5 ms·

As if pinch to zoom couldn't be suggested by a ten year old when presented with the problem of zooming on a multi-touch interface. Software patents are a joke.

pxlpshr 14y ago
People hate on software patents like they were hating on the cellphone industry just 5 years ago. One company doubled down on their innovation while disrupting their own major revenue channel. Meanwhile, the many stagnant phone manufactures continued copy/pasting crap because that's all they knew. BlackBerry executives went so far as to call Jobs' 2007 iPhone launch a "bluff" and an "impossible feat of engineering". Maybe multi-touch is painfully obvious on the surface, but end-to-end execution and total consumer package made the iPhone what it is today -- and that wasn't obvious until you held it in your hand, and everything just clicked. So in that regard, I think it's fair for Apple to protect their entire pie by defending the slices/key ingredients. PS. It took a few years before "pinch and zoom" was actually comparable to the fluidity of iOS. Some implementations on Android were a complete joke. PPS. I don't disagree that the patent process could use some revisions, but to dismiss the process entirely is just silly -- including software.
- watty 14y ago
  I agree it's the end-to-end execution that made the iPhone a success. But Samsung had a completely different end-to-end execution, right? I agree with being able to sue for a complete copy of end-to-end, or even an attempt to. I just didn't see it in this case, especially with all the prior art. I don't understand the recipe analogy, to me it's like Bush's Beans suing another bean company for the inclusion of cocoa in the recipe. I'm baffled that you feel pinch to zoom should be patentable.
  - taligent 14y ago
    No. That's the point of the case. Samsung DIDN'T have a completely different end to end execution. It was a blatant copy from the packaging, hardware design, software UI elements, connectors etc. And Samsung had documents demonstrating this. Microsoft and Palm are examples of unique end to end execution.
- fluidcruft 14y ago
  I certainly hope that patents aren't intended to protect realizing that something has economic value. I personally hold "This is an obvious way to do this" and "I can make a lot of money if I do this" to be nearly orthogonal. I'm a little tired of people claiming Apple deserves government protection because they discovered a market.
- dsr_ 14y ago
  People were right to hate the cellphone industry 5 years ago. The best things available were Nokia candybar phones -- approaching the Ford Escort in terms of reliability -- and the Palm Treo, which was more or less the apex of combining a PDA with a phone without actually doing much integration. People are currently right to hate cellphone service providers. As later history would reveal, BlackBerry executives were entirely correct to consider the iPhone an "impossible feat of engineering" -- from their point of view. RIM had huge market share, yet couldn't engineer its way out of a stapled paper bag.
  - beedogs 14y ago
    There was also the HTC Wizard, introduced in October 2005. It was pretty much the best thing out there for quite a while.
bitsoda 14y ago
Apparently it wasn't so obvious in 2007 when all the handset makers scoffed at the iPhone.
- untog 14y ago
  I don't think anyone was scoffing because of pinch-to-zoom, though.
- mrcharles 14y ago
  Pretty sure the big deal, if you break it down to component parts, was actually having a capacitive touch screen rather than resistive. Fingers instead of styluses opened a whole new world of phone interactions. If they had patents on multitouch hardware itself, power to them. But software patents? Meh.
  - JoelSutherland 14y ago
    Pinch and zoom in 2001 on a capacitive screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s&t=2m19s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s&t=2m19s This was presented in the case. Apple argued it didn't represent prior art because: 1. The screen was a projector and therefor this showed two devices. (Capacitive CRTs have excited since the 80s) 2. Samsung didn't present the code for this implementation in time, so it could not be proved that this was either object oriented or event-based. So Apple's non-obvious extension of prior art was to 1. do this exact thing on a non-projector device, 2. use event-based code.
    - mrcharles 14y ago
      So, basic software development on new hardware. Gotcha.
- Kylekramer 14y ago
  Isn't scoffing at a new competitor just going through the motions required of you? No one is going to say "darn they beat us to it" to the press.

pxlpshr 14y ago

People hate on software patents like they were hating on the cellphone industry just 5 years ago. One company doubled down on their innovation while disrupting their own major revenue channel. Meanwhile, the many stagnant phone manufactures continued copy/pasting crap because that's all they knew. BlackBerry executives went so far as to call Jobs' 2007 iPhone launch a "bluff" and an "impossible feat of engineering". Maybe multi-touch is painfully obvious on the surface, but end-to-end execution and total consumer package made the iPhone what it is today -- and that wasn't obvious until you held it in your hand, and everything just clicked. So in that regard, I think it's fair for Apple to protect their entire pie by defending the slices/key ingredients. PS. It took a few years before "pinch and zoom" was actually comparable to the fluidity of iOS. Some implementations on Android were a complete joke. PPS. I don't disagree that the patent process could use some revisions, but to dismiss the process entirely is just silly -- including software.

watty 14y ago
I agree it's the end-to-end execution that made the iPhone a success. But Samsung had a completely different end-to-end execution, right? I agree with being able to sue for a complete copy of end-to-end, or even an attempt to. I just didn't see it in this case, especially with all the prior art. I don't understand the recipe analogy, to me it's like Bush's Beans suing another bean company for the inclusion of cocoa in the recipe. I'm baffled that you feel pinch to zoom should be patentable.
- taligent 14y ago
  No. That's the point of the case. Samsung DIDN'T have a completely different end to end execution. It was a blatant copy from the packaging, hardware design, software UI elements, connectors etc. And Samsung had documents demonstrating this. Microsoft and Palm are examples of unique end to end execution.
fluidcruft 14y ago
I certainly hope that patents aren't intended to protect realizing that something has economic value. I personally hold "This is an obvious way to do this" and "I can make a lot of money if I do this" to be nearly orthogonal. I'm a little tired of people claiming Apple deserves government protection because they discovered a market.
dsr_ 14y ago
People were right to hate the cellphone industry 5 years ago. The best things available were Nokia candybar phones -- approaching the Ford Escort in terms of reliability -- and the Palm Treo, which was more or less the apex of combining a PDA with a phone without actually doing much integration. People are currently right to hate cellphone service providers. As later history would reveal, BlackBerry executives were entirely correct to consider the iPhone an "impossible feat of engineering" -- from their point of view. RIM had huge market share, yet couldn't engineer its way out of a stapled paper bag.
- beedogs 14y ago
  There was also the HTC Wizard, introduced in October 2005. It was pretty much the best thing out there for quite a while.

bitsoda 14y ago

Apparently it wasn't so obvious in 2007 when all the handset makers scoffed at the iPhone.

untog 14y ago
I don't think anyone was scoffing because of pinch-to-zoom, though.
mrcharles 14y ago
Pretty sure the big deal, if you break it down to component parts, was actually having a capacitive touch screen rather than resistive. Fingers instead of styluses opened a whole new world of phone interactions. If they had patents on multitouch hardware itself, power to them. But software patents? Meh.
- JoelSutherland 14y ago
  Pinch and zoom in 2001 on a capacitive screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s&t=2m19s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s&t=2m19s This was presented in the case. Apple argued it didn't represent prior art because: 1. The screen was a projector and therefor this showed two devices. (Capacitive CRTs have excited since the 80s) 2. Samsung didn't present the code for this implementation in time, so it could not be proved that this was either object oriented or event-based. So Apple's non-obvious extension of prior art was to 1. do this exact thing on a non-projector device, 2. use event-based code.
  - mrcharles 14y ago
    So, basic software development on new hardware. Gotcha.
Kylekramer 14y ago
Isn't scoffing at a new competitor just going through the motions required of you? No one is going to say "darn they beat us to it" to the press.