7 ms·

I think double-tap-to-zoom is a perfect example of something that should be patentable. It's a huge improvement over existing systems that often used a zoom box

by jsz0 14y ago

I think double-tap-to-zoom is a perfect example of something that should be patentable. It's a huge improvement over existing systems that often used a zoom box you would position with cursor keys. To work properly it has to take into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target. Web browsing before double-tap-to-zoom and multi-touch zoom was a nightmare. These two features reinvented web browsing on small displays. This was clearly one of the killer features of the original iPhone.

pwg 14y ago
> To work properly it has to take into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target. And that is what should be patentable, if anything at all should be patentable. The algorithm to account for design elements and make intelligent choices. Not "tap twice to zoom".
- btilly 14y ago
  In theory, patents exist to cover ideas which are hard to think up, but obvious once you've seen them. Double-tap fits this description perfectly. I am against patents in general. But this is perfectly in line with past hardware patents. For example compare to 1950s radios where the volume control was also the on/off switch. Pull it out, and the radio was on, push it in, it was off, and it remembered the volume that you wanted. That button design was patented. I don't see a difference in kind on that patent and the double-click patent.
  - angersock 14y ago
    I'd wager anybody with a little work, when told "Don't add another interaction point to this radio" or "Try to find some way of cutting down on distinct inputs" would stumble upon the radio knob solution given a little time. This isn't art--even a cursory exploration of the solution space with vague constraints should get you there.
    - natrius 14y ago
      I've been trying to think up a practical way to use that very test as the barometer for patentability. Announce the problem that has been solved, and let the public submit solutions. If any of them are close to what is in the prospective patent, the patent shouldn't be granted.
      - monochromatic 14y ago
        It's tough though, because often the inventive thing is framing the problem correctly, or even identifying that there is a problem to be solved here. By assuming that, you're in danger of a hindsight bias.
        natrius 14y ago
        Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem. If you're solving a problem that no one else has solved before, people will try to solve it once they use your product. I don't think granting monopolies over a problem space helps society. Quite the contrary.
        monochromatic 14y ago
        > Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem. Well I didn't say that they were... but I'm not sure I agree with your statement anyway. Do you have any evidence that that isn't what they were intended for?
        natrius 14y ago
        I don't have any evidence. It just doesn't make sense to grant monopolies on a problem. It would harm innovation rather than help it. We'd have one medicine to treat each ailment, for instance.
      - nitrogen 14y ago
        Like the article that was recently posted about smart headlights letting drivers see through rain. Once you read the headline, you instantly know "camera(s), projectors, and motion-tracking algorithms" without having to click through to the article. Maybe the specific combination of motion tracking algorithms could be patentable for a short time, but not in such a way that an independent implementation necessarily infringes the patent.
  - eliasmacpherson 14y ago
    Prior art: double clicking the application bar with _ O X on it for a web browser. Double tap is as old as the GUI.
    - kragen 14y ago
      Actually, double-click was invented at Apple in 1980 or 1981, some ten years after the WIMP paradigm was invented at Xerox, and 18 years after Ivan Sutherland invented a sort of graphical user interface for Sketchpad, which Alan Kay credits as "the invention of the GUI". See http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Do_It.txt&topic=Software%20Design&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1 http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s..., in the comments: "I remember when Larry was doing that testing. One of the things he tested was the three-button mouse, which is what Xerox had used. He found out that inexperienced computer users (the market that Lisa was aimed at, believe it or not) got too confused -- they couldn't remember what each of the buttons did. Same problem with a two-button mouse. So the one-button mouse was born. Of course, that meant that we needed double-click and triple-click, but that's another story..." http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born.txt&topic=User+Interface&showcomments=1 http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s... shows screenshots of the UI that had the first double-click interface, in 1980 or 1981.
      - nitrogen 14y ago
        That doesn't mean that Apple deserves a patent for every double-finger-twitch action in perpetuity, or that double-click doesn't logically follow from the reduction in mouse button count.
        anamax 14y ago
