Obvious?
The following is from a thread concerning possible patent litigation by Apple against iPhone competitors:
Here's a relevant quote from that seminal book on Interaction Design, Alan Cooper's The Inmates are Running the Asylum:
"If, as a designer, you do something really, fundamentally, blockbuster correct, everybody looks at it and says, 'Of course! What other way would there be?' This is true even if the client has been staring, empty-handed and idea-free, at the problem for months or even years without a clue about solving it.... Most really breakthrough conceptual advances are opaque in foresight and transparent in hindsight. It is incredibly hard to see breakthroughs in design. You can be trained and prepared, spend hours studying the problem, and still not see the answer. Then someone else comes along and points out a key insight, and the vision clicks into place with the natural obviousness of the wheel. If you shout the solution from the rooftops, others will say, 'Of course the wheel is round! What other shape could it possibly be?' This makes it frustratingly hard to show off good design work."
**At the top-->
During the earnings conference call [21 Jan 09], [Apple] hinted at possible legal action against Palm were the Pre to infringe on iPhone patents.
***Elsewhere, will Apple v Palm be nuclear war-->
First of all, let's just start with saying that Apple's iPhone multi-touch patent is a formality. Like most of you know, a patent is required to protect an invention from being commercially exploited by competitors. In some cases, patented technology can be used under a license agreement, and in others, the inventors might not have any interest of spreading the technology around. Apple, which is constantly growing its distribution network for the iPhone, is likely of the latter kind. Why should they license their invention to others, if they already have a successful end-user product?
As for Apple's iPhone multi-touch patent specifically, it simply describes what makes the iPhone unique. Currently, we don't know whether the upcoming Palm Pre will actually offer something that violates Apple's patent. But we all remember Palm loosing another gesture battle back in the old days, when Xerox sued Palmsource for the way Graffiti worked. Graffiti 2 was eventually rolled out, based on CIC's Jot handwriting recognition software.
Gizmodo describes the "issues" between Apple and Palm as a "nuclear war", while Engadget talks about "two large companies, each loaded up with tons of patents and pending patents". Honestly, we can't think of a single Palm patent at the time of writing that is crucial to smartphones, and if there should be a "nuclear war", we think there'll only be one winner: Apple.
[from infosyncworld]
IPBiz notes that one must measure the Palm Pre against the claims of Apple's patent(s).
Gizmodo went to academic Polk Wagner for advice, and, as might be expected, got it wrong:
The patent we're referring to is #7,479,949, awarded on January 20 of this year. It has a list of 20 claims but as Prof. Wagner showed us, out of the 20, 17 are "dependent," which means they drill down more specifically into features of the invention/interface/device described in their parent claim. In our quick Patent Law 101 with Professor Wagner, we learned that to legally infringe upon a patent, you need to violate an entire independent claim, which means, if you rip off one of its dependents, you're OK, you just can't rip off all of them all together.
This, of course, is NOT TRUE. If the accused product falls within the scope of all elements of a dependent claim, THERE IS INFRINGEMENT. John Mahoney got it wrong.
The first inventor on US 7,479,949 is Steven P. Jobs. The first claim is:
A computing device, comprising:
a touch screen display;
one or more processors;
memory;
and one or more programs, wherein
the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors,
the one or more programs including:
instructions for detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display;
instructions for applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device; and
instructions for processing the command;
wherein the one or more heuristics comprise: a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on an angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; and a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.
Claim 11 is a method claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: at a computing device with a touch screen display, detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display; applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device; and processing the command; wherein the one or more heuristics comprise: a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on an angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; and a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.
The "related applications" mention:
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/850,635, "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics," filed Sep. 5, 2007, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Nos. 60/937,991, "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics," filed Jun. 29, 2007; 60/937,993, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Jun. 29, 2007; 60/879,469, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Jan. 8, 2007; 60/879,253, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Jan. 7, 2007; and 60/824,769, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Sep. 6, 2006. All of these applications are incorporated by referenced herein in their entirety.
