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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).
In the case of that video, the sliding was really because you were "dragging" a representation of a physical object on-screen - and it wasn't unlocking anything, it was just toggling a state in a switch.
The iOS slide to unlock is not a physical counterpart for anything, it's a gesture. There is other prior art that uses wholly virtual gestures to unlock something, which seems much more relevant than anything in this video.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just enjoy your retirement Mr. Balmer, there's no point continuing to hang around here...
The only thing worse than granting ridiculously obvious, simple, overly broad, or just plain stupid patents (and the companies trying to enforce them) is the absurd state of copyright protection in the USA.
I'm not entirely sure how it merited a patent in the first place.
It's an intuitive action for unlocking because it mimics the motion of using a sliding deadbolt... which i'd suggest counts as both obvious *and* prior art.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1. A method of unlocking a hand-held electronic device, the device including a touch-sensitive display, the method comprising:
detecting a contact with the touch-sensitive display at a first predefined location corresponding to an unlock image;
continuously moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display in accordance with movement of the contact while continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained, wherein the unlock image is a graphical, interactive user-interface object with which a user interacts in order to unlock the device; and
unlocking the hand-held electronic device if the moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display results in movement of the unlock image from the first predefined location to a predefined unlock region on the touch-sensitive display.
To show a patent claim is not new, you have to show that a single piece of prior art shows everything in the patent claim. This piece of prior art wouldn't do that, since it doesn't show a hand-held electronic device, doesn't really show "continuous" movement as opposed to switching between several icons, and it doesn't show unlocking a device. But that's just one of the requirements for validity - 35 USC 102. Incidentally, this type of prior art is called "anticipatory prior art," because it anticipates everything in the patent. It's what laymen usually mean when they say "there's prior art for X patent!" That statement doesn't mean anything, because there's always prior art for something - Neanderthal Ug's wheel is prior art for all-terrain run-flat tires. Just not anticipatory prior art.
Another requirement is non-obviousness - 35 USC 103. Under this requirement, you can show that a patent claim is obvious by showing that a combination of prior art references together teach each and every element in the claim and that they could be reasonably combined. So, if the Claim is A+B+C+D and one reference shows A+B and another shows C+D and they could be combined, that shows that the Claim is obvious.
So, for example, if you can find other references that show a hand-held device, continuous movement of an image, and unlocking a device, those combined with this may be enough to show that the Claim is obvious. That should be pretty easy to find.
One caveat there is that if a reference teaches away from the combination, it may not be available to use in the rejection. So, if the C+D reference says "never combine me with A+B, because bad things happen", then it may not be obvious to combine it with A+B (there may also be an unrecognized E element that makes it work with C+D). Here, the usability study at the end of the video seems to argue away from using sliders as touch-screen switches. But that may not be a strong enough disparagement of their use, nor does it necessarily argue away from its combination with an unlocking system.
Disclaimer: I am a patent attorney, but I am not your patent attorney. The above is not legal advice and is merely for (my own) amusement purposes. I have not spent any serious time looking into this patent, the specification, or any of the dependent Claims.
Apple's patent claim is for a portable device that uses a single image.
Android's slide to unlock works from both left to right and right to left; so its completely different too right?
And if I implement Apple's slide to unlock EXACTLY, but put it on a screen built into a fridge, they can't touch me?
Yeah. Right.
This Windows Phone video is a lot closer to what the iPhone does, though the issue that one has as prior art is that it seems to be on a narrow touch-pad area (like a palm pilot) and not on the touch screen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... which i'd suggest counts as both obvious *and* prior art.
Respectfully, and without necessarily disagreeing with your fundamental point, those terms don't mean what you think they do, legally.
"Prior art" is "anything in the relevant art, that's prior." The Wright Brother's plane is prior art for the Space Shuttle. The Model T is prior art for the Tesla Model S. That doesn't mean they're anticipatory prior art, which is art that teaches everything in a patent claim. So, for example, even though the Model T is prior art for the Model S, it wouldn't invalidate a patent on the battery pack, for example. Similarly, sliding deadbolts are prior art for the virtual slide-to-unlock, but they alone don't show everything in the patent.
"Obvious" is a legal conclusion, like "guilty". It's different than just the "duh" gut feeling that we typically mean when we call something obvious. And just as you show someone is guilty by showing that they committed each and every element of a crime, you show that something is obvious by showing that one or more pieces of prior art exist that, alone or in combination, teach each and every element of the patent claim. So, again, sliding deadbolts show unlocking something... but they alone don't show all the other bits of the claim, like a handheld electronic device. That means you'd have to at least combine "deadbolts" plus "mid-90s Palm smartphone" to show that element.
