

Apple Patent on Touch Typing, Multitouch Upheld; Allows Ban on Most Androids - anielsen
http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Patent+on+Touch+Typing+Multitouch+Upheld+Allows+Ban+on+Most+Androids/article33580.htm

======
Prefinem
This just shows how bad the state of the US Patent Industry is, were instead
of making a better product, it's easier to hamstring a competing company.

If the patent is upheld, and Apple, having the hate it does for Android tries
and bans Android Phones, then in the end, all it does is hurt the users who
want a decent alternative to Apple Products. People expect multi-touch on
their phones, and non-physical keyboards. I can just see my mom asking me why
her new android phone doesn't swipe to scroll because her last phone did.

Such a shame.

------
acjohnson55
As I type on my MacBook Pro, I also wonder at what point we as a community are
going to start voting with our wallets against Apple and the extent to which
they are abusing the broken US patent system. Of course it's only rational to
expect that they will use any means at their disposal to get a competitive
advantage, but that doesn't mean that we must reserve moral judgment.

For me, Apple has already moved into "prefer competitors' products" territory,
but they keep pushing me closer to all-out boycott.

~~~
josephlord
And where would you go if you were to boycott Apple over the actions you deem
to be "abusing the broken US patent system".

I think Google/Motorola and Samsung have behaved far worse when they attempted
to obtain injuctions and excessive licensing fees over patents that they had
committed to license on FRAND terms.

Microsoft has a horrible history of anticompetive behavior.

Maybe Blackberry phone and linux based computer would be an acceptable route
although I'm not sure how long Blackberry will be making competitive products
and there is a fairly limited choice of PCs shipping without Windows.

~~~
Prefinem
You may think that Google and Samsung are worse because of FRAND, but the fact
is that Apple by its very nature is more dangerous because of their closed
system. If Google wins a patent, with it's open source AOSP, then guess what,
anyone can use it. If Apple wins a patent, guess what, everyone has to pay for
it.

This is horrible for users and businesses and is evil in nature.

As for Samsung, they are fighting back against Apple for the most part, and do
so however they can.

~~~
gibwell
Sadly not true. Google is moving most new Android development into tightly
controlled closed source: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-
iron-grip-on-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-
android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/)

And portraying Samsung as the victim is absurd, they are one of the worlds
most aggressive companies.

~~~
Prefinem
I know Google is, because they have open sourced it for so long, competitors
have taken and used it... Now they are trying to reap some rewards. But it
won't matter since it has been open sourced the way it has... How many
different ROMS are there now based off of AOSP? Hundreds

Samsung is not a victim, they are battling just as hard as Apple, but Apple,
because of how vehemently they have attached Google and Samsung, they are the
bad guys. People defend them because they are blinded by some infatuation that
makes no sense to me and most other, level headed people.

And before you say I am an Apple hater, I have purchased multiple Apple
products (mostly to evaluate compared to other products). I have owned every
type of iPhone except for the new 5 series. I have had a mac, I have had
iPods, etc etc... I was never satisfied with their price point for what I got.
But, as a company, they disgust me. Anyone who wants to defend them can go for
it.

~~~
gibwell
Cloning other people's products and then dumping them onto the market using
predatory pricing is a far more 'vehement' attack than anything Apple has
done.

If you seriously believe Samsung is a more ethical company than Apple, then we
need discuss this no longer.

~~~
Prefinem
Ethical and evil are two different words with two different meanings.

And, if I can make the same thing you can for cheaper, then why shouldn't I?
Your problem is that you value "ingenuity" as something that can be stolen or
ripped off which is wrong. You can't protect ideas. Everyone has them. Why
should yours be more valuable then mine. Just because you say yours first?
Even when I may have been working on my without anyone knowing? Or maybe you
think, taking the risk of making something (i.e. the iphone) and since you
took that risk, you should be rewarded by not allowing anyone else to make
one. Because life if fair right? If you created the first product, make the
product better than others, and offer at a reasonable price, then there is no
reason you shouldn't be successful.

If apple didn't have patents, they would fail, why, because their products
would be too expensive to compete with other "clones". Now, if they actually
made a better product, then they would at least exist (if their "better"
product was worth the cost). Think about the guys that started a business
building normal pc's and putting OS X on them. Apple forcibly shut them down
fast because they new people would flock to them. Why, because they were much
cheaper and would do the same thing as a Mac. And yet, Apple forced the
business to shut down so that they would own their market. That is evil.

Your stance make me believe that either, a) you are an Apple lover and thus
overriding basic logic because you are blinded, b) don't understand the
underlying points c) just trying to argue. Your ultimatum of "If you don't
believe Samsung is as evil as Apple then I won't talk to you" is childish,
immature and extremely bias. I believe Samsung is a better company than Apple.
That is my own personal opinion, and I don't care whether you believe it or
not.

