can think of a half-dozen different deadbolt and related designs offhand, and I bet all of the modern implementations are/were patented, and none of them violated the patents of the others.
Would that mean you can't meaningfully patent your brilliant software idea? Almost certainly, but then ideas are *explicitly* denied patent protection to begin with.
I agree with you completely but I don't think anybody can hear us, they are way too busy screaming at each other with their keyboards.
There is already protection for the specific implementation of software... it's called copyright.
"Software patents" are purely about protecting the generic effect, which should be invalid.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
I thought briefcases have a slide to unlock buttons for almost a 100 years now wouldn't that be enough proof of prior art?
Jack of all trades,master of none
as long as they don't put rounded corners on it.
First to invent vs. file conflicts could be used to raise the bar on obviousness.
Obviousness is surprisingly difficult to determine because some of the best and most brilliant ideas are also very simple ideas that seem obvious only in retrospect. So the patent office is deliberately reluctant to interpret the obviousness constraint too rigorously.
Recently, the US has switched from awarding priority of similar patents to the first one to be filed instead of the first to be invented. Since there is often a very long delay from filing to patent award, during which filers must not publicly disclose their idea, priority becomes an issue more frequently than one might expect.
It seems obvious to me that instead of struggling with who has priority, the patent office should simply look at two similar patents being filed at about the same time as a failure of the obviousness test because, clearly, two different practitioners of the art came up with similar solutions to a problem. So both patents and any similar future filings should be rejected as obvious.
This doctrine would have disallowed a lot of patents in the past including the light bulb and telephone, which, while revolutionary were being investigated by several inventors who came up with similar solutions and even filed within hours of each other!
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
The zipper is a very simple idea, but completely non-obvious. There is no such thing as a software idea that is both very simple but non-obvious.
Big software companies tend to have vast numbers of extremely mediocre programmers. These horrible coders can, however, be tasked to produce a lot of code. It is in the interest of these big companies that software patents exist, and exist especially for extremely obvious ideas.
You see, the big company is highly likely to be first in many use markets. Say, first to exploit online shopping. Now, if FIRST TO CODE A SOLUTION becomes confused with invention, and this big company is granted patents on such a basis, the commercial advantage gained by these deplorable patents becomes overwhelming.
The moment you associate a generally programmable element with a touchscreen display, and no physical buttons, 'slide to unlock' isn't just obvious, it is one of a small number of possible necessities for activating such a device. Any Human faced with a flat hinged door for the first time in their life would spontaneously "INVENT" the doorknob- likewise "slide to unlock" is the necessary obvious invention spontaneously created to solve the activation problem of a tablet without physical buttons.
Big companies benefit from trivial software patents. Big companies employ massive PR agencies. Massive PR agencies see shilling forums like Slashdot with pro-big company propaganda as their primary purpose.
Every programmer KNOWS that trivial software patents are evil and disgusting. Smarter programmers know all software patents are wrong, even patents for completely non-obvious complex software systems, because the very existence of software patents is a slippery slope that will always be used as a restraint of trade against programmers not employed by giant organizations.
The fact that Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and all the other big players lobby the US government to keep software patents, including the trivial ones, tells you everything you need to know about why software patents exist in the first place.
Want to know how bad this gets? In Japan, one big company has a VALID software patent on any 3D used on a computer display (and I mean rendering of a 3D scene in 2D as in most computer games, not this stereo 3D from the cinema).
To the depraved shills that dribble the lie here that banning software patents will hurt business I mention this: software is far closer to written fiction. Fiction lacks patents (except in the fiction used for Hollywood screenplays, where studios are sued all the time over the 'ideas' in their films, because of the actions of evil and corrupt Hollywood lawyers). Harry Potter, for instance, has no 'idea' protection. Anyone else can write a novel about child wizards, and wizard schools. Instead, Potter has copyright protection, the same protection that rightfully protects computer code. But better again, code has 'industrial secret' protection if it desires, by the simple act of keeping the source 'private'.
