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Apple Awarded iPhone and Multi-Touch Patent
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Funny how then people that would simply point out a flaw in the logic of the thread would then be labelled fanboys....
Well see, you would already be put into fanboy category, because you automatically assumed that the negative thread would have been of a flawed logic...
Wow, what a pissing match. Arn, what THE HELL happened to your forum?
That aside, and to the main point of the OP, remember that if Apple doesn't defend their patent they can lose it. Apple has no choice BUT to sue those who they think infringed on MT.
That aside, and to the main point of the OP, remember that if Apple doesn't defend their patent they can lose it. Apple has no choice BUT to sue those who they think infringed on MT.
I said point out A flaw, good luck coming up with a 100% negative thread that doesnt overlook something.
So true. Clones should never equal good competition- it just screws over the original innovator and proves that stealing/cheating is a far more sound business practice than taking a risk.
They don't have to sue.
They could offer up a license deal for use of the patent.
Sorry buddy, you exposed yourself. See how easy it is to flush them out?
Negative thread towards apple product/company = flawed logic to fanboy
I think using the above formula when we can do a good job of deciding which fanboys to survey
Ha, ok big dain, I see your just going to continue posting like this.
Goodnight everyone who thinks with logic!
I never meant to suggest they couldn't. In fact, that's the first step Apple will take. It's up to the possibly infringing company to either accept the offer and license it or take their chances in court.
I am loving this thread.
Big dain - nice one.
I have to say though, if something is generally 100% negative, then you have to be a bit suss. You can almost always find something good about something and generally no side is 100% right. So NT1440 does have a point.
But please Apple fanboys who have fallen into the Apple void of reality, come back to earth. Apple is not all good. You can feel its power over you, but you have to try to remain critical (as in analytical) or otherwise you will lose the plot. Apple has to be kept in check. If they could they would control what you ate - let alone trying to control what phone you own.
On another note, Windows 7 looks like it may shake up Apple's world. Couple that with the coming economic dark times and Apple will have to actually provide value to its customers for its big price tags. I am considering going back if Windows 7 is good enough (I have realised recently I have no real allegiance to either side) and I can find a PC laptop which has good industrial design (I am a sucker for Apple's design). I won't support, however, the overpricing of Mac computers and other products just so Apple can have a fat bank account. Although its fat bank account may really help Apple in the coming dark economic times
Big dain - nice one.
I have to say though, if something is generally 100% negative, then you have to be a bit suss. You can almost always find something good about something and generally no side is 100% right. So NT1440 does have a point.
But please Apple fanboys who have fallen into the Apple void of reality, come back to earth. Apple is not all good. You can feel its power over you, but you have to try to remain critical (as in analytical) or otherwise you will lose the plot. Apple has to be kept in check. If they could they would control what you ate - let alone trying to control what phone you own.
On another note, Windows 7 looks like it may shake up Apple's world. Couple that with the coming economic dark times and Apple will have to actually provide value to its customers for its big price tags. I am considering going back if Windows 7 is good enough (I have realised recently I have no real allegiance to either side) and I can find a PC laptop which has good industrial design (I am a sucker for Apple's design). I won't support, however, the overpricing of Mac computers and other products just so Apple can have a fat bank account. Although its fat bank account may really help Apple in the coming dark economic times
Yeah, but it's no coincidence that all the other makers scrambled to make their own version of an iPhone. Some, like the "storm" as I understand it - do not even work well at all, although I have not tried them, so that's just what I am hearing. In any case, the Blackberry and Palm units don't seem to be breaking much new ground - it's not really competition - it's more like what a copycat does probably because they have zero imagination.
I'd like to see some competition where another company makes something really new and innovative, and then Apple can step in and ride on THEIR coat tails. Apple did this with the MP3 players. It's a no brainer to go with an iPod over any of the other MP3 units out there.
With Phones, again, Apple competed by innovating again, and now they are copying it, and I'm glad Apple has patented the hell out of it, and has Billions to prosecute their patents.
