May Apple get a big one up the rear. Asshole patent-trolls keeping the software-business back.
USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#12Wow, scrolling down from that article was a hilarious reminder how much more cogent HN comments tend to be than any other comments on the interwebs. "Grrr! USPTO is mean to Apple! How dare they! I'm mad!" Etc.
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#13Wow, scrolling down from that article was a hilarious reminder how much more cogent HN comments tend to be than any other comments on the interwebs. "Grrr! USPTO is mean to Apple! How dare they! I'm mad!" Etc.
> Wow, scrolling down from that article was a hilarious reminder how much more cogent HN comments tend to be than any other comments on the interwebs. "Grrr! USPTO is mean to Apple! How dare they! I'm mad!" Etc.
Really? It seems like the entire internet is anti-patents, even apple fans.
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#14I'm wondering if nefarious advance knowledge of this office action was a cause for the drop in Apple's stock as shown here:
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#15I find this an interesting side effect of patent-a-geddon. The government looks stupid, and politicians are only human and don't like to be associated with 'stupid' so they react. The result has been a tremendous amount of "light" being shown on the patent process, the people who run the process, the goals of the process, the effects of the process, and perhaps most importantly the stuff that makes it through that pr…
Given the vast sums of money that patent trolls are blood-sucking out of legitimate software and web companies these days (see another post currently also on the front page of HN), I'm personally quite looking forward to a massive swing of the pendulum in the other direction.
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#16detecting 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. So literally the function of every touchscreen device ever? Touchscreens have been around since 1970; this was filed for in 2006.
The meat of claim 1 is: "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."
(Notice the ands.) So this is claiming the ability to distinguish three different specific gestures.
(Besides Graffiti, I don't remember old touch devices using gestures at all, although I'm sure there were some.)
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#17detecting 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. So literally the function of every touchscreen device ever? Touchscreens have been around since 1970; this was filed for in 2006.
The meat of claim 1 is: "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 corre…
The Fingerworks TouchStream keyboard did, but of course, Apple bought them.
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#18Maybe the USPTO finally decided to look for prior art?
No, i believe this was due to a second re-exam request (they denied the first)
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#19Finally this is (seeming) insanity is brought to the spotlight.
Here's to hoping that between invalidating trivial patents like these and initiatives like Twitters "Innovator’s Patent Agreement" (which requires all inventors to agree before a patent can be used offensively), the current situation will finally come to an end.
Re: USPTO Preliminarily Invalidates Apple's 'Steve Jobs Patent' on the iPhone
#20Wow, scrolling down from that article was a hilarious reminder how much more cogent HN comments tend to be than any other comments on the interwebs. "Grrr! USPTO is mean to Apple! How dare they! I'm mad!" Etc.
> Wow, scrolling down from that article was a hilarious reminder how much more cogent HN comments tend to be than any other comments on the interwebs. "Grrr! USPTO is mean to Apple! How dare they! I'm mad!" Etc. Really? It seems like the entire internet is anti-patents, even apple fans.
I don't think HN or the Internet is anti-patents, but anti-stupid patents and anti-patent trolls.