Imagine if the full significance of software patents had been exploited by IBM and others before the home computer revolution. No aspect of the software needed to make home computers function would have been legal. Every aspect of ANY operating system, or programming language would be covered by broad trivial software patents. Anything attempted by a programmer WITHOUT explicit permission from IBM and the others would have been illegal. Patents were even issued for operations like XORing bitmaps into a screen buffer.
IBM has the record for patents issued because it is an evil, deplorable company that is willing to patent any obvious thought by any of its employees, and pay politicians to ensure the US patent system will turn a blind-eye to the abuse. That a tiny proportion of IBM patents are valid is used to justify the overwhelming number of IBM patents that clearly are not.
Go watch the film 'Brazil'. If it had occurred to players like IBM how far abuse of the patent system could be taken as an act of 'war' in business, the 'technology' depicted in that film would be what we all would be using today.
The best example by far is the Mouse Trap. There are literally thousands of patents on various devices to catch a pesky mouse in your house. You can look them all up and develop your OWN physical design that might catch a mouse too.
Software patents are effectively a closed box with a blinky light that "catches a mouse" using various mechanisms and sensors that we don't have to fully explain or even show you. Any "box with a mouse-sized hole" can potentially be infringing.
Practically every residential structure is mobile.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
And how would the slide to unlock implementation for Samsung be any different from iPhone?
It was described pretty clearly already, but in case you come back to actually read this I'll try to elaborate a bit:
iPhone - there's a designated line and an arrow. You hold on the arrow and drag along the line.
Samsung (as described by GP): Hold on spot, drag in any direction
Patent: Draw a geometric pattern in a specified direction, specifically a line.
iPhone is clearly infringing.
Motorola Droid is also probably infringing on this patent, as it specifies a direction and has you slide in a line, though it did not infringe on Apple's Slide-To-Unliock, as it didn't have a UI "groove" to slide in.
Samsung's drag-in-any-direction does not specify direction, and would not be infringing on this particular patent.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
You probably think this is such an awesome analogy but what you're really proving is that without a government monopoly on mouse traps, nobody would ever have bothered to build machines to catch mice before. You've heard of the plagues right?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Can't we just patent getting a patent and be done with it. Then we could all just write one check a week to the company holding a patent on getting patents and not have to go through this craziness. Slide to unlock, one click ordering, A UI connected to a server connected to a mobile device, making a graphical element disappear, accelerating a scrolling list, a method of displaying an electronic list; all of these are patented. If I, as a developer, had to pay the patent trolls for every infringement of these obvious and ridiculous patents I would be millions of dollars in the hole. BTW Patents are meant to encourage innovation!
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
I found this interesting...2/3 of all suits from the Fortune 100 are from less than 1/4 of the companies....High Tech.
http://techrights.org/files/trolltracker/20080528155013/
Aerospace/Defense: 7 companies, 10 lawsuits
Automotive: 4 companies, 21 lawsuits
Chemicals/Food Processing: 9 companies, 7 lawsuits
Energy: 8 companies, 7 lawsuits
Entertainment: 2 companies, 5 lawsuits
Equipment/Machinery/Metals: 3 companies, 3 lawsuits
Financial/Banking/Securities: 13 companies, 16 lawsuits
Grocery/Drugstore: 5 companies, 19 lawsuits
Health Care: 9 companies, 13 lawsuits
High Tech/Telecom: 13 companies, 192 lawsuits
Insurance: 12 companies, 12 lawsuits
Pharma/Consumer: 4 companies, 28 lawsuits
Retail: 9 companies, 87 lawsuits
Transportation/Freight: 2 companies, 10 lawsuits
So a physical slide-lock is not covered by a patent because it's age-old technology. However, a computer emulation of such a lock is automatically covered by this patent-troll, regardless of implementation?
How the hell does the legal "logic" work out for this?
Mere emulation of an age-old physical concept should NEVER be patentable, period. (Implementation of different emulation techniques is another matter.)
I should have patented the emulation of "running around with guns", then the video game industry and movie CGI labs would owe me zillions!
Table-ized A.I.
