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Apple Awarded iPhone and Multi-Touch Patent
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Different "way" but it uses the exact same intuitive "gestures"... which is what this patent is all about.
Pre is also infringing on a Microsoft patent for sucky OSes...
I mean HTML and javascript for your OS?????.....
Yeah. I was pretty excited that 'anyone' can code for the Pre, but now I'm seriously wondering what the limits of the phone are with HTML and Javascript apps.
The way Apple described the patent made it seem like any implementation of useful multitouch is Apple's territory. Does this mean no more multitouch devices without an Apple logo on it?
Again, that wasn't the point of what you two where going back and forth on. Why you decided to shift gears and run in a different direction instead of a simple "I was wrong on that point" is beyond me.
Apple got it out of the gates first, plus they are completely different implementations of multi-touch anyway.
Isn't the Pre fine?
I'm not a lawyer but Isn't the Palm Pre going to be fine as long as its Multi-touch screen doesn't copy the iPhones technology and coding?
So your telling me it is now illegal for any other phone company to make a phone recognize multiple touches on a screen? That is like adobe getting a patient for image creating software and saying now other company can make image editing software.
Just because a company has a patient for something like multi-touch that just protects the way they have developed it and as long as the Palm Pre came up with its own code which is far different then apples then wouldn't they be fine?
I'm not a lawyer but Isn't the Palm Pre going to be fine as long as its Multi-touch screen doesn't copy the iPhones technology and coding?
So your telling me it is now illegal for any other phone company to make a phone recognize multiple touches on a screen? That is like adobe getting a patient for image creating software and saying now other company can make image editing software.
Just because a company has a patient for something like multi-touch that just protects the way they have developed it and as long as the Palm Pre came up with its own code which is far different then apples then wouldn't they be fine?
Thanks guys. But MS did "purchase the technology from PP a year after the iPhone was released. They may have shown off the technology before they bought it but the IP license wasn't theirs to tout yet.
Like NT said. It doesn't matter because Apple introduced Multi-Touch before MS showed the PP touch and then paid for the IP.
I was on your side bud, I pointed out that you did say it, but it wasn't the point of your talk anyway so it was stupid of that other guy to try to shift the discussion that way.
Uh oh... good luck, palm. And I mean that in the most sincere way - we could use some competition to keep apple on their toes!
The patent examiner may simply look at the prior art that is referred to in the patent (which of course they should try to understand/read) and decide if any of the claims are invalid... "research" may be overstating things somewhat. If an examiner has knowledge in a certain area I'm sure he'll use it, but research if any is probably just talking with fellow examiners.
Too few examiners, too much pressure, and too little expertise...
the pre will be fine...
What exactly is protected against now?
I'm not patent lawyer, nor am I going to read that beast of a document, but it's perhaps a safe assumption that the multi-touch "gestures" are what's chiefly protected. Pinching in and out. Are there any others?
How often do iPhone / iPod touch users use the pinch move anyway? Playing on my wife's iPod touch, I almost never do it. However, if the double tap to zoom to a web page's section is patented by Apple, that could be somewhat devastating UI setback for the pre. Android doesn't have this, and it's a major complaint.
But really, there were a few other things that the pre has going for it that will still attract people's attention. I can't imagine this alone will make the pre a non-starter for many people. However, I could be very wrong.
Cheers,
DCBass
What exactly is protected against now?
I'm not patent lawyer, nor am I going to read that beast of a document, but it's perhaps a safe assumption that the multi-touch "gestures" are what's chiefly protected. Pinching in and out. Are there any others?
How often do iPhone / iPod touch users use the pinch move anyway? Playing on my wife's iPod touch, I almost never do it. However, if the double tap to zoom to a web page's section is patented by Apple, that could be somewhat devastating UI setback for the pre. Android doesn't have this, and it's a major complaint.
But really, there were a few other things that the pre has going for it that will still attract people's attention. I can't imagine this alone will make the pre a non-starter for many people. However, I could be very wrong.
Cheers,
DCBass
That's easy. Palm has both feet in the grave, and without a knock out device this year they probably will collapse. The future existence of Palm very well may lie in the success of the Pre.
Palm has failed as an innovator for a very long time. While I hate to see an iconic company go, surviving by ripping off someone else's product is classless.
I would speculate that if Apple did sue palm and not license the tech to Palm, it will be bye bye for them if they had to cancel or significantly delay the release of the device. I can hear the cries as their stock delists.
So, in your opinion, it is okay for someone to steal someone's work and get rich off of some one else's work? How is that right?
I'm sure that if you invented something, and then I came and stole it, and made millions or billions off of your invention, you'd be pissed.
Apple has every right to protect their own IP. They came up with the idea, they were the first to put it to market, therefor they should make the money off of it. Not LG, or Samsung, or RIM, or Palm.