        > That doesn't mean that Apple deserves a patent for every double-finger-twitch action in perpetuity, And they don't, so why bring it up. > or that double-click doesn't logically follow from the reduction in mouse button count. Lots of things "logically follow", but only a few make sense. Figuring that out seems to actually be fairly difficult as the state of the art shows.
  - moe 14y ago
    Double-tap fits this description perfectly. Excuse me, what on earth is non-obvious about that? When enumerating the alternatives to the pinch-gesture (the awkwardness of which becomes obvious within the first few days of use) then you end up with a rather short list of 10-12 items - and that's counting rather esoteric ones like a physical jog-dial. Apple chose double-tap, just like anyone else in their right mind (other than Sony) would. If that's not textbook example for a trivial "invention" then I don't know what is.
  - bluedanieru 14y ago
    The parent was pointing out the conflation of action (double-tap to fit, overloading volume control with on/off features) and mechanism (fitting algorithm, physical design of said button). The former is not patentable, or rather should not be, while the latter might be. It's the difference between going to the patent office with an idea for "an engine that runs on steam" and actually designing a steam engine. See how much broader in scope the first one is?
pessimizer 14y ago
I have serious trouble figuring out any possible difficulties in implementing this. Text is already in a bounding box. Zoom to the width of that box, and give it a little margin to make it look pretty. It's not like zoom hadn't been implemented, or they had to reflow anything.
- colincsl 14y ago
  Patents aren't about doing things that are hard. They're about doing things that are new.
  - rustynails 14y ago
    Patents aren't about doing something new. They are non obvious ideas - read the definition please. Amazon 1 click patent was an example of idiodicy of "something new". This blasé attitude to patents is extremely dangerous. It stifles innovation and hurts society - the exact opposite of why patents were created. Imagine if i patented RGB 128, 179, 253 because I couldn't find that value hadn't been used before. Should this be patentable? What about patenting a piece of timber 3.914 ft x 1.234 ft? This is where Apple deserve a really hard kick in the balls. They patented something so generic and obvious that it is almost impossible not to breach it. You've heard the saying "standing on the shoulders of giants" - what it means is that technology has enabled a bunch of potential inventions. Patterns of these combinations emerge naturally - sine pick up on it quicker than others... But such incremental steps should not be patentable because someone else would have easily come up with the same thing. Now if you tell me that someone invented a new DSP, or a new compression algorithm that was genuinely different, then that is a good example. Ask the question: would someone have easily come up with it, roughly at the same time ... And... Does it help of harm society to grant this patent... Then and only then should a patent bd granted. - posted from my iPhone
  - Animus7 14y ago
    Actually, part of the criteria for getting a patent (at least in the states) is that the invention is non-obvious to those in the trade. So patents kind of are about doing things that are hard. And you could argue that zooming in on an HTML bounding box would be obvious to an engineer developing web browsers.
majormajor 14y ago
My old Symbian phone in 2006 had an intelligent zoom, either in the built-in browser or in Opera Mobile. May have just been the latter. You didn't tap to activate it, you moved a little box, but it smart-sized the column you selected to fill the screen. So is changing the mechanism to a double-tap when implementing it on a device with a touchscreen worth patenting? And that's the thing about software. It's so easy to make, compared to designing/manufacturing something physical, that there are thousands of programs out there that you've probably never used, doing who knows what, and yet people are expected to know if something's novel and patentable?
kenster07 14y ago
I'm sure you also believe the UX in any given video game should be patentable, and video games need to license each other for the effect of tapping buttons here or yanking joysticks there in order to even build their own.
forrestthewoods 14y ago
I couldn't possibly disagree more. Technology has and continues to advance at ridiculous pace. Many software developments are dependent on hardware. Until the hardware exists no one can even try to solve the problem. I don't want a company which has first access to hardware to automatically get all the software patents that derive from it. Google is hard at work on their glasses. Lots of companies are. The hardware isn't there yet. We're getting there though. Eventually someone is going to have hardware that enables all kinds of cool things to be done that have never been done before. Our culture / society / economy doesn't need to compound their reward of being first with a 20 year exclusive.
cacois 14y ago
"it has to take into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target" That's fine, so patent the _specific algorithm_ used to make that decision. Implementations are fine to patent, IMHO. Broad concepts, such as "it should zoom in when I tap twice" are not.

