Apple patents the page turn | Hacker News Reader

Apple patents the page turn

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

107 pointsDigitalBoB1282 comments

I'm a little surprised to see the NY Times perpetuating the hysteria that typically follows patent issues with exaggeration of their scope and claims.

This is a design patent, meaning that Apple has protection for this specific animation and not page-turn animations in general. Note that many of the references cited (a good one is the O'Reilly article from 2004) depict page-turn animations, but differ from this specific one.

Is the design of this animation novel and not obvious for all items, as the requirement for design patent puts it?

To me, this patent fails both. Its not novel, as substantially similar (legal term) has existed before in animated film. Its neither non-obvious for all items, ie, its a obvious way to illustrate a turning of a page for any application that want to illustrate a turning of a page.

It's novel only if the book is fiction. :]

Must be a hell of a page-turning novel.

I would like to propose the twitter test for patents: If the patent can't be summarized in 140 characters, it has been done before.

please, take all my upvotes

prior art can be found in software. I'm fairly sure "page turning" existed in Lotus Organiser in the mid 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Organizer

Well, I think for starters, you're missing context for the first example. Prior art must pertain to the context, and animated film is not a touch enabled computing device. For instance, just because Roddenberry thought of the idea of teleportation doesn't mean this concept in the show is prior art. If and when a company does invent a teleporter, then they will be able to patent it.

And your second point about obvious is flawed. Everything is obvious when you know the correct answer. For instance, a wheel is so obvious that a very young child could rationalize its creation and use. Because it's obvious once seen. But if it's so obvious, why did it take us 245,000 year or so to invent the wheel? Microsoft has been touting the tablet for ten years. Why didn't they create it, if it's so obvious.

I think all patents need to go away, I think they cripple innovation and make it impossible to create something new if you're not a giant corporation. But in so long as we're stuck with these laws, then every company has to try to patent everything it can so it doesn't get sued.

Feel free to provide link that show the design patent law has an exception for context (domain) of the article. From what can be read in the actually law, it require the same novelty as utility patent, and this requirement is:

An invention will not normally be patentable if:

The invention was known to the public before it was "invented" by the individual seeking patent protection;

The invention was described in a publication more than one year prior to the filing date; or

The invention was used publicly, or offered for sale to the public more than one year prior to the filing date.

Was the public unaware of how flipping an page on a touch screen looked like before this "invention" was shown, specially when one consider the significant similar design made in prior published animations?

But dragging something and having it move is a fundamentally obvious interaction. Can you really take "Thing that happens physically, but on a screen" and call it an invention? Could (or did?) someone have gotten a patent on a downward "gravity-like" force on a digital object, so that it falls when you let go of the mouse button?

Has anyone patented "grabbing" an "object" with augmented reality glasses, and manipulating it in space? That seems like the most obvious extension of click and drag into the third dimension possible, and yet I have very little doubt that the patent office would grant it.

There were a lot of patents in VR, as it was a boom area. Most will however have expired now, without making any money. You could take a look to see how bad they were, although I do not think they were as bad as grabbing objects, a lot of the patents were still physical devices like controllers and glasses.

I'm so relieved that this is the top comment. Design patents only protect the ornamental characteristics embodied in an article of manufacture. This NYT blogger seems to conflate design patents and utility patents, but the distinction is that utility patents protect how an article of manufacture works, whereas a design patent protects how an article of manufacture appears. In fact, Apple could have filed an application for a utility patent on "page turning," which the USPTO would summarily reject on the basis of "page turning" being anticipated by technologies like...the book. At any rate, this is the kind of sensationalized blog spam that I'd expect to see on reddit, rather than HN.

Flagged.

But this is not just an ornamental artifact. What it attempts to do is simulate the actual way someone would turn a page in a large book, such as a dictionary, with lots of thin pages. I would argue that the technical way of implementing this would warrant a patent (utility) more so than the simple depiction of a thing that people naturally do with books. In no way is this design unique to Apple; there is already prior art from the way people turn pages in books. The choice to depict realistic page turning on an ebook reader is not artistically novel. From a video game perspective, this is like patenting the idea of showing a game world from an isometric point of view. This is a bad patent.

