Apple patented Multi-touch does that mean that no other phones can have touch screens

[iAppleseed]

I'm confused about this.
Since Apple patented Multi-touch (according to Steve Jobs at the presentation of the original iPhone), does this mean that every other phone with a touch screen (Galaxy, HTC, etc), is illegal?

 

[musty345]

I'm not familiar with this particular patent, but no it's not illegal.
Multi-touch refers to touching several places at once, not all touch screens. And secondly, I'm sure other phone makers can just pay Apple to use the multi-touch technology (if Apple do own the patent). I might be wrong, but this is just my guess

 

[cperchard]

They probably patented it for 2 years or something....that's why the competition took a while to introduce touch screen phones with multi-touch.

Pretty sure u cant patent something forever!

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I'm confused about this.
Since Apple patented Multi-touch (according to Steve Jobs at the presentation of the original iPhone), does this mean that every other phone with a touch screen (Galaxy, HTC, etc), is illegal?

Apple did not patent multi touch. Steve Jobs was a marketing guy and his tenichal understanding of things like multi touch was basic at best. Multi touch tech has been around since the 80's.

 

[kdarling]

Apple did not patent multi-touch, which has existed since at least the early 1980s.

Apple didn't even get the trademark for their UI called "Multi-Touch", because Jeff Han's own multi-touch company protested to the Trademark Office in an 80 page evidence paper about how generic the phrase was in the industry.

--

When Jobs gave speeches, he was more like P.T.Barnum than Moses. In other words, he was trying to sell something.

In this case, he meant "applied for patents for various bits and pieces of the phone", including their own version of a mulit-touch screen decoder.

Edit: I see Rodimus beat me to it.