This is excellent news. Congress is the one that has to change patent law and congress hardly listens to the little guy. But with a patent like this that will impact the finances of the big players (and contributors) like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. Maybe, just maybe, software patents, and the strangle hold they cause with development, will get the attention they deserve.
Explains why my bill for butt-dialing Timbuktu is so large. (The bill is large, not butt. Okay, they're both large. Shuddup.)
Table-ized A.I.
specified direction is semantics though isn't it? Even if it is random as on the Samsung, that random direction is still being specified to the device
Now that's news!
Should only solutions to demonstrable NP problems be patentable?
the proles are gonna go commie if you keep pulling this bullshit, show some restraint before you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Patent law is all about semantics. The specific implementation is to replicate a known pattern on the screen, probably with a fixed orientation. Samsung's implementation could be a distance-from-start-point, which is very different in that a specific geometric pattern isn't even required. Sadly, I don't have a Samsung phone with this system to test on, so I don't know if it's true that I could spiral out (for example) and still unlock. If so, though, that would very clearly show that a specified direction is not required, nor is a line required, nor is even a specified known to the device geometric pattern required.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Since there is often a very long delay from filing to patent award, during which filers must not publicly disclose their idea, priority becomes an issue more frequently than one might expect.
Are you proposing that it should be changed to be this way? Currently, that is absolutely not true.
Slide to lock/unlock is a rather old invention. You can find it on centuries old loo doors, for example.
Honestly I'd have no problem with software patents if they just followed the same rules as hardware - you patent the implementation, not the effect.
We already have laws protecting the specific implementation of software.In software that would be called copyright.
Software patents are double dipping. At the very least, software developers should have to choose. Patent or Copyright. If we choose patent, then the source code should be required to be published with the patent, and receive no copyright protection. If copyright is chosen, then it is the specific recorded form that is receiving the protection and there should be no protection for implementing the same thing using original 'art'.
It seems obvious to me that instead of struggling with who has priority, the patent office should simply look at two similar patents being filed at about the same time as a failure of the obviousness test because, clearly, two different practitioners of the art came up with similar solutions to a problem.
Not really arguing, but if we used this definition outside of patents, both calculus and evolution would be considered "obvious" by this standard, which strikes me as a little funny.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
So, did they copyright the code they use in their implementation for "slide-to-unlock" or did the patent the hardware of "finger moving across glass or plastic surface, which is usually flat and placed over a display screen."
I ask simply because this is the logical question... Unfortunately, software patents are completely illogical.
Except the claims are the only thing that define what the patent "covers." And claim 1 has nothing to do with "multi-factor unlock systems." It just claims a touch screen where a user draws a "geometric pattern" (including a straight line) in a specified direction.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
You've heard of the plagues right?
You mean the one that was caused by them witch cats, right?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Not only that, Claim 1 doesn't even claim it has to be a certain geometric pattern, it's not until Claim 2 that it checks to see if the pattern is the "right" pattern.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Well, are there user accessible files on the iPhone? If not, then nope, this patent is invalid at Claim 3. Also, the general statement of Claim 1 is probably also invalid, because the slider is a specific construct and probably has a trigger location somewhere along the path that says "you've gone far enough" so no pattern is stored in memory, only a single point. At least that's how it appears to be done on the iPhone. Whoops. No claim of infringement at all.
Still, the person at the PTO that passed this patent should be penalized.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This is the easiest way to demonstrate the unprecedented lockdown given to Software Patents versus regular mechanical patents. A software mousetrap would cover "electronic methods for mouse catching" and the patent office doesn't even make you prove the blinky light on top actually is part of catching the mouse! Glue a RJ-45 jack on this and you've just added "on the Internet" to your mousetrap!
There's no sanity check and the patent office is granting dozens of people a patent on the same "magic box".
because some of the best and most brilliant ideas are also very simple ideas that seem obvious only in retrospect
Name one. This is a major, self serving lie that patent proponents like to push which simply isn't true. People don't lose their common sense when they have more information, in retrospect they simply make a better judgment about whether something was/is obvious or not. And that's the way it should be.
Unfortunately, the PTO has little to no rational basis for most of what they do, it's mostly just a bureaucracy aggrandizing power.