Now, I would agree with you that the NY Times article does exaggerate the impact of this patent. Apple has not patented the page turn, instead they have patented a particular realistic way of showing turning pages. In theory, Amazon could implement a page turn style where someone grabs the top corner of the page instead of the bottom and get around this patent.

Can you please point out what is specific in this design, as represented in the black and white drawings that describe it in the patent? The angle of the page fold?

Are you saying the US patent system is not broken and completely f*cked up?

The system is not "broken and completely f* cked up." Certain aspects are dysfunctional (as one would reasonably expect given the extent to which technological progress exceeds legislative progress), but you cannot impute those specific flaws onto the system as a whole. It's like saying democracy is "broken and completely f* cked up" because one particular elected official was found to be corrupt. Give it a rest already.

Right. As broken as the patent system is, this author doesn't really seem to know what he's talking about. Almost as if he/she knows it's cool to hate on patents, but not why or how.

>> I'm a little surprised to see the NY Times perpetuating the hysteria that typically follows patent issues with exaggeration of their scope and claims.

it's a blog, so there is usually more leeway to call out issues like this, and not have to be a heavily researched, or balanced piece of writing.

And yes, design patents are so abuse-proof that there's absolutely no chance that Apple would sue competitors for using remotely similar animation.

You know patents really aren't that hard to understand. If prior art exists then the patent will be invalidated in court. Just as has been done in the past and will be done in the future.

Yeah, after somebody coughs up a few hundred thousand dollars for legal fees. You in?

You're wrong. The USPTO has an obligation to review any prior art that raises a substantial new question of patentability, even if the patent has already issued. Post-issuance, any person can request ex parte re-examination (even anonymously), and the cost is $2,520. That's a couple orders of magnitude cheaper than you asserted, so in the future, please refrain from commenting on matters about which you know nothing.

"Law"? Meaning 1-L, right? Reality does not work that way. The burden of proof is on the person who's trying to contest an existing patent claim, and that burden is an expensive one to carry against a well-funded opponent.

Seriously. What exactly do you think Apple is going to do when you mail in a check for $2520 to the USPTO and they inform the company's patent counsel that a valuable claim is being reexamined?

This oughta be good.

I'm an attorney. Read http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2209.html

However, we can continue to speak in hypotheticals that support your particularly cynical (and uninformed) view of the patent system, if you'd like.

Indeed. The inefficiencies are indecent enough to make an economist blush.

A prime example of a difference between Google and Apple both on HN front page at the same time. "Google Books team open sources a book scanner": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4793974.

Maybe Apple shouldn't abuse the patent system this way.

The Register hints at an interesting new development - name and shame the "innovators":

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/13/apple_page_turn_desi...

"This massively complex concept required three inventors to craft it: Elizabeth Caroline Cranfill, Mikio Inose, and Stephen Lemay."

"The trio submitted application D/408,904 on December 19, 2011"

Yes, shame on them. They filed for a patent on a trivial animation, at a time when it was well-known the system was being abused.

It's not necessarily the inventors who filed it. More likely, it's an Apple patent lawyer. Naming and shaming the inventors is a bit unreasonable as inventors working for large companies may not have much sway over which parts of their work gets filed for patent protection.

I am pretty sure they at least need to sign it, which is why the common (overreaching and abusive) employment contracts include a clause saying that the employee will facilitate the filing of such paperwork.

I think naming and shaming is a good tactic. People should not be signing contracts with clauses like that in the first place, and if there is potential for future shame, maybe it'll make them think a bit more about it.

Yes, it appears that employees can refuse to take part in this abuse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-amo...

---SNIP---

The first engineer discussed a piece of software that studied users’ preferences as they browsed the Web.

“That’s a patent,” a lawyer said, scribbling notes.

Another engineer described a slight modification to a popular application.

“That’s a patent,” the lawyer said.

Another engineer mentioned that his team had streamlined some software.

“That’s another one,” the lawyer said.

"Even if we knew it wouldn’t get approved, we would file the application anyway,” the former Apple lawyer said in an interview. “If nothing else, it prevents another company from trying to patent the idea.”

