Visual Voicemail patent?

[dccorona]

Did Apple come up with visual voicemail?
if so, why didnt they patent it?
I was just trying to help my friend pick a new phone (shes on verizon...ugh) and noticed that they are advertising "visual voicemail" as a feature on many of their phones. It seems to me like this would be a feature apple would want to protect, like multi touch

 

[kdarling]

A patent holding company has the base patent for visual voice mail. After the iPhone came out, they woke up and sued everyone.

At first, Verizon and Sprint licensed it. Then AOL and Vonage. That put legal pressure on everyone else. As of last June, both Apple and ATT settled by licensing it as well.

Apple didn't invent multi-touch either. Or maps on phones. Or the pinch. Or flick scrolling. Or a grid of icons. Or ... well, you get the idea. What they did was to nicely put various ideas together in one coherent package.

 

[Masquerade]

Apple didn't invent multi-touch either. Or maps on phones. Or the pinch. Or flick scrolling. Or a grid of icons. Or ... well, you get the idea. What they did was to nicely put various ideas together in one coherent package.

"oh boy, we have done it. we patented!" - healthy guy

 

[kdarling]

"oh boy, we have done it. we patented!" - healthy guy

Yeah I know. Cracks me up each time I read it. (Search for "patented" in his transcript here.)

"And we have invented a new technology called multi-touch, which is phenomenal. It works like magic. You don't need a stylus. It's far more accurate than any touch display that's ever been shipped. It ignores unintended touches, it's super-smart. You can do multi-finger gestures on it. And boy, have we patented it."

Translation: We re-invented an old name. It's not magic. It can't use most stylii. It's not super smart; that's the software. Multi-touch gestures predate it by twenty years. And boy, we applied for patents on very iPhone specific things, but I bet you think I meant multi-touch because I said it in the same breath.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Yeah I know. Cracks me up each time I read it. (Search for "patented" in his transcript here.)

"And we have invented a new technology called multi-touch, which is phenomenal. It works like magic. You don't need a stylus. It's far more accurate than any touch display that's ever been shipped. It ignores unintended touches, it's super-smart. You can do multi-finger gestures on it. And boy, have we patented it."

Translation: We re-invented an old name. It's not magic. It can't use most stylii. It's not super smart; that's the software. Multi-touch gestures predate it by twenty years. And boy, we applied for patents on very iPhone specific things, but I bet you think I meant multi-touch because I said it in the same breath.

Actually, the guy who came up with modern day multi-touch (aka, not garbage) now works for Apple. So yes, any recent patents for it are theirs. Comparing this to twenty year old technology is pretty funny.

 

[kdarling]

Actually, the guy who came up with modern day multi-touch (aka, not garbage) now works for Apple.

Who would that be? Not Bill Buxton, who used multi-fingers and hands back in the '80s, he works for Microsoft. Not Bruce Tognazzini, he left Apple in '92 and demo'd multi-touch, including the pinch in '93 at Sun. So I suspect you mean Elias and Westerman, who created Fingerworks in the very late '90s. Yes?

So yes, any recent patents for it are theirs. Comparing this to twenty year old technology is pretty funny.

Recent patents on what? If you mean the iPhone specific touchscreen, then I already said that was probably so. But that has nothing to do with inventing multi-touch gesture or screens, or preventing others from doing the same.

Btw, I've been programming as a living for all kinds of touchscreens since ~1990, and on touchpads for a decade before that.

Love Colorado Springs, btw. Still have a house up in Douglas County.