Apple granted mobile touchscreen patent

[amirm]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387401,00.asp

"Apple has been awarded its long sought-after patent on the iPhone. Intellectual property experts say it's so broad and far-reaching that the iPhone maker may be able to bully other smart phone manufacturers out of the U.S. market entirely.

Some three-and-a-half years after filing for a patent on the iPhone, Apple on Tuesday was awarded U.S. patent number 7,966,578 for "[a] computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] 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."

My view of the impact is different than what the article says (try to stop other companies or earn royalties). Apple needed this patent to defend itself against a mountain of mobile phone patents the current companies own. Without this, its prospects were poor in my opinion being a newcomer with very little granted patents of its own. Suspect we will be reading about a number of PCLs (patent cross-licensing deals) with major companies in the coming few months with suits being settled at the same time.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387401,00.asp

"Apple has been awarded its long sought-after patent on the iPhone. Intellectual property experts say it's so broad and far-reaching that the iPhone maker may be able to bully other smart phone manufacturers out of the U.S. market entirely.

Some three-and-a-half years after filing for a patent on the iPhone, Apple on Tuesday was awarded U.S. patent number 7,966,578 for "[a] computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] 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."

My view of the impact is different than what the article says (try to stop other companies or earn royalties). Apple needed this patent to defend itself against a mountain of mobile phone patents the current companies own. Without this, its prospects were poor in my opinion being a newcomer with very little granted patents of its own. Suspect we will be reading about a number of PCLs (patent cross-licensing deals) with major companies in the coming few months with suits being settled at the same time.

It's pretty hard to deny that the iPhone has been blatantly copied. The legality of it is, of course, another question.

Tim

 

[amirm]

Well, my point was that likely Apple blatantly copied everyone else's patents in its core hardware: a phone. Companies like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have been patenting the field like there is no tomorrow. When the rumors of iPhone came out, I would ask them how they would compete given their poor industrial design and they would all brag that apple could never bring out a mobile phone because they lacked any IP (Patents) in house.

In that sense, prisoners will be exchanged at the border, a check written by one side or the other depending how good of a negotiator or poker player they are, and all will be well.

Look at the latest lawsuit between Samsung and Apple for example.

 

[JackD201]

Agreed.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I did sort of understand what you're driving at, Amir. There are so many patents on so many things inside existing mobile phones that it makes it very difficult for another player to enter the business, to produce a viable mobile phone without violating those patents? So Apple will try to 'trade" competitors' violations of their look/feel/interface for their own violations of the more internal mobile phone technology, right?

So in order to be able to compete in the mobile phone business at all, Apple will have to allow that going from here....

...to here...

...is sort of the same thing as going from this...

...to this...

Seems reasonable to me. That should encourage competition and innovation.

Tim

 

[rblnr]

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware? I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.

Much of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it? But an interesting question is whether a swipe or pinch and zoom,etc is patentable. Some of these are natural human gestures. It was Apple's genius to harness them, but we'll see.

The Samsung case is separate from these patents I believe -- it's about blatant hardware copying.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware? I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.

If they do, the legality of that is highly questionable, not that our current legal environment would do anything about it.

M

uch of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it? But an interesting question is whether a swipe or pinch and zoom,etc is patentable. Some of these are natural human gestures. It was Apple's genius to harness them, but we'll see.

The application of intuitive human gestures to a human/machine interface is exactly the point and the competitive advantage. It's not much different than the application of human language to the creation of a piece of literature. If that cannot be protected in specific applications then we have a serious challenge to intellectual property rights across the board.

The Samsung case is separate from these patents I believe -- it's about blatant hardware copying.

Hardware and software, I'd argue. And they have an awful lot of company. Walk into a phone store. It is a sea of iPhone clones.

Tim

 

[rblnr]

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware? I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.
If they do, the legality of that is highly questionable, not that our current legal environment would do anything about it.

Let's take the notion 'tacit agreement' out and substitute that it's understood that all parties probably use some stuff patented by other parties -- that Apple is by no means unique in this regard. No one in this scenario wants to start a legal war because no one has wholly original internals design -- it would be costly and endless. So would starting a war with Apple on such grounds (if Apple chose to sue or seek royalties) open a can of worms among all manufacturers?

uch of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it? But an interesting question is whether a swipe or pinch and zoom,etc is patentable. Some of these are natural human gestures. It was Apple's genius to harness them, but we'll see.
The application of intuitive human gestures to a human/machine interface is exactly the point and the competitive advantage. It's not much different than the application of human language to the creation of a piece of literature. If that cannot be protected in specific applications then we have a serious challenge to intellectual property rights across the board.

I get your point but the literature analogy is inexact IMO. It's not the language that gets copyrighted, it's the individual words and the way they're put together. The question is on which side of that the UI gestures are judged to fall.

