Apple: delicious with irony... and vit. C

[atomicdog21]

Apple Tastes Own Medicine, Gets Sued For Multi-Touch | Android Phone Fans

apple gets called out in front of the world. magic. just pure karma.

 

[doogald]

Apple has been sued over the iPhone already, months before they filed the HTC lawsuit. This is nothing new.

Also, contrary to what some may think, none of the claims against HTC have anything to do with multi-touch.

 

[atomicdog21]

Points taken. I did indeed look back and see that only two or three of the patent infringment allegations clearly deal with touch/interface, and none with multitouch. Out of curiosity, does anyone know the specifics of who may have sued apple previously over multitouch?

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Apple has been sued over the iPhone already, months before they filed the HTC lawsuit. This is nothing new.

Also, contrary to what some may think, none of the claims against HTC have anything to do with multi-touch.

Patent 7,657,849, covers multitouch gestures used in unlocking the phone.
Patent 7,479,949, covers multitouch heuristics to determine how a device should interpret multitouch input.

Apple is suing HTC over both these patents.

The patent is question in the OP is simple - using two or more contact points to determine input. If you use more than one finger to do the action, stop - you have just infringed on Elan's patent, one they have already successfully defended against Synaptics.

YouTube - Elan Microelectronics Sues Apple Over Multi-Touch (or Multi-finger) Patents

Heres a video of Elan demoing their patent in April 09, when this issue was first raised. Looks pretty cut and dry to me. I certainly don't like these kinds of patents, but I appreciate the irony.

 

[Duvi]

I love the iPhone, but I agree with you gbhil. I wouldn't mind it if the patents were exclusive for a set period of time, like 3-6 months.

 

[doogald]

Patent 7,657,849, covers multitouch gestures used in unlocking the phone.

True, but only when two images are moved by touch to unlock the phone. None of the HTC devices (that I know of) use this particular method. The patent also defines moving a single graphical image along a predefined path (or in a single direction), which is what te HTC devices cited use as a method.

Patent 7,479,949, covers multitouch heuristics to determine how a device should interpret multitouch input.

That may be the way the patent was filed, but not the way that the patent was granted - the patent was narrowed in the approval process. In this lawsuit, they are dealing specifically with scrolling with a single finger in a diagonal direction, sensing whether you want to scroll in a single direction (up/down or left/right) or in two directions at once (up and right, up and left, down and right, down and left).

 

[doogald]

I love the iPhone, but I agree with you gbhil. I wouldn't mind it if the patents were exclusive for a set period of time, like 3-6 months.

They are. Patents are exclusive for 20 years from the date of file.

 

[Duvi]

They are. Patents are exclusive for 20 years from the date of file.

Yes I understand... I just gave the example of 3-6 months as 20 years is pretty much a lifetime in this industry.

 

[doogald]

Yes I understand... I just gave the example of 3-6 months as 20 years is pretty much a lifetime in this industry.

Some of these patents date from the 90s; the oldest is from 1995, and I believe it expires in early 2015. There's not too much longer to go for that one.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Yes I understand... I just gave the example of 3-6 months as 20 years is pretty much a lifetime in this industry.

Its 20 years across the board. In pharmacy, drugs have a 20 year shelf life under patent. The problem, it may take a drug company 10-15 years of test it properly and release to the market. So for them, they have 5-10 years to make their money back.