In summary,
I like competition too - but not copying by these Balmer-Cheney type suits that must be in the board rooms of the copycats.
+1 for the only knowledgeable poster in the thread. Key phrase: "one or more fingers". This isn't going to prevent multi-touch on the Pre anymore than it will prevent the touch screen itself. The only important part of the patent is the claims section, which is about one browser page, so let's go through it.
Basically this is a claim on three specific actions on a touch-screen computing device:
- Moving a finger(s) in the vertical direction will restrict page scrolling to the vertical direction.
- Moving a finger(s) at an angle will scroll both horizontally and vertically.
- Any particular touch action with a finger(s) that will advance to the next item of a series (think PowerPoint presentation or photos on the iPhone)
You know how when you initially scroll vertically on the iPhone and when you try to pan horizontally you have found it only moves up and down (quite handy IMO)? Yeah, that pretty much sums up what they are claiming here. The last item is essentially the left or right swipe using in the photo app or when switching pages in Safari. The claim does not specify any particular gesture, which will theoretically mean that any other device will have to rely on UI buttons to advance items. I don't see this claim holding much water as doing things such as advancing a PowerPoint slide via a touch is "ordinary innovation", which is not patentable.
Everything about claim 1, but limited to a frame of the display (like on a webpage). Note that any claim to "the computing device of claim 1" includes the use of the specific gestures claimed by 1. Therefore, this claim does not mean that no touch-screen device can only scroll in the active frame, but specifically touch-screen devices that also rely on the specific finger gestures of claim 1.
Same as claim 1 with the addition of figuring out which object/region is to be manipulated.
Same as claim 1 in the specific case that the vertical input is a swipe (as opposed to a touch and drag). Note this is not prevent any touch screen from scrolling vertically with a swipe. It specifically is for limiting to vertical scrolling when the angle of the swipe is vertical. This is obviously a nice feature as it will pretty much be impossible to swipe (or touch/drag) perfectly vertical when only vertical scrolling is desired. Whether or not the iPhone actually calculates the angle, I don't know, but the language is used is "angle". Possibly competitors could get around this by taking the ratio of vertical to horizontal movement and limiting scrolling to vertical if the ratio is, say, greater than 10, but perhaps not.
Same as claim 1.
Same as claim 4 except in the horizontal direction.
Not even utilized on the iPhone yet. Honestly, I don't see this one holding much weight either. That's like trying to patent turning the wheel left to turn your car left. It's too much an "ordinary innovation", with a touch screen device, to rotate your fingers to rotate the screen.
I think by this they mean using either two fingers or three fingers for panning to control scrolling the page or the frame. Again, this is specific to the claims in 1 about the "angle of initial movement".
USounds like while touching the screen with one finger, touching with an additional finger will have a different command, specifically to web browsing and photo applications. Not currently used on the iPhone, so no big deal.
Same as claim 6, but for the device of claim 9 (with the given web browser and photo app touch commands).
This, as the rest of the claims, is for everything already described, only applied to a "computer implemented method" (i.e. software) and for a "computer readable storage medium" (i.e. hardware). Basically this just extends the claims to more than a "device" so a competitor can't skirt the patent by claiming that they aren't producing a "computing device" with those specific touch controls, but just the software that controls a "computing device".
In conclusion:
This patent does not patent a single or multi-touch interface or commands. It patents limiting scrolling to vertical based on the initial angle of input, general panning to a range of inital angles, and horizontal scrolling to the initial angle of input. It patents the advancement of the display to the next item of a set via any particular touch gesture (including a simple touch). It is limited to linking the command to the gesture itself, not to linking the command to specific UI elements (like back and forward buttons). Effectively this will keep swiping gestures as in the photo app unique to the iPhone, although, if contested, it remains to be seen if this could be considered "ordinary innovation" and therefore not lawfully patentable.
What it boils down to is this patent is really nothing spectacular, and Apple has no grounds to be bringing suit to anyone anytime soon.