The Samsung case is separate from these patents I believe -- it's about blatant hardware copying.
Hardware and software, I'd argue. And they have an awful lot of company. Walk into a phone store. It is a sea of iPhone clones.

Agreed that the hardware and software are being copied, think the suit though is primarily about the hardware. The issuance of the patent being discussed might bring up the software stuff in other suits.

I'm a huge Apple fan -- everytime I have to use a PC something happens that makes me want to blow my brains out. Ask Amir to explain why the driver needed to program a Universal Remote when hooked to your pc requires you to go to the Windows Mobile Group to download it. Such 'logic' is typical of PCs IMO. Anyway, that's a dead horse I felt like phoenixing for the moment to point out how Apple delivers -- never any of that sh-t w/a Mac or iOS.

Anyway, like you Tim (I think), I use a touchpad for my Mac and I'm really appreciating the convergence of gestures across the devices and platform. Not wholly there yet in terms of consistency across everything, but moving in that direction. They've got to protect themselves, though not sure them having the lock on such gestures is a good thing. OTOH, I'm a shareholder, so bring on the licensing fees!

 

[JackD201]

Multi-touch has been around for some time. I don't know if Apple bought the rights to, was simply first to be granted a patent or even if the inventors actually sought patent protection. It but it surely wasn't an in-house invention. Even the movie Minority Report featured essentially the same gestures in 2002. That would place pre-production during the period when the iPod had an actual moving wheel.

IP is a very complex subject, I worked on IP legislation for 6 years. An interesting case study is that of Sony and the Playstation rumble controller suit. Sony claims that it came up with the technology independently in-house. Knowing Sony, they probably did but there was a patent that predated it. One can only imagine what a hassle it must be to search all the patents before doing a product launch when everybody is pressured to go to market against the competition so frequently as well as the pressure to bring a patented product to market within the protection period. It's no wonder arbitration and resulting settlement agreements have pretty much become par for the course. Launch now, settle later.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I get your point but the literature analogy is inexact IMO. It's not the language that gets copyrighted, it's the individual words and the way they're put together.

I'm not sure any analogy would be very exact. If sign language had been invented by a company for exclusive use in a commercial product that might qualify. I'm sure the lawyers will come up with better analogies than my own.

Tim

 

[amirm]

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware?

One of two conditions usually exists:

1. They have a PCL (Patent Cross License). Here is a quick one on Moto and Samsung in 2005: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Samsung-And-Motorola-Sign-Cross-Licensing-Deal-4145.shtml

2. Each has enough guns pointed at the other that neither dares to get into world war three with the other. When I was at Microsoft, we would get threats of litigation from major companies but none would go through it as they knew we could go after them.

Usually companies attempt to move from #2 to #1. The barrier is how much money one or the other side demands to give equal access.

Almost all consumer electronics companies have PCLs with each other. This makes it very hard for new companies to get into the circle because there is no law forcing anyone to license their patents to you.

I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.

Correct except that they have dealt with that in the past. And the reasons more obvious: these other companies created the standards while stuffing their patents into it. So it was obvious that they needed to license from each other. Not so for Apple.

Much of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it?

They have gone there too. They threatened they would in their financial calls last year and finally did. I know of case against Samsung already. There may be others I have not kept track of.

 

[rblnr]

The above all makes sense Amir.

The Samsung lawsuit IIRC is about the look of the hardware moreso than the UI. When the first iPhone came out, Jobs said how they'd patented it every which way. We'll see now whether or how much that was just an idle threat.

 

[rblnr]

Wonder if one of the motivations of this for Apple was to address their possible lack of basic wireless patents:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070111-nortel-patents.html

Interesting too is Google's somewhat odd behavior in it all such as the numerical values of their competing bids.

 

[amirm]

That was a super wise move by the Apple, RIM and Microsoft to acquire those patents. Google made a big mistake. They have huge, huge exposure. Google has deep pockets and increasingly getting into patent mind filed such as video with their unwise acquisition of On2. The naively thought that if someone claims to have built a video codec, it must be free of claims and they can put it in public domain and drive out other standards. They will grow up and learn the ways of this world but not before they settle multi-billion $ suits. They have the cash. They should have bought this for whatever price, or partnered with others.

 

[amirm]

More saga like this one: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20077173-17/report-microsoft-wants-$15-per-android-handset/?tag=mncol;mlt_related

 

[rblnr]

Will be interesting to see how this plays out:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...id_willfully_infringed_upon_oracles_java.html

The emails look pretty damning.

 

[amirm]

Google will have to learn all the lessons that other successful companies have learned. I am sure everyone has been put through a class already on being careful in what they write in email. Rules of Attorney/Client privilege, etc. But meanwhile, their competitors will have fun going through all of them, will demand a jury trial as the average joe can be influenced a lot more than a Judge, and Google will be pushed on its back and hard.

 

[rblnr]

Hard to believe people send stuff like that via email after all that's happened.