Apple granted mobile touchscreen patent

**amirm** · 06-23-2011, 08:50 PM

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387401,00.asp

"Apple has been awarded its long sought-after patent on the iPhone. Intellectual property experts say it's so broad and far-reaching that the iPhone maker may be able to bully other smart phone manufacturers out of the U.S. market entirely.

Some three-and-a-half years after filing for a patent on the iPhone, Apple on Tuesday was awarded U.S. patent number 7,966,578 for "[a] computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display."

My view of the impact is different than what the article says (try to stop other companies or earn royalties). Apple needed this patent to defend itself against a mountain of mobile phone patents the current companies own. Without this, its prospects were poor in my opinion being a newcomer with very little granted patents of its own. Suspect we will be reading about a number of PCLs (patent cross-licensing deals) with major companies in the coming few months with suits being settled at the same time.

**Phelonious Ponk** · 06-23-2011, 09:20 PM

Originally Posted by amirm

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387401,00.asp

"Apple has been awarded its long sought-after patent on the iPhone. Intellectual property experts say it's so broad and far-reaching that the iPhone maker may be able to bully other smart phone manufacturers out of the U.S. market entirely.

Some three-and-a-half years after filing for a patent on the iPhone, Apple on Tuesday was awarded U.S. patent number 7,966,578 for "[a] computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display."

My view of the impact is different than what the article says (try to stop other companies or earn royalties). Apple needed this patent to defend itself against a mountain of mobile phone patents the current companies own. Without this, its prospects were poor in my opinion being a newcomer with very little granted patents of its own. Suspect we will be reading about a number of PCLs (patent cross-licensing deals) with major companies in the coming few months with suits being settled at the same time.

It's pretty hard to deny that the iPhone has been blatantly copied. The legality of it is, of course, another question.

Tim

**amirm** · 06-23-2011, 09:32 PM

Well, my point was that likely Apple blatantly copied everyone else's patents in its core hardware: a phone. Companies like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have been patenting the field like there is no tomorrow. When the rumors of iPhone came out, I would ask them how they would compete given their poor industrial design and they would all brag that apple could never bring out a mobile phone because they lacked any IP (Patents) in house.

In that sense, prisoners will be exchanged at the border, a check written by one side or the other depending how good of a negotiator or poker player they are, and all will be well.

Look at the latest lawsuit between Samsung and Apple for example.

**JackD201** · 06-23-2011, 10:40 PM

Agreed.

**Phelonious Ponk** · 06-24-2011, 03:14 AM

I did sort of understand what you're driving at, Amir. There are so many patents on so many things inside existing mobile phones that it makes it very difficult for another player to enter the business, to produce a viable mobile phone without violating those patents? So Apple will try to 'trade" competitors' violations of their look/feel/interface for their own violations of the more internal mobile phone technology, right?

So in order to be able to compete in the mobile phone business at all, Apple will have to allow that going from here....

...to here...

...is sort of the same thing as going from this...

...to this...

Seems reasonable to me. That should encourage competition and innovation.

Tim

**rblnr** · 06-24-2011, 04:06 AM

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware? I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.

Much of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it? But an interesting question is whether a swipe or pinch and zoom,etc is patentable. Some of these are natural human gestures. It was Apple's genius to harness them, but we'll see.

The Samsung case is separate from these patents I believe -- it's about blatant hardware copying.

**Phelonious Ponk** · 06-24-2011, 05:30 AM

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware? I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.

If they do, the legality of that is highly questionable, not that our current legal environment would do anything about it.

M

uch of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it? But an interesting question is whether a swipe or pinch and zoom,etc is patentable. Some of these are natural human gestures. It was Apple's genius to harness them, but we'll see.

The application of intuitive human gestures to a human/machine interface is exactly the point and the competitive advantage. It's not much different than the application of human language to the creation of a piece of literature. If that cannot be protected in specific applications then we have a serious challenge to intellectual property rights across the board.