I love how on this board other patent-holders suing Apple are all bottom-feeding small-fry who should be beaten down by a change to the patent law, and yet when Apple patents technology with an apparent view to stifling competition it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Let's see the iPhone compete on a level playing field, feature-by-feature, instead of Apple simply using their patent to swat away anything that works the same way.
Let's see the iPhone compete on a level playing field, feature-by-feature, instead of Apple simply using their patent to swat away anything that works the same way.
In attempt to keep its head out of the water, Palm 100% ripped off the iPhone. It's blatantly obvious. Apple should use all legal recourse against them. I used to own a Palm and their new phone looks awesome, but intellectual property needs to be respected.
Sorry mate, MMS is the joke. The strongest reason to include MMS in the iPhone is for marketing purposes. MMS is used by some, but most people never bother. In addition it's a technology that doesn't work seamlesly between different handsets. Sometimes you will receive an image that's impossible to view in full size on your handset and sometimes you will receive the image without colours.
While I can see that some people really wants to have MMS the world would be better of if we could all just move on to something better (like email). Apple might have got it wrong not including this functionality with their phone but personally I find it to be a sensible thing to omit.
If you read through Apple's programming guidelines they have an interesting document about designing for 80% of the audience. If adding functionality that only will be used by 20% of your target audience and this makes the interface more complicated for the remaining 80% you should have a really strong reason to include this functionality. I think this might apply here. (Or if not, at least for the copy+paste functionallity).
Anyway, there are tons of phones with more functionality than the iPhone so I don't really see the problem. The only thing is you won't be able to buy these phones with Apple's patended interface. This is the essence of competition.
There are no such thing as a "perfect" product for everyone. It's all about balance, and this is where the iPhone have come very close to hitting the bulls-eye. My only personal complaint about the phone is the [lack of] battery-life.
"Mobile Internet" is a joke. I would say arguing your own bad personal experience of MMS as a reason for its AWOL from the iPhone is a pretty poor one. Using UK figures, 44.46 million picture messages or MMS messages were sent in September of last year alone. Thats almost two and a half times the numbers that use mobile internet.
Coverage of most operators for standard service which would include GPRS for the sending and receiving of MMS based messages covers 90-95%+ of the UK, compared with just 20-30% of the UK for 3G based services... Not to mention the MMS service is supported by the vast majority of the handsets on the networks and makes it very convenient and easy to send and receive pictures of places, special events etc.
Not everyone wants to use email.
I'm endlessly amazed at how patent offices can issue 'patents' over 'ideas' instead of implementations. I mean is this about a WAY to achieve multi-touch or is this idea of using more than one finger to accomplish something a unique idea? If so, I think the piano and even the joystick and keyboard have one over on Apple.
In other words, can I patent a 'warp drive' even if I don't have a blue-print or schematic for one? I can just patent the IDEA of one? There are plenty of ways to skin a cat and if one company could patent the idea of something like a "camera" and that would mean that NO ONE could make a competing camera because the entire idea in whole of a "camera" was patented by someone else... well let me just say it, it's STUPID.
Yes, the exact schematics and methods of Apple being protected are ONE thing, but the patent system in recent years have gone FAR FAR beyond reasonable in the ways it awards patents. If you just make up a patent that describes some future method of doing something you imagine MIGHT just be useful to someone somewhere and somehow and never mind if that person ever read your patent or even has a clue about it, you can then sue them (including suing Apple, which gets endless negative attention on places like this every time it happens when some small company or individual sues Apple over patent infringement yet when Apple does it, it's OK).
So if Apple discovered the ONLY way to make multi-touch function (one circuit and one method) that's fine. But if someone else can make it work with a different circuit, I say TOO BAD. You shouldn't be able to patent basic ideas. Otherwise, someone could have patented 1+1 = 2 and any time that shows up ANYWHERE, they could sue. The whole system need overhauled.
Compare that to the medicine industry where you can patent a FORMULA (which IS a SINGLE EXACT THING) but only for a limited amount of time for the common good of everyone. That's a MUCH more reasonable system.
An no, I have no personal interest in any of it; I just don't like the legal system regarding the way patents are issued for things with very little understanding or way of proofs or exacting specifics.
