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Apple Denied Trademark for Multi-Touch
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How is apple's implementation of multitouch better? Seems much of a muchness to me.
I agree that a lot of people would agree with you, but it is subjective to say certain features are "better." For example, to say that iOS is "Better" than android is subjective, I prefer android therefore it is subjective. HOWEVER, to say that the CPU in one phone is better than the others (based on tests) is different. At the moment many of the iPhones hardware features are lacking, but we'll wait for the 4th to revise that claim, but the software features are preferred by many people.
Was the iPhone the first touch-screen phone to have multi-touch gestures?
Considering a) Multi-touch gesture devices have been around for years prior to Apple's iteration of them and b) Apple was not the first company to develop a phone that had "multi-touch" gestures, c) not even the first company to use the terminology "multi-touch" to describe their phone, and d) in 2007, years before your argued proliferation of the terminology was in play, this organization determined even then that the term was not trademark-able because it was a description of an action that was common, not a distinct technology, I'd say your argument is a bit off.
Apple didn't invent multi-touch. And while your assertion of its popularity in large part because of Apple's use of the technology is valid, it is also pointless in this conversation because that is not why the trademark appeal was declined.
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No. Several others have been mentioned and linked in above posts.
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I mean really dude... Google is your friend.
Google is your fiend. They're NOT anyone's friend except the advertisers.
Just go straight to wikipedia for stuff like this, or use Yahoo if you have to search the web.
It was the first to popularize it, whether or not it was the first I do not know. I actually have never seen the iPhone advertised as having multitouch, first I heard of it was on the macbooks.
LG Prada was a piece of dung compared to iPhone 1. It didn't even have multi-touch capability!
I've found google to have done some nice things that weren't for the benefit of advertisers. Example being their policy (unsure if it's still going on) of offering software developers a small amount of money to make the program open source, instead of giving it to any single company.
At least they know I am the customer and not information to serve to someone else.
Whoa buddy, you shut your mouth! Steve Jobs and Tim Cook promised to come to my birthday.
Like the iPhone storing your location without your knowledge?
I hope you invite me too. I would love to meet both of them.
and where did you think they got the idea from? did you think Apple turned on a switch in Jan 2007 and the iPhone just appeared? Apple had been working on the iPhone (and actually the iPad idea before that) since 2003 and even before on the concepts of the object oriented system, now called a mobile OS..
where do you think Apple was asking parts companies to look at and build parts for the iphone for a year before it's introduction?
yes, believe it or not taiwanese and Korean and Chinese companies copy products they are making for other people... surprised, no one else is.
to prove the point, FIC came out with a device in may of 2007 that looked very much like an iPhone. (even though they had no device to show before then)
and the iPhone (shown in jan, took until June i think before it shipped) guess where that FIC device came from... from builds of the iPhone...
LoL you're living in fantasy land if you DON'T think what he said is true..... Just look at the majority of posts when talking about this very type of thing or when comparing device x to iPhone, iPad ect.
The general poster here on MR does believe apple invented many of the things they produce. One of the very posters in this thread said you had to use a stilus before iPhone came around which starts to prove his point. His statement rings true, yours, not so much.
I'm glad they did not get the tm for multi touch. Not hating them for trying but glad it wasn't granted.
And the general poster here also thinks that Steve Jobs invented, designed and built these products on his own.
The relative quality of predecessor multi-touch devices was not your question, nor was the discrepancy in 2007 or 2011 relevant to the trademark request.
I agree with you that Apple's iteration of multi-touch is leaps and bounds beyond anything, especially smaller devices, that came before, but if you think that has anything to do with this decision then you have misread or fundamentally misunderstand the decision handed down by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
It is not that other products are using the term "multi-touch" as a description of their product, it is that "multi-touch" is a generic descriptive term regarding how a myriad of devices - yes, many since the iPhone, but also yes, many before - are interacted with by their user.
This isn't about whether or not Apple made it popular, it's that the term is a mainstream description more than a named proprietary technology. And remember that this was originally decided in 2007, so any argument that Apple's popularity have made it so is, to be blunt, historically inaccurate.
Uh...They'll really be there, just look, over there! *runs*
I'll be damned if I'll sit here and listen to you spread your lies. Steve Jobs whittled the iPhone out of a mighty oak that was felled by lightning in his front yard.
A what?
You mean a Big-Ass Table™ you can't take home and that is barely seen by anyone?
Congratulations, Microsoft. A $12,000 coffee-table that's done sweet f all for your mobile business. And to think that had you been prescient enough, creative enough, energetic enough, and not so arrogantly, blindingly stupid, it might have been Steve Ballmer giving the iPhone keynote at the Mobile World Congress in 2007.
