Apple: Dumb As a Patent Trolling Fox On iPhone Prior Art?

theodp (442580) writes "GeekWire reports that a Microsoft researcher's 1991 video could torpedo Apple's key 'slide to unlock' patent, one of 5 patents that the iPhone maker cited in its demand for $40 per Samsung phone. Confronted with what appears to be damning video evidence of prior art that pre-dates its 'invention' by more than a decade, Apple has reportedly argued that the sliding on/off switch demoed by Catherine Plaisant is materially different than the slide to unlock switch that its 7 inventors came up with. Apple's patent has already been deemed invalid in Europe because of similar functionality present in the Swedish Neonode N1M." The toggle widgets demoed in the video (attached below) support sliding across the toggle to make it more difficult to swap state (preventing accidental toggling). The video itself is worth a watch — it's interesting to see modern UIs adopting some of the idioms that testing in the early 90s showed were awful (e.g. Gtk+ 3's state toggles).

Comments

Re:This isn't how patents work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just enjoy your retirement Mr. Balmer, there's no point continuing to hang around here...

I've used slide to unlock for years

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Sue me for this example but here goes ...

Even since I was 3 or 4, almost every time I had to go #1 I used an apparatus that I called a "zipper" and used its "slide to unlock" feature.