Apple Awarded Multi-Touch Patent

[Joel]

World of Apple (http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/01/26/apple-awarded-multi-touch-patent/) has the details.

Mashable (http://mashable.com/2009/01/26/apple-multi-touch-patent/) is following up with:"Apple Gets Their Multi-Touch Patent; Is Palm Screwed?"

Your thoughts?

[philpalm]

Usually one tech company breeds other tech companies. Zune was an attempt to "emulate" IPod and Microsoft was too big for Apple to sue....

Smaller companies like Palm if they won can't sue for legal damages could they? I wonder if Congress could pass a law preventing anti-competition suits like Apple is doing?

Nonetheless we will see similar devices from Asia emulating the IPhone. Remember the IPhoney? Even that program was threatened with lawsuits and the program went to a place that was less liable to be sued.

[ssulux]

woohooo multi-touch war.

i don't think that palm will be the only one who got patent infringement since we saw hp and m$ has added this feature in their latest pc and software releases. also lot of phone maker that has added this functions such as htc android, lg and htc touch flo, etc.

thus, palm is just another last company which just jumps into this wagon and i also feel that i see the same basic idea of iphone in palm pre, but i have to admit that palm has succeed to bring that iphone features to another level. pre is a kinda better iphone. for most general people and non-geeky friend that i have shown pre website, they say that it is just another iphone and they will stick to iphone.

i am not quite advance to really understand the multi-touch patent but i feel that the war would come up in near future. and palm just need to joint the rest of the aliance such as hp, m$, android, etc.

now, i have an interesting tech issue to watch.
don't take me wrongly, i use iphone and i like pre and for sure that i will try pre on day 1 if i could get it.

[harpgliss]

Hi,

First, what one person sees as anti competition, another sees as diligently protected their intellectual property.

Second, the PC versions of the multi touch are just that.

My understanding of the patent awarded to Apple was for small screens and not a PC sized screen, negating possible infringement issues.

The screen technology is great, having a Touch myself, but backing it up with support from developers decide if this is a success for Palm.

David

[Greek]

The Pre will use a screen made/invented by Cypress Semiconductor. They have a demo video explaining the technology (which THEY invented and patented, not Apple). The video shows how it is used, and they show an iPhone. So my guess is that the iPhone uses a screen from Cypress.

The technology is even more capable than what we see in the iPhone and what we'll see in the Pre allowing up to 8 (IIRC) simultaneous touches.

The article in Precentral: http://www.precentral.net/cyress-semiconductor-provide-palm-pre-touchscreen-technology

The demo video: http://download.cypress.com/2_0/ui/flash/video.swf

P.S.: Anyone patented pressing a button with a finger?? :D

Regards,

[ProfJonathan]

A few thoughts, from an Internet law professor (though this is of course not legal advice!):

1) Palm has certainly been down the patent infringement allegation road before (remember Xerox, and the patent claim that threatened to derail Palm's IPO)? I'm sure it has a strategy for addressing this.

2) Various commenters have talked about the cross-claim/cross-license possibility, and I think it's likely. Palm probably has any number of patents in its drawer (or in the pipeline for granting) that it can say Apple has violated, and they can work out a cross-licensing arrangement. In fact, perhaps that's what Apple intends; maybe Apple knows about a Palm patent it may be infringing, and is using this preemptively to force the license.

3) If Apple gets overly aggressive about enforcing its new patent, expect any number of industry players to get together with Palm to try to have Apple's patent declared invalid, or at least to cut its claims down to a point where it's valueless as a weapon.

4) Finally, if you plan to read Apple's patent to see if the Pre actually infringes, good luck. Patent infringement does not require exact duplication (witness the Xerox unistroke patent vs. Graffiti as a prime example), and a lot of cases turn on how courts read the specific words in the patent at issue. I'm not a patent lawyer, so I can't give you my own expert read on this.

Bottom line? I doubt this was either unexpected or will prove a particular problem for Palm. (I could, of course, be wrong.) {ProfJonathan}