The disclosure session had yielded more than a dozen potential patents when an engineer, an Apple veteran, spoke up. “I would like to decline to participate,” he said, according to the lawyer who was at the meeting. The engineer explained that he didn’t believe companies should be allowed to own basic software concepts.

I doubt they get much say over what goes into their employment contracts. Added to which, you assume all potential employees are savvy about these issues, which seems like a stretch. I can think of several techies who blank out at the mention of IP and wouldn't appreciate (or care less about) the consequences of such clauses. Particularly not when there's a lucrative dream job at a big firm at stake.

If you're going to name-and-shame anyone involved in filing a patent (and I'm still doubtful about what this would achieve, given all they're doing is maximising a flawed system), the lawyers would make more sense (you can find out who they are by examining the filings on the USPTO PAIR database), or the upper management who determines patent policy.

> I am pretty sure they at least need to sign it, which is why the common (overreaching and abusive) employment contracts include a clause saying that the employee will facilitate the filing of such paperwork.

Sadly, that's not the case: "Whenever all of the inventors refuse to execute an application for patent, or cannot be found or reached after diligent effort, a person to whom an inventor has assigned or agreed in writing to assign the invention, or who otherwise shows sufficient proprietary interest in the matter justifying such action, may make application for patent on behalf of and as agent for all the inventors." 37 CFR 1.47(b).

Would the uncooperative inventors' names still be placed on the patent? Name and Shame seems reasonable to me, if not.

It's a design patent. They own this specific design/style for page turn animations, much like a trademark. Same goes for the music app icon.

The article also mentions the Apple Store's glass stairs and the iPhone packaging patents as if they are something ridiculous, when in reality both were very innovative (the stairs are still an unmatched engineering feat). The iPhone packaging went on to be imitated by everyone, right now I'm sitting beside an Asus laptop packaging that looks exactly like the iPad's.

> the stairs are still an unmatched engineering feat

What in the world are you talking about? It's stairs, made of glass, typical in high-end civic and commercial buildings the world over. So common are glass stairs that they have to be pointed out to be noticed.

Here's the patent if anybody is remotely interested in reading about commonplace construction materials http://pdf.ifoman.com.s3.amazonaws.com/staircase_page_patent...

The stairs in the Apple stores are made almost entirely out of glass. There are no steel beams holding it up, the glass itself bears the load. The ones you usually see at high-end buildings/shops only have glass steps and/or sides. And don't forget the curved ones [1][2]. They are also earthquake-resistant for the japanese stores.

[1] http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/29/stunning-photo-of-glass-...

[2] http://www.eckersleyocallaghan.com/projects/project/apple-sh...

I'll just ask you what everyone else is asking. Do you think this design patent is novel and non-obvious?

Wikipedia seems to think that design patents must be both (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent#cite_note-8). Is it wrong?

There seems to be some sort of meme here that, for some reason, design patents are completely above criticism. I don't understand how anyone can reasonably think that.

Design patents are the US version of a registered industrial design. It only stops competitors from copying your design, and doesn't harm innovation at all, and may actually encourage it. The shape of an akg headphone, a coke bottle, nike shoes, swatch watches, macbook, ps3, tic-tac box, bic pen, a ferrari... This is what stops chinese factories from legally selling exact copies (visually at least) of everything you know.

Did you read the link you pointed to? It says this Article establishes yet another basis for policy makers to free design patent standards from the unworkable and inappropriate nonobviousness requirement. If I sell a computer that is just a small completely clean white cube, which no one else does, is it an obvious design?

"Design patents are only granted if the design is novel and not obvious for all items"

Are you saying this is wrong? Does it not reflect the current state of things?

"it is now unquestionable that the nonobviousness requirement applies to both utility and design patents."

The article seems to very clearly explain that novelty is a requirement for design patents. The authors think that should not be the case, but recognize that currently it is. Did you read the article?

Are you conceding that the page turning animations described in this design patent are not novel? It seems to me that you are conceding that it is not novel, but wish that were not a requirement.

