US patent office rejects claims of Apple 'pinch to zoom' patent • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by tehwalrus » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 10:40 AM UTC

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #12

tehwalrus wrote: post #2

my first reaction to this was "bah, software patents. I love living in the EU." But, this got me thinking - it a patent about something like a touch interface (intrinsically linked to hardware, but where software is required) software or not? This also works for double clicks, key repeat delay, and stuff like joysticks. Once you've invented the mouse, can you then patent every way of clicking and shaking? similarly,…

Software patents are not entirely avoided in the EU, just to be clear. Quoting a little from an essay I had to write, although “programs for computers” are excluded by Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (1963), inventions that include an inventive step and solve a technical problem by the utilisation of a computer program have been upheld on appeal, for example in the case of Microsoft Corporation (data tra…

thank you for the clarification - I didn't know the detail of the situation!

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

#102

Post by didgeoridoo » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 11:42 AM UTC

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…

Samsung tried to cite a scene in 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey" in their patent defense against Apple: http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=14387499&ref=https%3A%2F%2F...

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

#103

Post by interpol_p » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 1:24 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #73

mitchty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

You are confused because you assume that software patents are normal patents. They aren't. Software should not be patentable. In practice software patents cause more harm than any possible benefits they supposedly bring to innovation. Therefore companies should avoid using them for aggression. Compare it to weapons. Weapons are used for warfare, aren't they? But do you think using nuclear weapons is a sane thing to d…

I don't think all software patents can be lumped together.

Patenting an algorithm seems bad. Because it's not really a mechanism, it's discovered more than created.

But human-computer interactions seem more like mechanisms. It's software that requires a human touch, and it makes it more like dealing with a physical object. Software patents in this area seem more appropriate.

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

#104

Post by chucknelson » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

jpreiland wrote: post #28

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 do occasionally (meaning one hand holding, one hand doing the pinching and zooming. Not one finger from each hand doing the pinch-to-zoom). It's easier to do, and more accurate in my experience. I do pinch-to-zoom with one hand sometimes, but I find that I can't always get it right.

Ah, that's my misunderstanding. I was envisioning a finger from each hand doing the zooming. One holding + one pinching - duh, yes I do that all the time. Whoops!

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

#105

Post by shmerl » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 2:22 PM UTC

interpol_p wrote: post #103

shmerl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confused because you assume that software patents are normal patents. They aren't. Software should not be patentable. In practice software patents cause more harm than any possible benefits they supposedly bring to innovation. Therefore companies should avoid using them for aggression. Compare it to weapons. Weapons are used for warfare, aren't they? But do you think using nuclear weapons is a sane thing to d…

I don't think all software patents can be lumped together. Patenting an algorithm seems bad. Because it's not really a mechanism, it's discovered more than created. But human-computer interactions seem more like mechanisms. It's software that requires a human touch, and it makes it more like dealing with a physical object. Software patents in this area seem more appropriate.

None of them should exist including those for human interaction with the computer. Do your really think such things like "pinch to zoom" and "edge bounce" deserve to be patentable? The problem is in defining what software patent is to begin with, which gives room for patent aggressors to bypass restrictions (like it happens in Europe).

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

#106

Post by levesque » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:05 PM UTC

NelsonMinar wrote: post #29

jauer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Danny Hillis's history (per Wikipedia) isn't it possible that there is some legitimate R&D going on that is reasonable to protect? I'm not really familiar with Intellectual Ventures but he has done some fascinating things in the past, Thinking Machines being a prime example.

I'm a long time fan of Danny's work and am disappointed in his affiliation with IV. I'd love to hear his side of the story. (I still have this fantasy that IV is an elaborate prank to demonstrate how awful the US patent system is, but at this point that'd be an awfully long con.) Despite being a dangerous, destructive company, Intellectual Ventures has a lot of smart people associated with it. Myhrvold himself is no…

They are either convinced that they are doing good, or in it for the money.

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

#107

Post by axman6 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 3:51 AM UTC

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.

No, the mechanism by which patents work is by temporarily banning others from using something an applicant has invented in creating. It by no means stops others competing, and it encourages innovation by making them come up with alternatives, which are potentially better, rather than settling for just the first solution discovered. Basically, I wholeheartedly disagree with your sentiment.

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

#108

Post by axman6 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:02 AM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #71

rayiner wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> The mechanism by which patents work, though, is by (temporarily) banning competition. Yes, for valid cases, since patent is a limited monopoly. Thing is, software is an invalid case to begin with for a number of reasons, including patent thickets issue.

You mean the same issue that's faced many other fields of endeavour in the past, all of which still exist today? It will always be an issue in new technologies, there's no easy to avoid it.

I'm still yet to find a good reason why there should be a blanket ban on software patents. There are many inventions which are simply not possible without software, but if you're right, that invention is worthless. I'm sure you'd be quite happy for the first invention that uses two fingers to say open a mechanism, but now software happens to be involved, it's completely obvious? What a joke.

My other problem with this whole "Ban software patents because they're bad because I say they are" circlejerk that goes on HN is that you don't see any of the good patents, you just look at the tentative/borderline/outright invalid cases. There are many inventions which are truly novel and inventive in the software world, but you choose to ignore them because of the few bad ones. It's akin to saying all blacks are criminals because there's a higher percentage in prison, or all Toyotas are shit because some of them had break problems. It's just another form if gross selection bias, and you should be aware that there's much more good in the system than the media would have you realise.