by jsz0 14y ago

pwg 14y ago

> To work properly it has to take into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target. And that is what should be patentable, if anything at all should be patentable. The algorithm to account for design elements and make intelligent choices. Not "tap twice to zoom".

btilly 14y ago
In theory, patents exist to cover ideas which are hard to think up, but obvious once you've seen them. Double-tap fits this description perfectly. I am against patents in general. But this is perfectly in line with past hardware patents. For example compare to 1950s radios where the volume control was also the on/off switch. Pull it out, and the radio was on, push it in, it was off, and it remembered the volume that you wanted. That button design was patented. I don't see a difference in kind on that patent and the double-click patent.
- angersock 14y ago
  I'd wager anybody with a little work, when told "Don't add another interaction point to this radio" or "Try to find some way of cutting down on distinct inputs" would stumble upon the radio knob solution given a little time. This isn't art--even a cursory exploration of the solution space with vague constraints should get you there.
  - natrius 14y ago
    I've been trying to think up a practical way to use that very test as the barometer for patentability. Announce the problem that has been solved, and let the public submit solutions. If any of them are close to what is in the prospective patent, the patent shouldn't be granted.
    - monochromatic 14y ago
      It's tough though, because often the inventive thing is framing the problem correctly, or even identifying that there is a problem to be solved here. By assuming that, you're in danger of a hindsight bias.
      - natrius 14y ago
        Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem. If you're solving a problem that no one else has solved before, people will try to solve it once they use your product. I don't think granting monopolies over a problem space helps society. Quite the contrary.
        monochromatic 14y ago
        > Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem. Well I didn't say that they were... but I'm not sure I agree with your statement anyway. Do you have any evidence that that isn't what they were intended for?
        natrius 14y ago
        I don't have any evidence. It just doesn't make sense to grant monopolies on a problem. It would harm innovation rather than help it. We'd have one medicine to treat each ailment, for instance.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      Like the article that was recently posted about smart headlights letting drivers see through rain. Once you read the headline, you instantly know "camera(s), projectors, and motion-tracking algorithms" without having to click through to the article. Maybe the specific combination of motion tracking algorithms could be patentable for a short time, but not in such a way that an independent implementation necessarily infringes the patent.
- eliasmacpherson 14y ago
  Prior art: double clicking the application bar with _ O X on it for a web browser. Double tap is as old as the GUI.
  - kragen 14y ago
    Actually, double-click was invented at Apple in 1980 or 1981, some ten years after the WIMP paradigm was invented at Xerox, and 18 years after Ivan Sutherland invented a sort of graphical user interface for Sketchpad, which Alan Kay credits as "the invention of the GUI". See http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Do_It.txt&topic=Software%20Design&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1 http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s..., in the comments: "I remember when Larry was doing that testing. One of the things he tested was the three-button mouse, which is what Xerox had used. He found out that inexperienced computer users (the market that Lisa was aimed at, believe it or not) got too confused -- they couldn't remember what each of the buttons did. Same problem with a two-button mouse. So the one-button mouse was born. Of course, that meant that we needed double-click and triple-click, but that's another story..." http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born.txt&topic=User+Interface&showcomments=1 http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s... shows screenshots of the UI that had the first double-click interface, in 1980 or 1981.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      That doesn't mean that Apple deserves a patent for every double-finger-twitch action in perpetuity, or that double-click doesn't logically follow from the reduction in mouse button count.
      - anamax 14y ago
        > That doesn't mean that Apple deserves a patent for every double-finger-twitch action in perpetuity, And they don't, so why bring it up. > or that double-click doesn't logically follow from the reduction in mouse button count. Lots of things "logically follow", but only a few make sense. Figuring that out seems to actually be fairly difficult as the state of the art shows.
- moe 14y ago
  Double-tap fits this description perfectly. Excuse me, what on earth is non-obvious about that? When enumerating the alternatives to the pinch-gesture (the awkwardness of which becomes obvious within the first few days of use) then you end up with a rather short list of 10-12 items - and that's counting rather esoteric ones like a physical jog-dial. Apple chose double-tap, just like anyone else in their right mind (other than Sony) would. If that's not textbook example for a trivial "invention" then I don't know what is.
- bluedanieru 14y ago
  The parent was pointing out the conflation of action (double-tap to fit, overloading volume control with on/off features) and mechanism (fitting algorithm, physical design of said button). The former is not patentable, or rather should not be, while the latter might be. It's the difference between going to the patent office with an idea for "an engine that runs on steam" and actually designing a steam engine. See how much broader in scope the first one is?

