http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/ Engadget Comments for Apple patents touchscreen control interface http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 9:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 9:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 9:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 9:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 9:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 9:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/]]>Feb 17th 2006 9:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 10:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
if apple has been awarded this patent, could be an interesting win.]]>Feb 17th 2006 10:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 10:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://loop.worldofapple.com/archives/2006/02/08/multi-touch-interaction-video/]]>Feb 17th 2006 10:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 10:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
Amazing!

http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~rdivecha/archives/2006/02/the_world_of_sm.html]]>Feb 17th 2006 10:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 10:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
Remember one of their other patent applications had to do with making a scalable fully operating OS. Combine that with this touchscreen capability (whatever the heck it is) and you've got a device that can all of sudden do a LOT of stuff.

Then, combine that with wireless technology (being added by their chipmaker) and you've got wi-fi and bluetooth.

Holy crap! What a sweet device!!!]]>Feb 17th 2006 10:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=903%2C964.APN.&OS=APN/903,964&RS=APN/903,964
Working at an intellectual property law firm, it's pretty easy for me to see the points where this patent is unique:

"As yet another example, the keyboard initiation event may be triggered by the user putting her fingers on the touch screen (for example, a multipoint touch screen) in a 'typing' position. The detection of this user action may trigger a virtual keyboard ..."

"As an example of dynamic configuration, the user may change the position of the virtual input device display in the composite display by touching a portion of the virtual keyboard display and 'dragging' the virtual input device display to a desired portion of the composite display"

Patent applications are notoriously broad in its details, and this is my favorite:
"The scrolling may even be in more than two dimension (e.g., a virtual cube, or a virtual shape in more than three dimensions)"
5-dimensional scrolling, eh? Oooooooookay.]]>Feb 17th 2006 10:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 10:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 10:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/I'd also like to see Apple just put out their first Tablet so I don't need even one Windows (Tablet PC) box in the house (which, sadly, I'm using right now.)
And I'd like to see Apple or anyone come out with a real-time UI. We were close to the adoption of real-time OS's in the 90's, but things went to glossy UIs and cheap everything. Hopefully we'll see real-time come back as user's choose computer solutions that are genuinely interactive instead of "click and we'll get back to you" interactive.]]>Feb 17th 2006 10:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 11:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/I watched the video that post #11 linked to and upon
watching the "virtual" dj part of it, was like wow!
new types of control for art/music interaction.

Would love to see the tech evolve into new interfaces for performance devices!]]>Feb 17th 2006 11:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
The pending claims, the subject matter of *this
one*, are about taking into account the stuff already on screen, depending on what's there already, to combine that and a virtual keyboard coming up. See #6 chris.

That which you refer to, multipoint gestures, is in the parent case, not this one. That one has a pile of child cases like this one, which will farm ideas that relate to, but do not require, multipoint gestures).

Y'all should learn the joys of using the patent office PAIR (look it up) to see the fabulously boring inner workings of patents.]]>Feb 17th 2006 11:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 11:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
I'm sick of palm or widows mobile devices, and symbian just isn't cutting it, yet..

just my 2cents...]]>Feb 17th 2006 12:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 12:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
I, for one, would much rather be bewildered by stuff like this and be able to get the product the day it's announced. Cell phone manufacurers dangle the "new features" carrot in front of us for months before the actual product is available. Where's my Nokia E70?!?]]>Feb 17th 2006 1:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
The USPTO has admitted that it is often unable to determine whether a patent application is unique. After all, what engineer would want to work for them? I wouldn’t have even considered it when I got out of school and after 20 years as an engineer I would bus tables before working there.

It's easy to file for a patent and almost as easy to get it issued but the entire patent process relies heavily on litigation making up for the weaknesses in the process.
]]>Feb 17th 2006 2:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
(Valid) Patents are self-explanatory. It's the entire reason they're granted; an exclusive license in exchange for the knowledge. Dig?


The way I read the patent is that the virtual input display is part of an application, that customizes itself in both function and appearance based on what task it needs to accomplish.

That is: if you summon the almighty virtual input demon when you're running iTunes, you get a different display (say, an iPod wheel) than you would with Word (qwerty keyboard). It's an input device with a changing format and function.


Current virtual keyboards may be able to scale themselves, but can they change the button placement and functionality? Are touch-screen applications a static program or can they be tailored to fit other applications?]]>Feb 17th 2006 2:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
The USPTO has admitted that it is often unable to determine whether a patent application is unique. After all, what engineer would want to work for them? I wouldn’t have even considered it when I got out of school and after 20 years as an engineer I would bus tables before working there.

It's easy to file for a patent and almost as easy to get it issued but the entire patent process relies heavily on litigation making up for the weaknesses in the process.
]]>Feb 17th 2006 2:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/02/17/apple_handwriting_recog_osx/]]>Feb 17th 2006 3:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 5:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/
Apple and the other companies pushing so called patent reform are well known as patent pirates in the inventor community. Patent pirates try to paint their victims as abusers and developed slurs like patent troll to describe those inventors who have the audacity to fight back. When the inventor fights back companies like Apple howl in rage.

PIAUSA is working to keep the patent system accessible for all. Large companies, including Apple are working to make use of the patent system a kings sport.

The real issue is that most breakthrough inventions start with an individual inventor, often in a basement or in a garage. If they are able to avoid the pirates they may well mature to become a new major company. In their quest to succeed they create jobs and tax base.

But far too often some patent pirate steals the upstart startup's property. And then they crush the startup.

Ronald J Riley, President
Professional Inventors Alliance
www.PIAUSA.org
RJR (at) PIAUSA.org
Change "at" to @
RJR Direct # (202) 318-1595 ]]>Feb 17th 2006 9:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 17th 2006 11:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Feb 19th 2006 2:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Mar 30th 2006 1:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/May 5th 2006 4:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/17/apple-patents-touchscreen-control-interface/Sep 28th 2006 5:48PM