Patents do not protect anyone accept the greedy corporation that files them.
They stifle innovation and hurt everyone but themselves. Apple is the king of
patents and thus, the worst.

~~~
gibwell
I never made a 'childish ultimatum'. I simply said that if you believe Samsung
is a more ethical company than Samsung, we have nothing to discuss, because it
have no intention of debating that belief with you.

I am glad you were willing to own up to it.

I am also glad you admit that you do not respect the idea of contract law and
think that Apple should be forced to give away their intellectual property.

~~~
Prefinem
There intellectual property they purchased. You don't have to be smart, just
have money.

~~~
gibwell
You have to be smart to choose intellectual property worth buying.

------
throwawaykf
Ugh, no. Yes the patent was upheld. Yes, all the claims survived intact. No,
the claims are not on "touch typing, multitouch"; they cover a very specific
use of a heuristic to differentiate between scrolling and panning. No, it's
very unlikely that it will allow "ban on most Android" devices. I think
Samsung (and probably most Android vendors) have already worked around the
claims.

As with all tech media discussion about patents these days, this article talks
about what the patent "covers" without so much as an idea of what claims are.

~~~
camus2
Unlikely doesnt mean impossible. A Few month ago it was unlikely Apple's
patents were upheld.

This could be a huge issue for any os that runs on a phone that uses the same
multi-touch tech as the iphone.

MSFT striked a deal , Google screwed up big time.

~~~
reginaldjcooper
One of my fondest hopes is that Apple and Google mutually assured destruct in
a legal war, leaving plenty of space for Mozilla and Canonical.

~~~
fastball
Because Mozilla and Canonical have a much better track record when it comes to
releasing game-changing products?

------
jbogp
I swear every time I read one of those articles I die a little bit. I can't
begin to apprehend the emptiness inside [insert patent trolling company]
lawyers' souls after a day at work.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Not sure this is much to do with companies patent trolling. Apple developed
the tech and use it, that's pretty different.

You can disagree with the specific patent (and I think in this case there's a
pretty good case for that) or with patents in general, but this isn't, by my
understanding of the term, patent trolling.

~~~
venomsnake
The patents are disclosure in exchange for state granted monopoly. Or they
should be - you do something amazing. No one can figure out how to do it - you
tell them and they cannot use the tech for X years.

But right now people patent the end result. That is wrong.

------
JulianMorrison
Patents shouldn't exist.

~~~
Oletros
Software patents shouldn't exist

~~~
JulianMorrison
Hardware patents shouldn't exist. Business method patents shouldn't exist.
Drug patents shouldn't exist. Gene patents shouldn't exist.

All patents are bad.

~~~
ignostic
My opinions on patents are still evolving, but I tend to see drug patents as a
good thing that needs reform. I know it's a bit of a tangent, but would
someone mind explaining a little?

My main concern is that we can't expect anyone to invest m/billions in
necessary drug research if they can be copied the instant the drug shows
success. The R&D cost per new drug brought to market is often between 1-12
billion.[1] Even on the low end, that's more than the TOTAL US government's
budget for health R&D.[2] Who is going to do this research?

[1]
[http://lillypad.lilly.com/entry.php?id=1583](http://lillypad.lilly.com/entry.php?id=1583)
[2]
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ost...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/research_infrastructure_fy14.pdf)

~~~
rmrfrmrf
I say the same thing about software and hardware patents, though. What
incentive will _any_ company have to innovate if they're constantly getting
copied?

IMO too many people let their emotions dictate their thoughts about business
-- Company X is big enough, so it doesn't _deserve_ patents. Company Y sues
everyone in the sun for using their technology; what a horrible company! For
every high-profile case like these, though, there are stories of small
businesses and new inventors getting screwed by distributors who outright
steal product ideas and resell them for cheaper. We need to make sure that
whatever system we have can allow for invention but also not stifle progress
of entire industries.

~~~
chroem
Fine, let's use your example of the small business. Suppose that this company
invents a revolutionary technology, such as a cure for cancer or a teleporter.
That company is perfectly within its rights to just sit on the technology for
_20 years_. Even if it does decide to produce the technology, there is no way
that it could keep up with demand, so it ends up shipping very small numbers
of a very expensive and exclusive product. There really is no situation in
which patents make sense.

