Apple And AT&T Sued For Infringement Over iPhone Haptic Patents (computerworld.com)

Haptic technology company Immersion has accused Apple and carrier AT&T of infringement of three of its patents in the latest iPhone models and Apple watches. Immersion, which claims over 2,100 issued or pending patents worldwide covering various aspects and commercial applications of haptic or touch feedback technology, has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the import of the specified iPhone and Apple Watch models in the U.S., besides suing for damages in a Delaware federal court, company CEO Victor Viegas said in a conference call Thursday. Immersion decided to include AT&T and subsidiary AT&T Mobility in the action because the carrier is the most significant distributor of the iPhone in the U.S.

Comments

Cockroaches and patent trolls

[Iconoc]

They both will be around forever

Re:Cockroaches and patent trolls

[fustakrakich]

Not true! Patent trolls can be eliminated with the stroke of a pen.

Re:Cockroaches and patent trolls

[Carewolf]

Have you even looked at the articles you referenced yourself? Do they even exist?

He seems drunk with his spelling, but it did happen. Though it was "Obama" not Obama. Apple complained to the administration and they lifted the import ban, and it was only a temporary ban in the first place.

Re:Cockroaches and patent trolls

[Holi]

I'm not sure you can call Immersion a patent troll, They have been making haptic devices for years, and licensing out their tech to other companies. Look at he logitech ifeel mouse, it used immersion tech back in XP days.

What are the actual patents about

[aberglas]

This is never covered in any coverage of patent cases. The actual substance. Because it is too hard for journalists to understand. So we just get the fluff.

I miss Groklaw.

Re: What are the actual patents about

[waterwingz]

From what (little) I know, they have a patent portfolio that likely goes back more than ten years. So it's quite possible some of that reads on Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Apple products. Patent suits take a lot of time and a common strategy is to take on one big company, win that case, and then collect license fees from the rest using that judgement as a club.

Re:What are the actual patents about

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Popular misunderstandings about Apple's "rounded corner" patent make Slashdot's ad-counter spin. Slashdot thrives in commenter ignorance.

Re: What are the actual patents about

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

The haptic feedback in the Apple watch is not like the devices found in the Playstation 4 or Nintendo controllers. (Can't speak for XBOX One, sorry.) It feels like a tap, as opposed to the vibration motor modern game controllers use. The practical difference is that in a very short space of time you can count how many times you've been tapped. The vibration motors take long enough to spin up they're very sluggish in comparison, at least in the case of counting the actual buzzes.

I'm too lazy to look it up but I vaguely recall a lawsuit that affected the XBOX and PS2 for the vibration motors in their controllers, but it didn't affect Nintendo because they actually use a different configuration. If memory serves that fueled the rumors that the real reason the PS3 didn't originally have rumble in their controllers was to avoid further litigation. (They claimed it interfered with their SIXAXIS sensors, but the Wii controller showed that was bunk.)

Re: What are the actual patents about

[ThosLives]

The law is "obvious to one skilled in the art".

If the problem, as stated above, was "Have the perceived vibration be constant regardless of where the device was held", any mechanical engineer would tell you the obvious solution is to vary the amplitude and/or frequency of the vibration at the source point so the amplitude at the measurement / sense point is constant.

In fact, due to physics, this is the only way to possibly do that.

So unless the patent is some novel way of determining the sense point and then from there the desired input intensity, where "novel" means "not just doing some kind of exact or simulated wave simulation", I'd say that is indeed an obvious solution and should not have been granted a patent.

Re: What are the actual patents about

[Solandri]

The haptic feedback in the Apple watch is not like the devices found in the Playstation 4 or Nintendo controllers. (Can't speak for XBOX One, sorry.) It feels like a tap, as opposed to the vibration motor modern game controllers use.

They are both the same thing. They only differ in the frequency of the vibration.

Unless there was some new engineering required to create a driver capable of a more tap-like vibration (higher frequency, more like a square wave), there is no difference here. It's like claiming singing high notes is different and patent-worthy compared to singing low notes.

What may seen "new" and "cool" to end users often isn't from an engineering standpoint. The "bounce" effect Apple (inappropriately) patented is simply the response of an underdamped harmonic oscillator. Something mathematicians and engineers have known about for centuries. In its simplest form, haptic feedback was used in the old membrane keyboards which had a speaker generate a click sound every time you "pressed" a key. Except instead of the speaker moving air, you're using a "speaker" which moves the mass of the device. There's nothing fundamentally new here, unless you somehow consider mass (air) to be different from mass (something else).

Haptics Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA - "Feedback based on pressure-sensitive interactions with the touch screens."

The real question is, "Did "Immersion" actually invent anything novel, did they regurgitate an obvious concept, or did they describe something that they could not actually pull off?" IANAL, however upon examination of the three patents in question:

8,619,051 should be invalidated by prior art of a force feedback joystick.

8,773,356 is a meaningless over-broad software "method" patent.

8,659,571 is another meaningless over-broad software "method" patent.

If I were part of a patent trial jury, I would consider nullification of this and many other patent cases. If the patent system is broken, the courts are broken, and the legislature is broken, then it is our duty to make a train wreck out of patent trolls.

Enough is enough

[X10]

We should abandon patents altogether.

Re:Enough is enough

[ThosLives]

At least have "real" patent reform, probably along these lines:

1. Adjust patent periods to two or three times the typical new-product release cycle in the target industry. Pharma or manufacturing tech? Yeah you can have a 15 or 20 year patent. Computers: Here you go, 24-36 months.

That's it, that's all you'd need to do. Even if there was an "obvious" patent in this case, who cares, because the duration is short enough that only really valuable patents would even make it into the system, reducing the workload on the USPTO so grant times would be shorter, better examination of prior art and obviousness, and the like.

Re:Trolls

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

How about some facts?

1) The McDonalds coffee in question was not only hot, it was scalding -- capable of causing serious 3rd degree burns.

2) Sheila Liebeck was, in fact, very badly burned by the coffee- a vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting.

3) During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992.

4) McDonalds revealed during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit "to maintain optimum taste". Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.

5) Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would literally burn the mouth and throat.

6) The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages (she had originally only asked for $20,000). This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds' coffee sales.

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/c...

Re:Trolls

[Plumpaquatsch]

Holy shit batman, that's like suing McDonalds because you spilled hot coffee on yourself.

Actually, it's like suing the water supply company because you spilled hot coffee on yourself.

Re:Trolls

[AK Marc]

You agreed with him 100%, but in the most disagreeable manner.

McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would literally burn the mouth and throat.

Leaving aside that McDonald's coffee is not fit for consumption at any temperature, it was common knowledge before this case that fast-food coffee was "designed" to be drunk at your destination, not when served. So yes, it was too hot to drink, but you weren't supposed to drink it. It was also served at common home temperature. Instant coffee is 10% of coffee in the US. So 90% is drip/filter or percolator. I didn't find a ratio between them, but before 1970, it was 0% drip/filter. And percolators work at temperatures near 100C, so a 90C serving temperature would be in-line with a home-brewed coffee.

McDonalds served coffee at the temperature she would have made for herself, had she made it. McDonald's failure was the one never mentioned. The cup's failure. She didn't "spill" it. That wording implies a tip. The cup collapsed, spilling it on her. McDonalds should have been held accountable for serving a dangerous substance in an unsafe container. But should be free to serve the dangerous substance.