Comment by MaxwellKennerly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MaxwellKennerly | Hacker News Reader

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MaxwellKennerly

But it had occurred to other people, and lots of them. You can even watch Tom Cruise pinch-to-zoom, and scroll by waiving his hands.

Look at the prior art in the patent itself, e.g.:

US5844547 May 9, 1995 Dec 1, 1998 Fujitsu Limited Apparatus for manipulating an object displayed on a display device by using a touch screen

US6567102 Nov 25, 2001 May 20, 2003 Compal Electronics Inc. Touch screen using pressure to control the zoom ratio

US20050168488 Jan 31, 2005 Combination tool that zooms in, zooms out, pans, rotates, draws, or manipulates during a drag

All Apple did was jumble these same longstanding into some arguably-new form, and, viola, they had a patent for something everybody was doing.

I doubt you really contend that, in late 2007, Apple invented scrolling and zooming with your fingers, or that you contend that Apple's implementation was substantially different (and both novel and useful) from those prior forms. If you don't contend either of those, then why, exactly, should Apple have a patent over their implementation, which was at best modestly different from prior implementations?

Are you honestly contending that if anything depicted in a sci-fi movie cannot qualify as patentable subject matter when actually implemented? E.g., if someone invents a matter transporter as depicted in Star Trek, the inventor cannot patent it?

Of course the inventor can patent the implementation details of a matter transporter, but patenting the idea of a matter transporter, when the idea's been floating around, seems unduly restrictive.

Of course not, and it bears repeating that this patent doesn't cover any of the underlying technology that makes the iPhone actually work as a phone, it merely covers part of the appearance of the UI, an appearance that any competent programmer can replicate on a whim.

I am contending that you can't patent a user interface you see in a sci-fi movie, which is what Apple did here. What they patented is no different from patenting the way the command module looks on the Enterprise. Do you think that Apple should be able to patent, say, the use of oval icons?

You can patent icons and fonts, why would a user interface be different here? We could revoke the ability to patent icons & fonts, but then there would be no financial motivation for companies to design fonts to sell.

It depends on whether it's described in sufficient detail. Robert Heinlein's (written) descriptions of the design of a waterbed were sufficient prior art against Charles Hall's 1968 patent claim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Lite...

Here's another Star Trek example: if someone creates a wearable badge that was also a cell phone, that you touch to activate, they couldn't patent "touch-to-implement communicator", but they might be able to patent their specific method of detecting the touch.

I think for UI elements the standard should be slightly different since a work of fiction can detail the entire thing. So in you example the transporter would be patentable since there no real info on how to make one. However the 3 finger slide gesture they use to activate it shouldn't be since that's the entire thing.

Disclaimer: I'm completely against patenting UI elements. I'm of the opinion that once they come into existence they're language and patenting language is anti-social behavior.

Sorry, it's not clear to me which one of those patents you feel is prior art for Apple's specific claim of a method for scrolling on a touch-screen display where a distinct area past the edge of the document is displayed and then removed when the touch ends. Can you clarify?

It was apparently novel enough that a number of companies and open source projects have now implemented similar UI feedback where they didn't have it before.

Many breakthroughs are invented multiple times before they stick. The patent doesn't belong to the one who made it popular, but the one who made it first.

If that applies here, please point to a piece of software that did that prior to the iPhone. I would be genuinely curious to find out about it.

MaxwellKennerly above provided references to prior art.

You disputed said references by claiming that other products copied Apple.

I pointed out that just because it was Apple who made these features popular, leading to other products copying them, doesn't mean that the features could not have been independently invented prior to Apple. I refer you to the original comment for the prior-art examples.

>Look at the prior art in the patent itself, e.g.:

Since the patent itself cites prior art, obviously the patent isn't patenting the same thing as the prior art.

>All Apple did was jumble these same longstanding .... was at best modestly different from prior implementations

You have provided no evidence or reason to believe this. In fact, I've seen this claim hundreds of times, and never seen anyone even attempt to provide a defense for this assertion.

Yet the evidence at hand shows the opposite- the patent was reviewed for a significant period of time by the patent office. Further, this isn't Apple's rodeo. After the Microsoft loss, Apple has a great deal of incentive to make sure that their patents are solid.

So despite evidence to the contrary, you just repeatedly assert this position because it helps your ideological position. But we need more than mere assertion.

In fact, your assertion isn't really consistent with history. To make this obvious lets change the context. Imagine it is motorola being sued by Bell:

Graham demonstrated and patented the telephone, therefore phones are longstanding and the cellphone is just "modestly different from prior phones".

The iPhone doesn't have cameras three feet behind the screen taking photos of your fingers. But you would have us believe that a patent on using that method of touch interface means that apple didn't invent nothing for the iPhone.

You're relying on the ubiquity of copies of Apples devices to make an emotional appeal claiming these things were obvious.... yet this is post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Before 2007, Android was working on a blackberry ripoff, not a touch UI.

And your argument fundamentally misrepresents what patents are.

> Graham demonstrated and patented the telephone, therefore phones are longstanding and the cellphone is just "modestly different from prior phones".

I've seen you mention this a couple of times now. I know you mean it to be ridiculous, but it's actually a true statement: once you have a telephone, and a radio, then the concept of a cellphone in itself is an obvious step. There are scads of patentable details in the implementation, but nothing to say that the concept of a cellphone itself should be protected. Perhaps you should find an alternative example?

> The iPhone doesn't have cameras three feet behind the screen taking photos of your fingers. But you would have us believe that a patent on using that method of touch interface

None of the prior art listed above claims anything to do with cameras.

We can all see you believe that Apple is deserving of all the patents it has been awarded.

So the question is this: Do you think that for the next 20 years Apple should be the only company with large rectangular multi-touch phones with minimal buttons, grid based icons, and pinch-to-zoom?

> Since the patent itself cites prior art, obviously the patent isn't patenting the same thing as the prior art.

It should be easy for you, if you are correct, to simply state what is new and novel and patentworthy that Apple did, that is not covered by the prior art mentioned.

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