BTW: I'm not in the slightest bit interested in complaining about or arguing for patents - it's the opposite of intellectually interesting to me: it's boring an

BTW: I'm not in the slightest bit interested in complaining about or arguing for patents - it's the opposite of intellectually interesting to me: it's boring and emotional. Thanks for the link. My reading: Claim one is that dragging an icon to a drop location unlocks the device. It's like dragging to the recycle bin, except that: 1. the drop location is a "region", not an icon (a bit more general); 2. the action isn't to move a file, but to unlock the device (ie. trigger this specific global event) This doesn't seem sensational to me, but it does sound like a good idea: simulating a slider for unlocking. "Pocket unlocking" would be less likely to happen, and it would look cool. Although drag-n-drop is well known, it's never been used to trigger a global event (TMK). The subsequent claims refine this: the icon must be dragged along a displayed route; or within channels; or the direction of dragging is given by arrows or text (presumably randomized). These aren't purely "gestures" because they involve interaction with elements on the screen. The last one - text directions - is probably the one most likely to be upheld by the court. (for completeness, the other claims are just alternate language for the same thing - to circumvent seemingly irrelevant syntactic distinctions between eg. "system" and "method") Just because someone claims something doesn't mean it's true. Like any other claim - in a thesis, in an advertisement, by a politician - it may be true or false. You need to check out the evidence and the criteria used to evaluate it. What is interesting will be to hear the court's opinion. That's what counts, as far as "patent law" is concerned, not what the inventor claims. [nb: I've used "claims" with two distinct meanings here: the claims are claimed]