pessimizer 14y ago

I have serious trouble figuring out any possible difficulties in implementing this. Text is already in a bounding box. Zoom to the width of that box, and give it a little margin to make it look pretty. It's not like zoom hadn't been implemented, or they had to reflow anything.

colincsl 14y ago
Patents aren't about doing things that are hard. They're about doing things that are new.
- rustynails 14y ago
  Patents aren't about doing something new. They are non obvious ideas - read the definition please. Amazon 1 click patent was an example of idiodicy of "something new". This blasé attitude to patents is extremely dangerous. It stifles innovation and hurts society - the exact opposite of why patents were created. Imagine if i patented RGB 128, 179, 253 because I couldn't find that value hadn't been used before. Should this be patentable? What about patenting a piece of timber 3.914 ft x 1.234 ft? This is where Apple deserve a really hard kick in the balls. They patented something so generic and obvious that it is almost impossible not to breach it. You've heard the saying "standing on the shoulders of giants" - what it means is that technology has enabled a bunch of potential inventions. Patterns of these combinations emerge naturally - sine pick up on it quicker than others... But such incremental steps should not be patentable because someone else would have easily come up with the same thing. Now if you tell me that someone invented a new DSP, or a new compression algorithm that was genuinely different, then that is a good example. Ask the question: would someone have easily come up with it, roughly at the same time ... And... Does it help of harm society to grant this patent... Then and only then should a patent bd granted. - posted from my iPhone
- Animus7 14y ago
  Actually, part of the criteria for getting a patent (at least in the states) is that the invention is non-obvious to those in the trade. So patents kind of are about doing things that are hard. And you could argue that zooming in on an HTML bounding box would be obvious to an engineer developing web browsers.

majormajor 14y ago

My old Symbian phone in 2006 had an intelligent zoom, either in the built-in browser or in Opera Mobile. May have just been the latter. You didn't tap to activate it, you moved a little box, but it smart-sized the column you selected to fill the screen. So is changing the mechanism to a double-tap when implementing it on a device with a touchscreen worth patenting? And that's the thing about software. It's so easy to make, compared to designing/manufacturing something physical, that there are thousands of programs out there that you've probably never used, doing who knows what, and yet people are expected to know if something's novel and patentable?

kenster07 14y ago

I'm sure you also believe the UX in any given video game should be patentable, and video games need to license each other for the effect of tapping buttons here or yanking joysticks there in order to even build their own.

forrestthewoods 14y ago

I couldn't possibly disagree more. Technology has and continues to advance at ridiculous pace. Many software developments are dependent on hardware. Until the hardware exists no one can even try to solve the problem. I don't want a company which has first access to hardware to automatically get all the software patents that derive from it. Google is hard at work on their glasses. Lots of companies are. The hardware isn't there yet. We're getting there though. Eventually someone is going to have hardware that enables all kinds of cool things to be done that have never been done before. Our culture / society / economy doesn't need to compound their reward of being first with a 20 year exclusive.

cacois 14y ago

"it has to take into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target" That's fine, so patent the _specific algorithm_ used to make that decision. Implementations are fine to patent, IMHO. Broad concepts, such as "it should zoom in when I tap twice" are not.