Novelty is a reasonable requirement to prevent people from registering other's ideas, but nonobviousness is not, per my previous example.

Back to the main thread, I don't have access to the full patent text, it depends on what exactly Apple has claimed. iBooks certainly doesn't look exactly like any other app.

So, to be clear, both wikipedia and that paper are wrong?

I am not sure how your example does anything more than explain what you think should be. The relevant question is, "What is?".

I think I'm allowed to have an opinion. As I said, I don't have access to the patent, how could I tell if this patent's claims are novel/obvious or not? Even if I had, you'd probably need to go to court to get a definitive answer.

It's an ugly skeuomorph (much like the ugly bookshelf skeuomorph). I won't be sad to see it not implemented by competitors.

I get that it's a skeuomorph, and that skeuomorphs are the cool thing to hate now, but what's ugly about it? I think it is very beautiful and elegantly done.

Are books ugly?

Real books are not ugly. But they are more than text on a dead tree. Books age; books gather a patina of use. As the glue and the paper and the binding and the spine age together, the smell of them changes. Real, physical, well-made books are pieces of art onto themselves -- something we've lost in reading these things on a flat, lifeless screen.

Digital books can be more than simply text on a screen as well; I noticed in a recent Amazon title that passages which were frequently highlighted by other users were set differently (I think it was a highlight as well; I can't remember the title I saw it in). Never mind the privacy concerns; it's the morphing of a medium.

On the other hand, applying the skeuomorphs of such a thing cheapens it. It's a mask, trying to hide its nature. For me, it's almost an uncanny valley feel. And I think the best design is that which unleashes full intuitiveness: if I had never seen a book, why would I expect this animation to be there when reading an e-book? It's superfluous to the nature of the media.

Even the page turning itself is superfluous to the media. Its purpose is to add pauses to the interaction. You lose part of that experience when there is no longer a physical page.

Why do we need a metaphor for a physical page on a digital device?

It helps alert the user to how the data they are being shown is changing.

There are lots of non-skeuomorphic animations that could serve this purpose... cross-dissolves, flashes, slide-ins, etc. This just happens to be a reasonably nice one, that fits with the "this-is-a-book" metaphor of iBooks.

Even the name of iBooks is "skeuomorphic". It would be more accurately called "iMedium-to-long-static-documents-available-for-purchase" but that's a fucking awful title. Everybody has an idea of what a book is, so calling it iBooks means users know that there are book-ish-things contained within.

An app called iBooks where the next page trickled down like the title sequence from The Matrix would be tacky as hell and users would ask themselves why their "book thing" was doing this non-book thing.

+1 for "iMedium-to-long-static-documents-available-for-purchase" !

We don't need one. But they can look nice. Corinthian columns are based on wooden palm tree supports from ancient egypt. They're obviously not necessary now, but they're pretty.

They really aren't. That's kind of the point.

Aren't necessary or aren't pretty? They're too very different questions.

I'd rather people not use it because it's ugly, not because it's patented.

+1. If that means less page turn animation in ebook readers, it is a good thing.

Isn't Apple moving away from skeumorphism anyway? Do you think they just patented it for protection from lawsuits if someone else were to be granted the patent?

I think so, yes, but I think the application was applied for a year or so ago (or maybe two years, too lazy to look it back up.)

Article: "The page-turn patent was filed in December 2011, but was approved this week."

Rumor has it they are (the designer responsible for it left a little while back). No idea why they would have patented it.

To start with its ugly. Also this has been used in Flash since around 2005. It would be a shame if Apple is granted this patent.

Even the Classics app did it on iOS before Apple.

Do you have some evidence that Classics had this before Apple ?

See the references on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBooks#Controversy

"Some have claimed that the iBooks interface is a near exact replica of Classics by Andrew Kaz & Phill Ryu, released over a year prior and even featured in Apple's own TV commercials. Apple has made no acknowledgement of this.[29][30][31]"

Flexbook has all the features that are mentioned by Apple (and same Design). Example: http://www.rubenswieringa.com/code/as3/flex/Book/

I seem to remember Amazon own a patent for just this.

edit: It was Microsoft: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...

