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But where is the innovation that would justify a patent lock-in [npi]? Is it still (really?) "non-obvious" that GUI elements may mimic physical devices? What

• GHFigs 17y ago
  But where is the innovation that would justify a patent lock-in [npi]? Read the patent. It describes the specific way the iPhone's unlock screen works, which to my knowledge (and evidently that of the USPTO) was novel at the time it was patented. If you want to know what is supposedly innovative about it, that would be the logical place to look, wouldn't it? With that in mind, I'll ask again: is theres something specific about that patent that is amiss, or is the whole idea that software-defined interface behaviors can be patented wrong to you? Is it still (really?) "non-obvious" that GUI elements may mimic physical devices? Irrelevant. There is no patent on "GUI Element That Mimics Physical Device". That's a concept, not a thing that can be patented. The idea of software interfaces that behave somewhat like physical objects may not be novel, but that tells you nothing about the novelty or lack thereof in any specific interface. What is so innovative about a virtual toggle switch? Depends on the switch. But again, this is not a patent on "the idea of virtual toggle switches", it is a patent on the specific way that Apple's unlock screen works. It should be obvious to anyone that there is more than one way to implement an unlock screen, few of which would infringe on Apple's patent, and many of which don't involve ersatz switches at all.