Using the right terms - anticipatory prior art when you mean that, or obvious when you have a combination of prior art references to invalidate a claim - will increase your credibility with people who are in power to make changes to the patent system.
Actually, they are right.
A Patent is technically REQUIRED to not be obvious to a person 'skilled in the art' when given information of the prior art.
So, a phone UI developer would have to still not find the apple slide to unlock patent obvious given knowledge that a
UI idea to unlock the phone was needed, and knowledge of is video.
All of this of course should make the whole 'on a capacitive multitouch screen' approach, etc laughable - but again the
rules are being VERY selectively enforced.
Of course Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system, and basic patent law is not being
applied in their cases - could it PERHAPS have something to do with the huge number of patents they (and several notable others)
fine with them, and therefore the percentage of the patent offices total revenue they generate?
How do I know the requirements above? I have at times spent years arguing with the patent office trying to get patents accepted
which were ENORMOUSLY less obvious that what passes for acceptable from certain major cooperated. With little to no success.
The rules are simply being blatantly flouted by a certain select group.
Apple is a straight up troll, they haven't innovated a damn thing on on their devices in 4 years pretty much. Samsung has better phones and more reasonable prices with sizes people want not Apples take what we give you crap. One of said patents was for a rounded rectangle as well. Having a court case in a court house full of Apple people is complete joke.
These are the same kind of idiots that seriously think apple patented a rounded rectangle,
US D690,300 S
1. The ornamental design for a portable display device, as shown and described.
It's easier to see all of the images from this link: http://www.google.com/patents/...
They filed a patent for a rectangular tablet with rounded corners on Sept 14, 2012, and were granted a 14 year patent term on Sept. 24, 2013. But don't let reality get in the way of the Dunning–Kruger effect. That would be silly.
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.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
The issue is with the inherent bias of either the article submitter or the editor. Just look at the choice of words in the title -- "Dumb" "Patent Trolling" -- none of these words show up in the linked article, yet the submitter chose such words to slant.
This is probably the most dangerous precedent Apple is trying to set. The only reason FRAND patents are priced lower than regular patents is that by being adopted as a standard, more products will license the patent. Hence the patent holder makes up in volume what they lose by charging less per device.
If Apple gets their way and (1) gets Samsung's FRAND patents effectively deemed worthless (already happened when Obama vetoed the ITC judgment against Apple), and (2) forces Android makers to license their non-FRAND patents for anything close to the ridiculous $40 per device figure, then that's it. Game over. You can kiss electronics standards goodbye. Nobody is going to license their patent under FRAND for pennies per device, when they can keep it proprietary and charge dollars or tens of dollars per device.
Apple will have ushered in a new age where nothing is compatible except by chance, and prices are ridiculously high as patent holders are able to charge 10x or 100x more by not submitting their patent to a standard. All the patents on LTE currently make up about 10%-20% the cost of your phone. Work out the math and your next phone (yes, even your iPhone) will cost as much as a used car if patent holders were to charge 10x or 100x more like Apple is asking.
See, the lawyers can play all the games they want in court, and make up all sorts of BS claims about how much the non-FRAND patents are worth (and how much FRAND patents aren't worth). But the market economics of this is very simple: If a patent holder can make more money by not submitting their patent to FRAND, then they're not going to submit it to FRAND. If you let the BS prevail, you can destroy FRAND and along with it a vast segment of the economy. So no, Apple cannot ask "whatever price they want". The amount they can ask for is intrinsically tied to how much a FRAND patent is worth. If they want to ask for more than this intrinsic ratio, then that is an admission that Samsung's FRAND patents were worth more than they were willing to pay.
In my case I don't work for Apple. I just read Slashdot frequently and comment on stories I have understanding of. I am an iOS developer (hardly a revelation since my profile says as much). That does mean I spend a lot of time thinking about touch interfaces, which is part of why I see a difference I think where other people consider it the same. To me there's a world of difference between the two things.
Given my Slashdot UID it would be pretty sad to be an intern anywhere for that duration of time...
I knew my original comment would be downvoted anyway, so I'm not sure how you can claim it's driving the discussion anywhere. I just wanted to make a point I thought relevant after watching the video. Note that I did later link to a Windows Phone video I though was more relevant...
Also if you read way back through past posting history (because it's not come up in a while) I am far from a fan of software patents. So it's not like I'm trying to protect Apple or anyone's patent. I just want to explain why the video may not be as useful as it seems to be at a glance, using expertise that I have to evaluate what is presented.