Don
Ok, refocusing... here's my main point: Take the original iPod and SanDisk Sansa,
They both look pretty similar right?? Why couldn't Apple just patent the scroll wheel for use in mp3 players? How can SanDisk use a scroll wheel? Well, for the same reason that you can't patent a number pad for use with a phone... it's intuitive for that product. What Apple DID patent was a touch surface in the shape of a scroll wheel (a.k.a. no physical wheel that actually spins). SanDisk had to use a traditional physical wheel. Multi-touch, like the scroll wheel user interface, is intuitive and obvious, and shouldn't be patented. On the other hand, particular devices/mechanisms such as capacitive touch screens, and Apple's touch scroll, ARE patentable. I feel like no one is getting this...
Could you explain how that is bad news then? Yes, competition is good. Apple forces other manufacturers to compete instead of copying, so this would be good news.
Unless you read the patent application, nothing is a safe assumption. The only safe assumption with patents is that whenever the press describes a patent, the actual patent is nothing like what they describe
Err... Apple purchased Fingerworks...
Also the whole GUI interface was developed by XEROX PARC, not by Apple (who only helped perfect and market it).
Also this is just food for the Patent Lawyers to find holes in. Look at the Macintosh/Windows GUI patent battles...
Be interesting to see how really watertight this document is...
A scroll wheel isnt an intuitive part of an mp3 player. It is to USE, but having a wheel isnt the first thing your mind jumps to when picturing a music device input (maybe NOW it is after the ipod became the iconic player).Ok, refocusing... here's my main point: Take the original iPod and SanDisk Sansa,
They both look pretty similar right?? Why couldn't Apple just patent the scroll wheel for use in mp3 players? How can SanDisk use a scroll wheel? Well, for the same reason that you can't patent a number pad for use with a phone... it's intuitive for that product. What Apple DID patent was a touch surface in the shape of a scroll wheel (a.k.a. no physical wheel that actually spins). Multi-touch, like the scroll wheel, is intuitive and obvious, and shouldn't be patented. On the other hand, particular devices/mechanisms such as capacitive touch screens, like Apple's touch scroll, ARE patentable. I feel like no one is getting this...
If apple had patented the scroll wheel before anyone else in that implementation, it would be the same thing.
"In some embodiments, the device is portable."
" In some embodiments, the device has a touch-sensitive display"
"In some embodiments, the user interacts with the GUI primarily through finger contacts and gestures on the touch-sensitive display."
VoIP and WiMAx in there, IM, video creation, videconferening, video sensor on the front for dual vid, video streams mentioned.
In some embodiments, the patent is pretty hard work to wade through. Covering the bases...
I guess most interestingly will be the ""rubber band-like" scrolling and translation behavior " part already it seems, mentioned in several provisional patents of Apples?
Not sure about patenting the landscape portrait oreintation part either.
Pretty thorough. Enough to give an M-fingered sign to Palm's Pre...
But no "cut and paste" to be found in the whole document
Edit - is sandisk actually a scroll wheel? Or just a compass button like (north south east west, covered in a circle shape?)
" In some embodiments, the device has a touch-sensitive display"
"In some embodiments, the user interacts with the GUI primarily through finger contacts and gestures on the touch-sensitive display."
VoIP and WiMAx in there, IM, video creation, videconferening, video sensor on the front for dual vid, video streams mentioned.
In some embodiments, the patent is pretty hard work to wade through. Covering the bases...
I guess most interestingly will be the ""rubber band-like" scrolling and translation behavior " part already it seems, mentioned in several provisional patents of Apples?
Not sure about patenting the landscape portrait oreintation part either.
Pretty thorough. Enough to give an M-fingered sign to Palm's Pre...
But no "cut and paste" to be found in the whole document
Edit - is sandisk actually a scroll wheel? Or just a compass button like (north south east west, covered in a circle shape?)
Apple acquired Fingerworks. Companies do this when they identify a technology they need to make a product they want to make. They have to buy another company to own that technology or they licence said technology.
Exactly. It's funny that people forget what happened with Windows? There is simply no way in hell, that Steve will let history repeat itself with the iPhone.
Don
That's a good question. I'm not a lawyer either, but it is not about their OS. If the technology and software to allow multi-touch were so easy to conjure up, someone would have done it a long time ago. Probably lots of somebody's. That's the IP Apple would be trying to protect. Someone wrote tons of code to make that happen. The code doesn't have to be a carbon copy to infringe. I can read any novel I like, rewrite it and change the setting, characters, even reword much of it and still be liable for plagiarism.
I'd feel bad for the judge that would have to sort it all out. The thought makes my head hurt. Who knows, maybe Apple won't sue.
This is the most nonsensical post I have read in a while. Do you actually believe what you have written? Are you suggesting to get rid of the patent system? If there were no patent system, why would anyone release anything...ever? A good idea would just get ripped off and used by other companies without consequence. Don't you see that THIS would lead to the restriction and stifling of innovation that you are worried about?
great post. apple has a right to protect what they create. if others complain, let them invest millions of dollars and years into developing something else. no reason apple should fork over their hard work in the name of copy cat competition. other phone makers should get off their asses and create something to compete.