Apple Sues Motorola Over Multitouch Patents

[theuerkorn]

[citation][nom]mastadisasta_31[/nom]I work in the Point of Sale business and I have been working on touchscreens since 1998. How in the hell does apple own the rights to something that was invented by someone else?I don't blame apple for retaliating, It's just that I don't get how they think they own the rights to touchscreens.[/citation]
Touch screens from the old days function in a completely different way and as I recall single input points were limitations of the resistive foil over screens. The one in question is capacitive allowing to recognize multiple inputs etc.. So it's not the touch screen in itself but how it works.

 

[swamprat]

[citation][nom]theuerkorn[/nom]Touch screens from the old days function in a completely different way and as I recall single input points were limitations of the resistive foil over screens. The one in question is capacitive allowing to recognize multiple inputs etc.. So it's not the touch screen in itself but how it works.[/citation]
If the patent were about capacitive multi-touch etc in terms of how the technology worked then that would seem fine - the problem seems that everyone is suing over the idea of using multi-touch to do things. The equivalents of say "let's put 'paste' in the edit menu" or "'Ctrl C' might be a handy shortcut for copying" are equally absurd.
Shouldn't gestures / control layouts etc be design matters rather than inventions? That'd mean going for some sort of design registration rather than a patent, in my view.

 

[malikxaxu]

GUYS! Please relax about the broad scope / evil / all encompassing patents critics.

What the article reports is the TITLE of the patent and NOT the CLAIMS of the patent; it is the claims that define the invention protected. The claims are specially numbered paragraphs at the end of the patent. Unless one reads the claims, one cannot understand what invention is being protected.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]malikxaxu[/nom]GUYS! Please relax about the broad scope / evil / all encompassing patents critics. What the article reports is the TITLE of the patent and NOT the CLAIMS of the patent; it is the claims that define the invention protected. The claims are specially numbered paragraphs at the end of the patent. Unless one reads the claims, one cannot understand what invention is being protected.[/citation]
+1000 for understanding.
All those who decry the broadness of patent claims have obviously never seen one.
Imagine a patent is like a book, the wording of "patent number 7,497,949 for 'touchscreen device, method and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics" is basically the title of the book, before being followed by a few hundred pages of technical information & diagrams.

So for all those who say stupid things like "i'll patent DNA then sue every human born", sure, go right ahead, as long as you attach the several million pages of scientific research detailing the entire Human Genome Mapping Project, being careful of course not to copy or plagiarise existing published work on the same subject for the last 50 years.

Idiots.

 

[gmarsack]

I'm patenting the human race and will call all current living people to pay back royalties. Shoot! Apple did that already!!!!

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]gmarsack[/nom]I'm patenting the human race and will call all current living people to pay back royalties. Shoot! Apple did that already!!!![/citation]
Wow, not even funny, even after the above explaination - please remove yourself from the gene pool

 

[Dirtman73]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]+1000 for understanding.All those who decry the broadness of patent claims have obviously never seen one.Imagine a patent is like a book, the wording of "patent number 7,497,949 for 'touchscreen device, method and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics" is basically the title of the book, before being followed by a few hundred pages of technical information & diagrams.So for all those who say stupid things like "i'll patent DNA then sue every human born", sure, go right ahead, as long as you attach the several million pages of scientific research detailing the entire Human Genome Mapping Project, being careful of course not to copy or plagiarise existing published work on the same subject for the last 50 years.Idiots.[/citation]

Your obvious knowledge of how patent laws work has brought much to this discussion. You have enriched our lives further by fully explaining how patent laws work, and we, Tom's readers, thank you from the bottom of our ignorant, uneducated hearts.

What you have failed to do is acknowledge how idiotic the US patent system is, and how complacency of the US legal system makes the never-ending circle of litigation possible.

Everyone's an expert on the internetz.

 

[Houndsteeth]

Apple holds the multi-touch patents, not touchscreen patents. This is the ability to use more than one finger (or other appropriate body part) to be able to build multiple gestures that translate into several functions. For instance, putting two fingers pinched together at the center of the screen and then spreading them apart will cause the screen to zoom in, while bringing them back together again will cause the screen to zoom out.

Apple acquired the patents when they bought the company Fingerworks back in 2005 (founded with patents in 1998) and has been applying the technology not just to their iOS devices, but specifically to their laptops, where you use multi-touch on the trackpad to scroll (both horizontal and vertical), right-click or double-click. Both of the Fingerworks developers (Wayne Westerman and John Elias) continue to work for Apple, refining the technology and, most importantly, filing for new patents for technology they are creating at Apple.

IANAL, but this is most likely a move on the part of Motorola to force Apple to cross-file the multi-touch patents so Motorola can avoid having to pay licensing fees. Motorola's motion to invalidate the multi-touch patents will most likely fail, as the technology predates Apple's involvement, and there really is no prior art to multi-touch or gestures, just touchscreen, which is primitive in comparison. The patents are a huge asset and could prove to be a cash-cow fro Apple.

 

[awood28211]

Oh oh.. but Google is suing the US Government...

 

[maestintaolius]

I think all these companies should just give 200 million to each other and be done with this court nonsense. Not a week goes by anymore where A's suing B who's suing C who's suing A. With the patent office remaining patently broken and granting patents on all kinds of obvious ideas, or ones that have been used in prior art for years, this nonsense will just keep continuing. On the plus side, patent lawyers in texas are doing well.

 

[malikxaxu]

Thanks Houndsteeth for the info regarding how Apple acquired the IP portfolio. Very interesting.

 

[rrobstur]

[citation][nom]gmarsack[/nom]I'm patenting the human race and will call all current living people to pay back royalties. Shoot! Apple did that already!!!![/citation]
lmao i thaught it was hilarious, he did it to spite you. childish but hilarious kinda like pinapple express

 

[sykozis]

[citation][nom]mastadisasta_31[/nom]I work in the Point of Sale business and I have been working on touchscreens since 1998. How in the hell does apple own the rights to something that was invented by someone else?I don't blame apple for retaliating, It's just that I don't get how they think they own the rights to touchscreens.[/citation]

The same way Apple thought they owned the rights to the mouse and the graphical user interface....they stole it first... Fortunately for innovation, Apple loses most of the suits they file