Do you know why 3D printing is finally taking off? The parents are starting to
expire. The technology has been around since the 80's. Try to let that set in
how much patents have held back a very important innovation.

~~~
marcosdumay
> Do you know why 3D printing is finally taking off? The patents are starting
> to expire.

That same history happened with almost every technology since patents existed.
Some quite famous examples are the steam engines, electronic valves, and
airplanes. It's an easy to spot pattern, new tech just takes off only a patent
length interval after it leaves the labs.

That alone is not evidence that patents are bad. But coupled with the fact
that most of those techs were concurrently invented by several people (who
often got bankrupt, because they couldn't sell their inventions) it becomes
very strong evidence.

------
baldfat
The idea that a keyboard used with a finger is even Patentable???? How is this
even close to being something that needs to be protected? So the visualization
of anything is a patent worthy idea? There has to be prior art in the hundreds
of touch typing?

It is so frustrating knowing the Prior work of Microsoft Surface before the
iPhone with multi-touch and pinch to zoom.

I would love all Android phones to just stop being sold in protest
immediately. Though this would never happen. The very idea that this was
something invalid in September and now passed through smells of some outside
pressure.

~~~
threeseed
Please understand what prior art means before talking about it again.

And Apple acquired these patents from Fingerworks who predated Microsoft
Surface by nearly a decade.

~~~
Oletros
That patents has nothing to do with Fingerworks.

~~~
riskable
I highly doubt that. I have a FingerWorks Touchstream LP that (while I don't
use it anymore) was performing the same exact gestures we all recognize as
"swipes" on capacitive touchscreen phones/tablets. As evidence I point you to
the founder's dissertation on the topic from 1999:
[http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~westerma/main.pdf](http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~westerma/main.pdf)

The only difference between how it worked on a Touchstream LP and a modern
capacitive touchscreen is that the trouchscreen has a "screen". Other than
that they're absolutely identical.

Actually, the Touchstream LP had capabilities that exceed today's capacitive
touchscreens. For example, it supports ten-finger chording and could recognize
which finger was which. So if I pressed my index and middle fingers (say, with
both hands) in a certain region of the keyboard it would recognize that and
send whatever pre-programmed sequence of keystrokes or mouse movements I
wanted.

It was awesome technology! It only had one (big) flaw though: No tactile
feedback.

You take it for granted but the "click" you feel when you press a key on your
keyboard is very, very important to typing quickly and efficiently. Without it
you have to constantly ensure your hands & fingers in properly positioned.
This is why autocorrect is so important with software keyboards (if you're
tapping instead of swiping). Without it--if you tried to type really quickly
without thinking about what is actually being output from the IME--you'll end
up with typos all over the place.

Another thing we take for granted is the ability to "feel" a key as we press
it. On a capacitive touch surface there's no way to do that without
accidentally typing that key. This is why I have high hopes for that
technology that produces little bubbles on top of touchscreens on-demand to
provide tactile feedback as to key locations.

So that is the reason why I eventually gave up on using the Touchstream LP.
While it was the greatest mousing device I've ever used (and I've used
HUNDREDS) it was not that great of a keyboard. I'd be happy to use it day-to-
day for typing up English words and sentences but it was just too error-prone
to use in a bash shell or for programming. Even with the "programmer pad"
feature (which let you enter keys like braces, brackets, parens, etc using
handy gestures) it still resulted in too many typing mistakes--even after
training myself and using it regularly for a year.

~~~
talmand
Wait, it could identify which fingers were in use? Surely there was some sort
of limit on this in some way. I find it doubtful that I could put my two index
fingers on the surface somewhere and the system would know that was my two
index fingers as opposed to any two of the rest of my fingers.

What you describe is more like counting touch contacts within a certain space
on the surface and reacting to that regardless of which fingers were which.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Everybody knew that went the patent standoff went nuclear things like this
would happen. Patents were meant to leverage innovation, not to use it to
litigate yourself into monopolistic control of a vertical market.

------
mwfunk
"Androids". Ugh. At least they didn't just say "Droids" to mean all Android
phones, but c'mon people. That's almost up there with "MAC" as far as being a
flag indicating that the author isn't super clueful about the subject matter.

On topic: software patents are usually freaking terrible, but (as others have
pointed out) this article misrepresents the whole situation, presumably for
clicks. Not saying that the patent holder is in the right here, just that the
situation is vastly more complicated than how it's presented.

~~~
kunai
Was the first point really relevant enough to include in your discussion?

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ernesth
Does this article really claim that apple's 2006 patent prevents android from
using swype which was patented in 2003? [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,098,896.PN.&OS=PN/7,098,896&RS=PN/7,098,896)

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dicroce
So, if Android products are banned in the US, that doesn't change the fact
that they would continue to be sold elsewhere in the world, right? And if so,
wouldn't it be likely that you could pay to have an Android imported (perhaps
illegally)?

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andmarios
So in essence, Apple patented the "straight line" because I doubt in nature
you'll find many straight lines as they are described in this patent. What you
will find though, is the kind of lines that Apple patented. Great.

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threeseed
I can't see Apple wasting its time with "most Androids".

The only two companies that this would apply to are Samsung and
Google/Motorola.

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Oletros
> Allows Ban on Most Androids

Procog too much?

------
chatman
Lets hear Eben Moglen now!?

