Apple patent applications offer glimpses of haptic screens, RFID readers, fingerprint ID
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 2nd 2009 12:08PM
posted July 2nd 2009 12:08PM
Alright, so you know the drill by now. A patent application doesn't necessarily mean an actual product is on the way -- but it's always fun to speculate, right? And this latest trio of applications from Apple certainly provides plenty of speculation fodder. The most notable of the lot is an application for a "multi-touch display screen with localized tactile feedback," which Apple seems to be at least considering as a possibility for the iPhone (or iPod touch). Like some similar systems, Apple's application covers a screen that uses a grid of piezoelectric actuators that can be activated at will to provide vibrational feedback when you touch the screen. Apple even goes so far as to use a virtual click wheel on an iPhone as an example. Other patent applications include a fairly self-explanatory RFID reader embedded in a touch screen, and a fingerprint identification system that could not only be used for security, but to identify individual fingers as an input method -- for instance, letting you use your index finger for play/stop and your middle finger to fast forward.
Sorry but it's already in use, fingerprint scanning screens, not as long as it's been in the movies of course, but it exists now I read recently in product news.
As are haptic screens (still in a largely experimental setp moistly) ad RFID readers obviously
Hah I typed moistly, I mean mostly though, moistly is more suited for IM use :)
"I don't think technology companies should be allowed to generate patent after patent like this without any investment in actually demonstrating a unit that works."
First, thank God you didn't write our patent laws, because some really great ideas have come about as just that... ideas, without a physical product built by the inventor (and yes, just coming up with the idea is an "invention" under our patent laws). If you had to build *and* market every single idea before you could get a patent, very few companies would waste the time or money to invent things, because it would require a huge investment to not only (a) pay the people who come up with the ideas, but also (b) pay the people who figure out how to make physical prototypes of the ideas that the first people came up with, and then (c) pay the people to figure out how to build those prototypes efficiently so you can actually make money selling them, and the (d) pay some other people to actually build those finished products, and then hope that it is actually commerically valuable. But, since you can patent something at step (a) you can get your patent and protect your idea and then spend a little more time developing it without worrying that others are going to rip you off.
Second, do you honestly think Apple hasn't built some type of prototype with these features before they filed these patent applications? I've been helping companies get patents for about 5 years now, and the vast majority of established companies never decide to patent something until they have built at least a rough prototype.
Stop trolling against the patent system. It's pretty clear you don't understand it anyway.
Actually the patent system used to specify you had to have a device with the invention in existence within X number of years to make the patent fully valid and protected, not sure how it is right now though.
this is obviously a patent for iphone based mega-chess.
Amazingg!
Hasn't this been already Patented?
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=21&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5717423&OS=5717423&RS=5717423
Is this not refuring to a system for making shapes apear, sort of like in one of those novelty desk orniments that you put your hand in and on the other side it raises to look like your hand only in electronic form so that a blind person can actually touch and "feel" the shape of the depicted item in 3D?
If you are saying that this covers a flat LCD panel depicting a flat, viewable object that gives you feed-back by a slight vibration under your finger to let you know your input was excepted by the devide, the two are actually not very close at all.
You can't say all forms of inputing data are now locked up because of one patented one way of inputting data. If you do 90% of the patents in the system from all companies are useless.
Sorry was meant to be a reply to Stockman3's post that somehow ended up above it and with an earlier time stamp than the original post. Weird.
There is one important difference between them and the novelty desk ornaments desk – they both have actuation systems to impart a physical sensation to the interface.
That is what produces the tactile effect and makes them the same invention.
I am saying you are making it too far reaching in scope to apply it here. Any game console controller would fall under your net if it had rumble feedback, the fancy new mouse replacement a few stories down on this site etc, would all fall under it if it applies to images on a flat LCD display. It does not say that they have to be contained in the same exact location. They sense motion, translate it to commands, change what is displayed on screen and so forth.
Maybe theres a new ipod touch coming?
This is a problem I've been trying to work out a solution to for a while now. Short of creating a screen out of a 320x480 array of pins topped with an OLED pixel that can be individually raised by a couple hairs width, the best I've been able to come up with is a system of pixel-sized fluid bladders overlaying the screen that would be briefly heated to create the necessary tactile feedback and implemented using an alpha channel (2 bit / 4 height levels) in the graphics.
This sounds like something fun and interesting. I have another thing in mind that i want to share. I found a another one that is funny to use with friends. I find this app http://www.dirtymouthapp.com/ amazing. They have got funny phrases that I use to shock my friends.
First of all, the presumption of validity is with the original invention in the link. If fact, since it was already patented and published one could easily argue that Apple simply took an existing idea that someone else developed, and is now attempting to claim it as their own.
One can also note at that that you keep on attempting to imply that the original invention is something else by stating that it is like X and then making the assertion that the Apple application isn't X, and therefore isn't the same thing.
The only valid comparisons are between the original patent and the Apple application.
As I stated in my original reply, they both have actuation systems to impart a physical sensation to the interface. That is what produces the tactile effect and makes them the same invention.
Dude... that's not how piezos work. I use them for a living, and you can't feel a piezo that thin actuate with your finger. Not to mention the high power required to operate a piezo (they're very inefficient). One piezo for a buzzer or speaker OK, but a whole screen made of them? Man I'll be the first to sign up if it works, but I don't see this one happening soon!