I honestly don't think there are company organized groups of people on any sites doing what you suggest because the return would be so low as to make it pointless. I *do* think there are organized groups of people out there working comment threads not run by companies, I've been the subject of moderation floods that were way too rapid and also indiscriminate (like every single comment posted in the last few days down voted to -5 regardless of content or subject). But even those actions hardly carry any permanence to them, so I wonder why those people bother. It's like, I lost Karma on a niche message board? Who cares!
That's the difference between companies and private groups, companies give up when it's obviously futile but people just keep going even when all hope seems lost. Or perhaps especially...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here's the argument for non-obviousness from the patent:
One problem associated with using touch screens on portable devices is the unintentional activation or deactivation of functions due to unintentional contact with the touch screen. Thus, portable devices, touch screens on such devices, and/or applications running on such devices may be locked upon satisfaction of predefined lock conditions, such as upon entering an active call, after a predetermined time of idleness has elapsed, or upon manual locking by a user.
Devices with touch screens and/or applications running on such devices may be unlocked by any of several well-known unlocking procedures, such as pressing a predefined set of buttons (simultaneously or sequentially) or entering a code or password. These unlock procedures, however, have drawbacks. The button combinations may be hard to perform. Creating, memorizing, and recalling passwords, codes, and the like can be quite burdensome. These drawbacks may reduce the ease of use of the unlocking process and, as a consequence, the ease of use of the device in general. Accordingly, there is a need for more efficient, user-friendly procedures for unlocking such devices, touch screens, and/or applications.
Apple was trying to come up with a way to prevent butt-dialing and other unwanted device actions. The point of using a sliding motion is that it's unlikely to happen via random touches, but is reasonably intutive.
Microsoft's video doesn't really show a slider. It shows touch buttons that look visually like sliders. But you can trip them just by touching in the active area for the desired state. This is shown in the video where the demonstrator runs their finger down a column of switches and they all switch. Apple requires an explicit "click and drag" operation to unlock.
It may seem trivial, but if nobody did it before the patent, and everybody wanted to do it after the patent, it's a valid invention. "Obvious" does not mean "obvious in hindsight".
This is very cool. Seriously, if only she had discovered this 20 years later, she would be a millionaire!
If the cosmetics are the only aspect being patented, then shouldn't the Star-Trek and pretty much every other purely cosmetic SF tablet that was visually portrayed count as prior art? Rounded rectangles aren't exactly anything new.
In a design patent, cosmetics are the only part that can be patented - it literally cannot claim anything functional.
And a design patent claims everything shown in the drawings... The test for whether it's obvious or not is whether one of ordinary skill in the art of design would consider the design to give the same visual impression as the prior art references. Like, if I showed you the iPad-looking pictures in that patent, and then I drew a rounded rectangle, you couldn't tell them apart. It's actually very similar to trade dress.
But the Star Trek PADD and the 2001 portable television both give different visual impressions. The PADD has a big metal flat front with a few different touch screen portions of different shapes and sizes. The Kubrik pad is tall and narrow and has an angled portion with a bunch of channel buttons. While they're all tablet devices, no one would actually confuse two of them.
Actually, yes, that is how it works: prior art invalidates patents. So does obviousness. And the people most capable of judging the relevance of prior art, as well as obviousness, are actually engineers. So cut the crap and stop pretending that patents are some arcane, magical incantation that normal human beings can't make sense of.
The patent system is intended to help engineers and inventors. It is their understanding of "obvious" and "prior art" that is relevant, not the understanding of (imitation) lawyers with a stick up their ass, like you.
Well, I'm sure that refusing to understand the language you're arguing about will be really convincing when you're trying to convince legislators to enact patent reforms. Using your own definitions for words can't possibly cause them to ignore you. Good luck with that.
no one should have ever had to show prior art...the patents for UI elements like "pinch and zoom" are absolutely ludicrous & are a product of ignorance and manipulation
I think this goes to the core of your understanding of this issue...this you describe here, this should not be at all patentable:
if this is "what is patentable" then its so broad nothing matters...it's a complete waste of time to think about these issues
what should be patentable? I don't have the answers, but that doesn't mean we can't conclude that the status quo is waaaaay too broad to be consistent from one patent to the next
Thank you Dave Raggett
Prior art is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Please note the opening line: "Prior art constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid."
Obvious is the corollary of non-obvious, a requirement under US law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Note: there is no point in arguing with me on this - go argue with wikipedia.
Here's your prior art. Seriously, taking a common real world design and making something on a touch-screen that looks like it should never be patentable. It would be like patenting an on-screen control that looks like a dial or an on-screen meter that looks like a galvanometer.