This application is related to the following applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/188,182, "Touch Pad For Handheld Device," filed Jul. 1, 2002; (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/722,948, "Touch Pad For Handheld Device," filed Nov. 25, 2003; (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/643,256, "Movable Touch Pad With Added Functionality," filed Aug. 18, 2003; (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/654,108, "Ambidextrous Mouse," filed Sep. 2, 2003; (5) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/840,862, "Multipoint Touchscreen," filed May 6, 2004; (6) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/903,964, "Gestures For Touch Sensitive Input Devices," filed Jul. 30, 2004; (7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/038,590, "Mode-Based Graphical User Interfaces For Touch Sensitive Input Devices" filed Jan. 18, 2005; (8) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/057,050, "Display Actuator," filed Feb. 11, 2005; (9) U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/658,777, "Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device," filed Mar. 4, 2005; (10) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/367,749, "Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device," filed Mar. 3, 2006; and (11) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 29/281,695, "Icons, Graphical User Interfaces, and Animated Graphical User Interfaces For a Display Screen or Portion Thereof," filed Jun. 28, 2007. All of these applications are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
***Of images of "nuclear war" and MAD, a post on CMS Watch [IBM, Microsoft, and the patent mess - how to protect yourself] uses images that were used long ago.
CMS Watch--> If you're a little guy, though, there's no way you're going to enough patents to play the M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction) game, and you can count on Microsoft litigating you out of the market if you try to violate their intellectual property in any way.
TechCentral (2005)--> The tech companies often simply pass the ball down the field, pray, and stand willing to litigate. They have also developed some practical coping methods, such as filing for as many patents as possible to create bargaining chips. Then, because the big tech companies are all in the same situation, they engage in massive cross-licensing. As an alternative, they play the old cold war game of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). If a company plays hardball with its patent portfolio, others will respond in kind, so it is better not to start a war.
Same old, same old...
Here's a relevant quote from that seminal book on Interaction Design, Alan Cooper's The Inmates are Running the Asylum:
"If, as a designer, you do something really, fundamentally, blockbuster correct, everybody looks at it and says, 'Of course! What other way would there be?' This is true even if the client has been staring, empty-handed and idea-free, at the problem for months or even years without a clue about solving it.... Most really breakthrough conceptual advances are opaque in foresight and transparent in hindsight. It is incredibly hard to see breakthroughs in design. You can be trained and prepared, spend hours studying the problem, and still not see the answer. Then someone else comes along and points out a key insight, and the vision clicks into place with the natural obviousness of the wheel. If you shout the solution from the rooftops, others will say, 'Of course the wheel is round! What other shape could it possibly be?' This makes it frustratingly hard to show off good design work."
**At the top-->
During the earnings conference call [21 Jan 09], [Apple] hinted at possible legal action against Palm were the Pre to infringe on iPhone patents.
***Elsewhere, will Apple v Palm be nuclear war-->
First of all, let's just start with saying that Apple's iPhone multi-touch patent is a formality. Like most of you know, a patent is required to protect an invention from being commercially exploited by competitors. In some cases, patented technology can be used under a license agreement, and in others, the inventors might not have any interest of spreading the technology around. Apple, which is constantly growing its distribution network for the iPhone, is likely of the latter kind. Why should they license their invention to others, if they already have a successful end-user product?
As for Apple's iPhone multi-touch patent specifically, it simply describes what makes the iPhone unique. Currently, we don't know whether the upcoming Palm Pre will actually offer something that violates Apple's patent. But we all remember Palm loosing another gesture battle back in the old days, when Xerox sued Palmsource for the way Graffiti worked. Graffiti 2 was eventually rolled out, based on CIC's Jot handwriting recognition software.
