It seems this patent, in it's generalities, lends itself to prior art. In addition to the Neonode N1 phone in 2002, there was a Palm app in 2001 by company PDABusiness called Gridlock. The app used finger "gestures" on the Palm "touch-sensitive display" to match a "predefined" pattern in a 5x5 grid. This patent describes it may include an "unlock" image. This was an arrow on the first iPhone? Perhaps implementing a padlock icon was also too narrow for Apple?
Time will tell, but if nothing else, this ruling definitely opened the doors for some lawyers to profit.
Jim Hassell, managing director of Sun Microsystems Australia, argued that Linux was no loss to the Agility Alliance because it could use Solaris 10 instead of Linux rival Red Hat.
... and you can't beat the price to the Agility Aliance members. We get Solaris 10 free, with support from Sun included! Top that, Linux!
"If you test Red Hat against Solaris 10 against whatever else... we would say that Solaris 10 beats it hands down on functionality and everything else," said Hassell.
You should read up on the guy. His talent lay more with the social engineering aspect of security. He could talk his way into or out of just about anything. His book on social engineering is a good read, McPaper-sized examples, but still very eye-opening. I'm a network admin, 18 years running, and I wound up with a large security laundry list to discuss with my boss the following Monday.
The other thing is his *years* of jail time were spent before he was ever convicted, i.e. pleaded guilty to some of the charges to cut short his lack-of-a-speedy trial. He's done his time. He can talk as long as people will pay him.
Besides, ignorance is not unexpected. Many novices probably couldn't tell you who Philo Farnsworth was, even though they've been looking at his invention all their lives.
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It seems this patent, in it's generalities, lends itself to prior art. In addition to the Neonode N1 phone in 2002, there was a Palm app in 2001 by company PDABusiness called Gridlock. The app used finger "gestures" on the Palm "touch-sensitive display" to match a "predefined" pattern in a 5x5 grid. This patent describes it may include an "unlock" image. This was an arrow on the first iPhone? Perhaps implementing a padlock icon was also too narrow for Apple? Time will tell, but if nothing else, this ruling definitely opened the doors for some lawyers to profit.
You should read up on the guy. His talent lay more with the social engineering aspect of security. He could talk his way into or out of just about anything. His book on social engineering is a good read, McPaper-sized examples, but still very eye-opening. I'm a network admin, 18 years running, and I wound up with a large security laundry list to discuss with my boss the following Monday.
The other thing is his *years* of jail time were spent before he was ever convicted, i.e. pleaded guilty to some of the charges to cut short his lack-of-a-speedy trial. He's done his time. He can talk as long as people will pay him.
Besides, ignorance is not unexpected. Many novices probably couldn't tell you who Philo Farnsworth was, even though they've been looking at his invention all their lives.