While these numbers sounds impressive, are they really? How many people are living in the UK, about 60 million right? I guess the above figure averages at about one MMS per person per month. Hardly sounds like it's essential to most people, does it?
I appreciate this, and I don't really have a problem whit people wanting to use MMS. Hey, I would probably download a free MMS-app from Apple myself!ccuk said:
I'm just saying that there are good reasons not to include it as well. At some point someone has to say: "Hey, this is ancient technology, we already have something better". Otherwise we'll be stuck with legacy-stuff forever.
Now, for Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson this is hard. They sell loads of different models and excluding any functionallity would be commercial suicide. In reality Apple is proably the only company that could do this and get away with it. Hopefully this will work as a signal to other manufacturers (as well as service-providers) forcing email to become an integral part of any mobile-phone a few years from now.
I agree with this one. The whole idea of the MMS was to send around multimedia files through cell phones, but that was before phones were able to handle e-mail clients that do what their desktop counterparts do. The iPhone is more than just a phone its practically a pocket computer, now with the power this device has you can send photos, video and audio through e-mail so why have a function like MMS when e-mail is more prevalent and easier to use.
SMS is a different story but wait until most people have phones that can handle e-mail then you will see this feature go.
Cut and paste though is essential, Apple needs to add tis one soon.
Patents can encourage inovation
I can see both sides of this arguement..
1. I agree this "iphone" patent would stifle the competition, but that would only be competition of clones.. well, used loosely.. makers see that the gesture/multitouch works - so it would be really easy to just make a similar implimentation... if they could not previously "successfully" develop and market it, it would be easy to say, just copy some elses..
2. but the patent (and if Apple flexes it Ip muscles) would also "force" other manufacturers to develop their own method and implimentation - hence competeto make a better product.
Sorry, but personally I kind of agree with #2.
One of Apples's selling points is it USP... ie the iphone's Unique Selling Point. They go on about the experience of their products... so if this patent is about that experience (via the heuristic implimentation) so be it.
Also, looking back to the Windows 1.0 vs Apple GUI licensing.
Apple lost its calim, but did it not encourage both sides to push the envelope?
In the end Apple may not agressively clamp down - but at least other parties cannot then "patent" their idea and then claim againts Apple - it is kind of sad that it has resulted in companies needing to protect themselves, but it is only common sense. Apple may just use this as a bargining tool with other parties as it has value, why not?
I can see both sides of this arguement..
1. I agree this "iphone" patent would stifle the competition, but that would only be competition of clones.. well, used loosely.. makers see that the gesture/multitouch works - so it would be really easy to just make a similar implimentation... if they could not previously "successfully" develop and market it, it would be easy to say, just copy some elses..
2. but the patent (and if Apple flexes it Ip muscles) would also "force" other manufacturers to develop their own method and implimentation - hence competeto make a better product.
Sorry, but personally I kind of agree with #2.
One of Apples's selling points is it USP... ie the iphone's Unique Selling Point. They go on about the experience of their products... so if this patent is about that experience (via the heuristic implimentation) so be it.
Also, looking back to the Windows 1.0 vs Apple GUI licensing.
Apple lost its calim, but did it not encourage both sides to push the envelope?
In the end Apple may not agressively clamp down - but at least other parties cannot then "patent" their idea and then claim againts Apple - it is kind of sad that it has resulted in companies needing to protect themselves, but it is only common sense. Apple may just use this as a bargining tool with other parties as it has value, why not?
Palm are in the doo do now,
Oh well they gave it a go.
They will be auctioning off the furniture at Plam in a few months.
"What do I bid for some never to be sold Palm Pre-collectors items if ever there was one ladies and Gentlemaen. Who will start me at $20, surely OK $ 10. "
Oh well they gave it a go.
They will be auctioning off the furniture at Plam in a few months.
"What do I bid for some never to be sold Palm Pre-collectors items if ever there was one ladies and Gentlemaen. Who will start me at $20, surely OK $ 10. "