The touch screen of an Apple iPad in action.
(Credit: Apple )
Posted on 06/22/2011 2:17:08 PM PDT by Swordmaker
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Apple a key patent for touch screen functionality on portable devices, such as the iPhone and iPad.
Apple's patent, which the company applied for in 2007, boils down to one simple focus: when a person uses their fingers to interact with the touch screen, the software reacts to that gesture. Images that Apple included with its patent application show that functionality being implemented across several different applications, including a Web browser and a home screen.
Here's the more technical description:
"A computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display," the patent abstract reads. "An N-finger translation gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display. In response, the page content, including the displayed portion of the frame content and the other content of the page, is translated to display a new portion of page content on the touch screen display."
The patent win comes at a time when Apple is ensnared in several patent-related battles with other companies.
Nokia sued Apple in October 2009 for allegedly infringing patents related to smartphones being able to run on GSM, Wi-Fi, and 3G networks. The claims also mentioned patents Nokia owned related to mobile device security and encryption.
Apple responded with a countersuit in December 2009, alleging that Nokia violated 13 of its own patents. However, Nokia announced last week that Apple had called it quits and the companies had agreed to a patent-licensing deal. A subsequent analyst report on the matter suggested Apple's licensing costs to Nokia could reach $608 million. But Nokia is just one of Apple's problems.
In April, Samsung announced that it had filed a patent-infringement case against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California San Jose division, alleging that the iPhone maker violated 10 of its patents, including one that allows smartphone owners to use the Web while on a phone call. Apple alleged in its own lawsuit against Samsung in April that the company was violating patents on its user interface and mobile-device design.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company upped the ante last week in an amended complaint, saying that Samsung has been heavily "copying" its own products.
"[Samsung's] products...blatantly imitate the appearance of Apple's products to capitalize on Apple's success," Apple wrote in its complaint. "The copying has been widely observed in the industry and has been mentioned in multiple articles reviewing Samsung products." Exactly how Apple's touch-screen patent will play into its current litigation remains to be seen. But as noted, it's a far-reaching patent, and many portable-device makers have products that allow for multitouch gestures that control software on the display.
Apple has not immediately responded to request for comment on whether or not it will use the latest patent against competitors.
I just purchased a Galaxy Tab 10.1 16GB last night. I want Android with Flash. Apple refuses to offer that choice.
The abstract is more narrow than that. It includes a limitation where one number of fingers causes one type of display modification, and a different number of fingers causes a different screen modification. A device that has only ONE n-finger gesture seems to not infringe.
I have a number of laptops with touch PAD technology (Synaptics) that recognizes/differentiates one, two and three fingertip events.
I’ve got a patent application in process for ANY key!
This only highlights the fact that all software patents need to be done away with. Ditto for “business method” patents.
The patent system was conceived in an age when things did not change rapidly and the founders wanted to spur innovation. Software is innovative by it’s very nature; it cannot be otherwise. Patents are now hindering innovation.
Patent terms must be reduced, and patents for software and business methods need to be ended completely.
I think I am possibly becoming opposed to patenting “methods” in the technology world.
“Means” as opposed to methods, in my mind, comprises the actual “how to” technology by which some “method” is seen to perform. That would be the hardware and the software code by which some “method” is observed to have taken place - what made the “method” to work, but not, in my mind, the observed “method” itself.
To me, patenting technology “methods” might be like patenting “a human directed device that uses an internal combustion engine for locomotion, wheels driven by that engine for obtaining movement, and a steering device by which a human can direct the apparatus” - under the name “Chyrsler Corporation” and then charging Mr. Ford and Mr. Cadillac and Mr. Chevrolet and Mr. Studebaker royalties just to get their cars out the door of their plants.
Preserving the patent on the means alone preserves the actual accomplishment of the company, and someone else who wants to do the same thing has to go figure out how to do it themselves. But, once they do - re-invent a means to produce the same method - they have stolen nothing from the original company; even if they learned on their own an exact same part of the puzzle.
If what is going on in the technology industries is opposite of what I think - in my ignorant opinion - is legitimate, as I just outlined it, then innovation is in fact being denied and delayed; and a ton of already approved patents for “methods” alone, ought to be voided.
Tell me I’m wrong. What’s the argument for protecting “methods’ as opposed to only protecting means.
Hmmmm What does this phone look like? Sure looks like an iPhone knock off to me.
On the patent? You are wrong. Google does not have the right to give away what it does not own. It did not spend the money to do the research and develop this technology. . . Similarly, you can't steal someone's property and give it away and just claim you are innocent: "I didn't make any money 'cause I gave it away." You've diminished the value of what you gave away. You still stole it.
However, it's not necessary to sue Google. Apple will sue the phone makers.
I didn’t ‘wade’ through the article...is this going to cause us a disruption of service or an increase in our fees? (do you know?)
btw, I have had many Iphone users tell me that they wished they would of went with Samsung. (got mine for .97 cents :) )
“I’ve got a patent application in process for ANY key!”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To: Revolting cat!
I must inform you that I hold a patent for writing the words “I’ve got a patent application in process for ANY key!” with the use of software posted to a forum.
I also hold a patent for posting a witty remark on a forum, using software, highlighting the stupidity of many patents.
Your witty post clearly infringes on my intellectual property. My lawyers will be contacting you shortly.
:)
LOL! I wanted to patent the ellipsis, but...
-PJ
“...innovation is in fact being denied and delayed”
Precisely!
Touch screen is, not so multi-touch, especially on a portable device with gestures to do different things dependent on the motion. That is what the patent is for.
>>the gesture or movement of the finger on the screen can cause different things to happen<<
You mean like when I swipe my Android screen from side to side or top to bottom and it moves my view or opens the alerts? So Apple now holds a patent on that?
>>I tried to patent the question mark.<<
How’d it go? (patent pending)
Yes, and I wonder if those touch pads where made transparent and placed over a screen, would that be considered a violation of the Apple patent? I also wonder what finger motions where enabled using data gloves. That’s also an older technology.
Dr. Evil's dad beat me to it.
Actually, it looks a lot like a three year old Samsung Omnia (which I had). Of course, the Omnia had widgets (like the Galaxy S that is displayed), which the iPhone does not.
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