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US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

pcworld.com

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Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#61

Post by mrpdaemon »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #35
btilly wrote: post #8

Pinch to zoom absolutely should have been rejected. Watch the 2002 movie Minority Report for what I consider prior art on the 2007 patent filing at http://www.google.com/patents/US7844915 .

I don’t understand that reasoning. If that’s valid prior art, then patents for functioning time machines won’t hold up either. I think you’d have a point if it pertained to a design patent. If some movie used a tablet that looked exactly like an iPad, 10 years before Apple produced it, then surely Apple’s design patent for it would be worth zilch. However, the pinch-to-zoom patent describes an implementation in minut…

If you had a functioning time machine you could travel back in time and file the patent before any prior art was created.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#62

Post by baddox »

rayiner wrote: post #56
baddox wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinch-to-zoom with one hand is extremely awkward, unreliable, and inaccurate. It's also a great way to drop your phone when you're standing on a crowded bus.

The root of the confusion here is that iphones are a lot smaller than most android phones. I'm holding a blackberry bold right now, and pinch with two fingers while holding the phone with three works just fine and is plenty secure.

I just tried it on a Galaxy Nexus (4.65 inch display) and it's still extremely awkward, unless there's some way of doing this I'm not thinking of.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#63

Post by bdcravens »

epo wrote: post #39
aidos wrote: post #17

Pinch to zoom has become such a standard in interface interaction that I didn't question it until switching to google's map app on the iPhone. Their double click and drag behaviour is superior in that you don't need two hands. You know something is wrong with your UI when users sometimes resort to putting their nose on the screen of their phone.

You seem to be saying you need two hands to pinch and zoom on an iPhone. You're doing it wrong! You should also know that something is wrong with your argument when you have to resort to fabricated anecdotes.

Probably works for only a % of the population. I'm a guy with small hands, smaller than some women. I can't hold the phone steady, and much of the screen I couldn't possibly pinch without my palm hitting the screen.

It's like Lebron James telling you your doing it wrong when you shoot a jump shot or layup instead of dunking.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#64

Post by mitchty »

rayiner wrote: post #58
shmerl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How should a "normal tech company" behave exactly? Rather simple. It should have a base principle to be opposed to software patents. It should not patent trivial things, it should be opposed to functional claiming and etc. If patents are used, they should be used for defensive pools against aggressors, not to engage in aggression themselves. That's what I call normal. Twitter recently adopted such methodology. Others…

The mechanism by which patents work, though, is by (temporarily) banning competition.

This is basically why I'm confused with the "defensive" patent phrase. It seems to completely ignore the whole purpose of patents in the first place. Either we get rid of software patents wholesale, or we accept the consequences of software patents are this.

Lets say a company develops a 5% increase in efficiency for an engine. They patent it, a competitor reverse engineers it and releases a product. Fundamentally this is the same protected thing that happens with software right now. How a "defensive patent wielding tech company" should behave here makes zero sense. Not asserting patent in this case, even if the 5% increase here say was to just not burn as lean or whatever (lets assume this is obvious but not often in use for this thought experiment), they were the first to market and seemingly have a patent right to a temporary monopoly.

I really think patents are overblown in the tech community, note I don't mean they aren't a problem for things like a small company. Their impact is very real and substantial. However my personal feelings for them aside on their ethical and societal impact, I don't see how companies should react any differently with our current patent structure.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#65

Post by baddox »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #48
baddox wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that’s valid prior art, then patents for functioning time machines won’t hold up either. Good.

Point taken, but won’t that mean that if someone figures out how to make a time machine, they will simply not apply for a patent and try to keep the design to themselves? (They could for instance sell time travel as a service, but not sell the machines or license the tech to other companies) In theory, patents grant the inventor exclusivity for a limited time so that they can recoup their investment, in exchange for…

I have no problem with a time machine inventor choosing to keep the design to themselves. I also have no problem with him/her releasing the design for free, or even licensing the technology contractually. I have a problem with the government, funded partially by money I earned but have no control over, protecting any sort of intellectual property.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#66

Post by baddox »

lh7777 wrote: post #44
chucknelson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Who exactly uses two hands to do pinch-to-zoom on a phone? I've never seen that.

I just tried this one handed suggestion - first time ever in my 6 years using an iPhone - and I can see why I never thought of it. Extremely awkward and imprecise. I don't get why anyone would do that. Do you have giant hands? For zooming, I've always used the double-tap method. This generally works fine for zooming in and out on Safari, and it works for zooming in on Maps. I can do a two-finger double tap on Maps to…

> I can do a two-finger double tap on Maps to zoom out

And now I know about that! It's still awkward, but slightly less awkward than one-handed pinching.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#67

Post by rayiner »

baddox wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root of the confusion here is that iphones are a lot smaller than most android phones. I'm holding a blackberry bold right now, and pinch with two fingers while holding the phone with three works just fine and is plenty secure.

I just tried it on a Galaxy Nexus (4.65 inch display) and it's still extremely awkward, unless there's some way of doing this I'm not thinking of.

If you're right handed: bottom right corner in the fold of your palm, supporting the back with your ring and middle fingers, and support the bottom edge with your pinky. Works fine as long as you're not gesticulating aggressively with the same hand.

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#68

Post by throwawaykf »

btilly wrote: post #8

Pinch to zoom absolutely should have been rejected. Watch the 2002 movie Minority Report for what I consider prior art on the 2007 patent filing at http://www.google.com/patents/US7844915 .

And here I am again to provide a friendly reminder that before discussing any patent, you must read the claims! If you did so, in this case, you would see that this is not a "pinch-to-zoom patent", but rather a "pinch-to-zoom-if-the-event-object-created-from-touch-input-has-two-or-more-points-else-scroll-the-view-instead" patent.

Yes, it literally covers something as specific as creating "event objects" out of touch inputs and interpreting them as either zooming or scrolling gestures.

Minority Report is not sufficient prior art because:

1) It does not include a touch-sensitive display,

2) its user input is not "points applied to the touch-sensitive display" that it does not have,

3) it is wholly non-enabled (at least in the movie) which is why it does not teach, as far as we can tell, create "event objects" in response to user input,

4) and though it may depict scrolling gestures and pinching gestures in various scenes, it does not teach how to determine whether an input is a scroll or a pinch (which this patent proposes doing by differentiating the number of points in the touch input).

But why even worry about fictional, non-enabled prior art when people have found specific prior art to (temporarily) invalidate these claims?

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#69

Post by hugoc »

baddox wrote: post #62
rayiner wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root of the confusion here is that iphones are a lot smaller than most android phones. I'm holding a blackberry bold right now, and pinch with two fingers while holding the phone with three works just fine and is plenty secure.

I just tried it on a Galaxy Nexus (4.65 inch display) and it's still extremely awkward, unless there's some way of doing this I'm not thinking of.

iphones before the 5 had 3.5 in displays even the 5 has just a 4 in display, so they are even smaller (and thinner and lighter) than a Galaxy Nexus

Re: US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent

#70

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaykf wrote: post #68
btilly wrote: post #8

Pinch to zoom absolutely should have been rejected. Watch the 2002 movie Minority Report for what I consider prior art on the 2007 patent filing at http://www.google.com/patents/US7844915 .

And here I am again to provide a friendly reminder that before discussing any patent, you must read the claims! If you did so, in this case, you would see that this is not a "pinch-to-zoom patent", but rather a "pinch-to-zoom-if-the-event-object-created-from-touch-input-has-two-or-more-points-else-scroll-the-view-instead" patent. Yes, it literally covers something as specific as creating "event objects" out of touch…

[deleted]
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