The Samsung case is separate from these patents I believe -- it's about blatant hardware copying.

Hardware and software, I'd argue. And they have an awful lot of company. Walk into a phone store. It is a sea of iPhone clones.

Tim

**rblnr** · 06-24-2011, 08:33 AM

Do Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al have a tacit agreement not to litigate against each other regarding the inner workings of the communication hardware? I'd think there's plenty of overlap between their 'inner tech' too, it's not just Apple on that one.
If they do, the legality of that is highly questionable, not that our current legal environment would do anything about it.

Let's take the notion 'tacit agreement' out and substitute that it's understood that all parties probably use some stuff patented by other parties -- that Apple is by no means unique in this regard. No one in this scenario wants to start a legal war because no one has wholly original internals design -- it would be costly and endless. So would starting a war with Apple on such grounds (if Apple chose to sue or seek royalties) open a can of worms among all manufacturers?

uch of the Apple patent has to do with the UI -- multitouch gestures, etc. I'm not sure Apple's going to go down the path of litigation -- would the never-ending lawsuits be worth it? But an interesting question is whether a swipe or pinch and zoom,etc is patentable. Some of these are natural human gestures. It was Apple's genius to harness them, but we'll see.
The application of intuitive human gestures to a human/machine interface is exactly the point and the competitive advantage. It's not much different than the application of human language to the creation of a piece of literature. If that cannot be protected in specific applications then we have a serious challenge to intellectual property rights across the board.

I get your point but the literature analogy is inexact IMO. It's not the language that gets copyrighted, it's the individual words and the way they're put together. The question is on which side of that the UI gestures are judged to fall.

The Samsung case is separate from these patents I believe -- it's about blatant hardware copying.
Hardware and software, I'd argue. And they have an awful lot of company. Walk into a phone store. It is a sea of iPhone clones.

Agreed that the hardware and software are being copied, think the suit though is primarily about the hardware. The issuance of the patent being discussed might bring up the software stuff in other suits.

I'm a huge Apple fan -- everytime I have to use a PC something happens that makes me want to blow my brains out. Ask Amir to explain why the driver needed to program a Universal Remote when hooked to your pc requires you to go to the Windows Mobile Group to download it. Such 'logic' is typical of PCs IMO. Anyway, that's a dead horse I felt like phoenixing for the moment to point out how Apple delivers -- never any of that sh-t w/a Mac or iOS.

Anyway, like you Tim (I think), I use a touchpad for my Mac and I'm really appreciating the convergence of gestures across the devices and platform. Not wholly there yet in terms of consistency across everything, but moving in that direction. They've got to protect themselves, though not sure them having the lock on such gestures is a good thing. OTOH, I'm a shareholder, so bring on the licensing fees!

**JackD201** · 06-24-2011, 08:57 AM

Multi-touch has been around for some time. I don't know if Apple bought the rights to, was simply first to be granted a patent or even if the inventors actually sought patent protection. It but it surely wasn't an in-house invention. Even the movie Minority Report featured essentially the same gestures in 2002. That would place pre-production during the period when the iPod had an actual moving wheel.

IP is a very complex subject, I worked on IP legislation for 6 years. An interesting case study is that of Sony and the Playstation rumble controller suit. Sony claims that it came up with the technology independently in-house. Knowing Sony, they probably did but there was a patent that predated it. One can only imagine what a hassle it must be to search all the patents before doing a product launch when everybody is pressured to go to market against the competition so frequently as well as the pressure to bring a patented product to market within the protection period. It's no wonder arbitration and resulting settlement agreements have pretty much become par for the course. Launch now, settle later.

**Phelonious Ponk** · 06-24-2011, 02:16 PM

I get your point but the literature analogy is inexact IMO. It's not the language that gets copyrighted, it's the individual words and the way they're put together.

I'm not sure any analogy would be very exact. If sign language had been invented by a company for exclusive use in a commercial product that might qualify. I'm sure the lawyers will come up with better analogies than my own.

Tim