Well, that would of course had been an impossibility anyway, because Steve Ballmer can barely carry Bill Gates' shoes, never mind Steve Jobs' New Balance 993s. Apple came totally out of left field and you can't expect the also rans to be capable of comprehending what was coming down the pike (not "pipe", by the way.)
But hey, you can still see a Big-Ass Table™ at Disney and some hotels. In fact, MS has, like, 120 partners that use it! Cool!
Or you could just get an iPhone. And you won't need your buddy's pickup to take it home. Or a second mortgage.
Trade dress
Ugh. Apple STARTED the trend of touch screen "smartphones." Especially "multi touch" ones. Not to mention "tablet computers." There was no Android, Galaxy, or anything else when Apple applied for the trademark.
How can it be used to describe many other products, when the other products werent even CONCEIVED until the other companies saw them, and how well Apple was doing with them. Apple is the one who initiated the touch screen phone revolution, which has greatly benefited Apple lovers and haters alike.
Personally, I have never heard the term "Multi-Touch" used for anything other than an Apple iDevice.
Apple seems to give something of theirs a unique name, and all the other companies copy the name and use it for their products. For example, "Application", "App", "App Store" etc. are used by Apple's competitors, even when "program" would seem to make more sense for what it is.
Heck, a GUI with windows and a mouse is so ubiquitous these days, no would would know it was originally an Apple thing.
Apple has trade dress infringement problems out the wazoo. Which is exactly from where the other companies verbal defenses are emanating.
Ugh. Apple STARTED the trend of touch screen "smartphones." Especially "multi touch" ones. Not to mention "tablet computers." There was no Android, Galaxy, or anything else when Apple applied for the trademark.
How can it be used to describe many other products, when the other products werent even CONCEIVED until the other companies saw them, and how well Apple was doing with them. Apple is the one who initiated the touch screen phone revolution, which has greatly benefited Apple lovers and haters alike.
Personally, I have never heard the term "Multi-Touch" used for anything other than an Apple iDevice.
Apple seems to give something of theirs a unique name, and all the other companies copy the name and use it for their products. For example, "Application", "App", "App Store" etc. are used by Apple's competitors, even when "program" would seem to make more sense for what it is.
Heck, a GUI with windows and a mouse is so ubiquitous these days, no would would know it was originally an Apple thing.
Apple has trade dress infringement problems out the wazoo. Which is exactly from where the other companies verbal defenses are emanating.
Actually since half of that one was cut and pasted from an earlier one I made, let's call it 1.5.
Either way, thank you.quoted4trooth
ROFLMAO! Thankfully you're not the typical user here and you understand reality. Many would believe the tree story.
No.. Palm started the trend of touchscreen smartphones.
Tablet computers existed before Apple ever thought of making one.
I won't go into the rest because the RDF is strong with you as well.
Your lack of knowledge in the history of technology proves this.
Temporarily Off Topic
Maybe we just don't understand the motivation.
In all seriousness, Google is okay in many ways, but IF THEY WIN, then we get ads everywhere. Maybe Neil Stephenson guessed right in Snow Crash... In the future, America is only good at 3 things; pizza delivery, advertising, and organized crime.
Back on topic, I think the Patent on Multitouch trumps the trademark. Gazinga!
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN/7479949
Maybe we just don't understand the motivation.
In all seriousness, Google is okay in many ways, but IF THEY WIN, then we get ads everywhere. Maybe Neil Stephenson guessed right in Snow Crash... In the future, America is only good at 3 things; pizza delivery, advertising, and organized crime.
Back on topic, I think the Patent on Multitouch trumps the trademark. Gazinga!
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN/7479949
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I don't think you read *any* of the decision. The summary on the very front page MRs writes said that the onus would be on Apple to provide proof that consumers equate the words "multiple-touch" with Apple's devices. And, simple, Apple cannot. There's the decision in a nutshell. The decision has little to do with whatever you were jabbering on about.
If anyone thinks that this was a good trademark for Apple to go after, then you must also think "swipe" and "tap" are good ideas too. By the logic on here, these words were not widely in use in the mobile computing market before Apple came around. Geez, I wish I could post a "rolls-eyes" from my iPhone.
DeaconGTG said:
I don't think you read *any* of the decision. The summary on the very front page MRs writes said that the onus would be on Apple to provide proof that consumers equate the words "multiple-touch" with Apple's devices. And, simple, Apple cannot. There's the decision in a nutshell. The decision has little to do with whatever you were jabbering on about.
If anyone thinks that this was a good trademark for Apple to go after, then you must also think "swipe" and "tap" are good ideas too. By the logic on here, these words were not widely in use in the mobile computing market before Apple came around. Geez, I wish I could post a "rolls-eyes" from my iPhone.