Gizmodo describes the "issues" between Apple and Palm as a "nuclear war", while Engadget talks about "two large companies, each loaded up with tons of patents and pending patents". Honestly, we can't think of a single Palm patent at the time of writing that is crucial to smartphones, and if there should be a "nuclear war", we think there'll only be one winner: Apple.
[from infosyncworld]
IPBiz notes that one must measure the Palm Pre against the claims of Apple's patent(s).
Gizmodo went to academic Polk Wagner for advice, and, as might be expected, got it wrong:
The patent we're referring to is #7,479,949, awarded on January 20 of this year. It has a list of 20 claims but as Prof. Wagner showed us, out of the 20, 17 are "dependent," which means they drill down more specifically into features of the invention/interface/device described in their parent claim. In our quick Patent Law 101 with Professor Wagner, we learned that to legally infringe upon a patent, you need to violate an entire independent claim, which means, if you rip off one of its dependents, you're OK, you just can't rip off all of them all together.
This, of course, is NOT TRUE. If the accused product falls within the scope of all elements of a dependent claim, THERE IS INFRINGEMENT. John Mahoney got it wrong.
The first inventor on US 7,479,949 is Steven P. Jobs. The first claim is:
A computing device, comprising:
a touch screen display;
one or more processors;
memory;
and one or more programs, wherein
the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors,
the one or more programs including:
instructions for detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display;
instructions for applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device; and
instructions for processing the command;
wherein the one or more heuristics comprise: a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on an angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; and a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.
Claim 11 is a method claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: at a computing device with a touch screen display, detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display; applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device; and processing the command; wherein the one or more heuristics comprise: a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on an angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display; and a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.
The "related applications" mention:
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/850,635, "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics," filed Sep. 5, 2007, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Nos. 60/937,991, "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics," filed Jun. 29, 2007; 60/937,993, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Jun. 29, 2007; 60/879,469, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Jan. 8, 2007; 60/879,253, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Jan. 7, 2007; and 60/824,769, "Portable Multifunction Device," filed Sep. 6, 2006. All of these applications are incorporated by referenced herein in their entirety.
This application is related to the following applications: (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/188,182, "Touch Pad For Handheld Device," filed Jul. 1, 2002; (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/722,948, "Touch Pad For Handheld Device," filed Nov. 25, 2003; (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/643,256, "Movable Touch Pad With Added Functionality," filed Aug. 18, 2003; (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/654,108, "Ambidextrous Mouse," filed Sep. 2, 2003; (5) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/840,862, "Multipoint Touchscreen," filed May 6, 2004; (6) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/903,964, "Gestures For Touch Sensitive Input Devices," filed Jul. 30, 2004; (7) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/038,590, "Mode-Based Graphical User Interfaces For Touch Sensitive Input Devices" filed Jan. 18, 2005; (8) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/057,050, "Display Actuator," filed Feb. 11, 2005; (9) U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/658,777, "Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device," filed Mar. 4, 2005; (10) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/367,749, "Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device," filed Mar. 3, 2006; and (11) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 29/281,695, "Icons, Graphical User Interfaces, and Animated Graphical User Interfaces For a Display Screen or Portion Thereof," filed Jun. 28, 2007. All of these applications are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
***Of images of "nuclear war" and MAD, a post on CMS Watch [IBM, Microsoft, and the patent mess - how to protect yourself] uses images that were used long ago.
CMS Watch--> If you're a little guy, though, there's no way you're going to enough patents to play the M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction) game, and you can count on Microsoft litigating you out of the market if you try to violate their intellectual property in any way.
TechCentral (2005)--> The tech companies often simply pass the ball down the field, pray, and stand willing to litigate. They have also developed some practical coping methods, such as filing for as many patents as possible to create bargaining chips. Then, because the big tech companies are all in the same situation, they engage in massive cross-licensing. As an alternative, they play the old cold war game of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). If a company plays hardball with its patent portfolio, others will respond in kind, so it is better not to start a war.
Same old, same old...
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 5:35 AM
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