That's a patent application, which was rejected earlier this year in light of a prior IBM patent (http://www.google.com/patents/US5463725) and another of Apple's (http://www.google.com/patents/US7469381).

It's a design patent, not an utility patent.

Unfortunately neither the tech-press, nor the anti-IP-period crowd have a particularly good grasp on just what utility patents cover, nor any apparent interest in learning.

So hoping they'll recognize, learn and appreciate the difference between a utility and a design patent seems a bit optimistic.

Design patents are only granted if the design is novel and not obvious for all items. Utility patent must be novel, non-obvious, and be useful (legal defined term).

Both has requirements that must be fulfilled. non-novel and obvious design can not, should not, would not if the patent system worked, be granted as a design patent.

If our Patent laws allow for Patents (of any variety) that are this painfully and blisteringly obvious and come with 1,000+ years of prior art, then the law is more broken than I thought.

Amazon design patented the original kindle shape and then boasted about using it to prevent others from making kindle-compatible covers, in clear violation of design patent law.

Companies are using similar abuses of both patent systems.

dated:2002 http://www.actionscript.org/showMovie.php?id=459 shout yourself Apple

You mean that page turn that was in no other reading apps before iBooks and is now in the Kindle app for iPhone? The one that doesn't exist on Sony e-Readers, Amazon Kindles, Kindle apps besides the iPhone one, Nooks, or any other reading device?

So... Apple doesn't own page turning, or animating the turning of a page, just this specific implementation of it in this context. Which, for the record is something they did invent. Nobody else in the market was using a page turn animation, and it's the first thing people show off about iBooks.

Yeah I'm just not feeling the outrage. I am getting more and more sick of this "Damn you patent system & Apple!" bullshit though.

What? Nobody else was using it?

Have you seen the Classics app for the iPhone? It appeared before iBooks and it had page turning. Apple even copied the bookshelf from them.

It's no bullshit, the system is being abused. Silly and obvious things like a specific implementation of pagination in ebooks are being patented by a company who wants to go "thermonuclear" with its competitors. And many act like it's OK. Why? Because it's Apple? They didn't innovate at all with iBooks.

> Have you seen the Classics app for the iPhone?

Nope, neither did anyone else. I was talking about major e-book competitors, not every reading app ever made regardless of popularity.

> Apple even copied the bookshelf from them.

That's funny because if you ask the Delicious Library folks, they would say it was copied from them. Just goes to show that the concept of a digital bookshelf looking like a real bookshelf is a good one.

> Silly and obvious things

First of all, the best ideas are obvious once someone has thought of them. Of course we all want a minimal tablet, right? Well that's news to Microsoft who was letting 3rd parties sell Windows tablets for a decade. Not one of those tablets was minimal or boasted a clean design.

Then Apple comes along and does it, everyone ridicules them, it sells like crazy. Now, suddenly it's obvious. As someone who has stood by them, it's hard to really give a shit that Apple is getting the patents they filed for.

I find it much more bothersome that the rest of the tech industry gets to use Jony Ive as their hardware designer than Apple being afforded some small protection from what is slowly becoming an industry of clones.

> And many act like it's OK. Why?

Because they filed and were granted the patent. Where is the patent from the Classics team? Exactly. If you aren't going to even participate in the system, don't be surprised when things don't go your way.

Delicious Library had bookshelves before the iPhone was invented. This whole conversation around drawing pictures of objects silly.

The photoshop plugins: Kai power tools and alien skin. Already did page turn effects back in +-92.

Apple patents the page turn. At first I read "Apple turns the patent page." But I guess this is not likely to happen any time soon...

Apparently it increases pageviews to talk about patents and Apple in the same post. It doesn't even need to be accurate.

Call me crazy, but it seems like the internet will correct the patent system by calling duds like this one. As specific patents get publicly criticized (be it design or utility), it not only helps correct examiner errors, but also puts pressure on patenters to file only worthy patents.

I can't say I mind too much. I'll be surprised if the book analogy stays around for much longer.

Would this be prior art for an animated buggy whip interface when accelerating an automobile?

Am I being punked?

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