Home » News » Consumer Electronics

Apple Awarded iPhone Interface Patent

Techtree News Staff, Jan 28, 2009 1056 hrs IST

Now, all mobile handsets and portable media players sporting multi-touch interfaces would be watched closely by Apple

Apple has now bagged a legal weapon in the form of a US patent for their multi-touchscreen interface to help them stand up strong against all iPhone killers. Issued last week, before Apple's announcement of its quarterly profits, the multi-page patent was issued from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Now, all mobile handsets and portable media players sporting iPhone-like multi-touch interfaces would be watched closely by Apple.

The US Patent 7479949 assigned to 'Steve Jobs et al' mentions about commanding a computing device, where the device detects commands by "detecting one or more finger contacts with the touchscreen display," which means that input gestures on Apple's handheld devices, the iPhone and the iPod Touch, such as pinching images, zooming, finger swiping, two-thumb twisting, or spreading to flip pages would be included.

In Steve Jobs absence, Tim Cooks, chief operating officer of Apple, issued an ominous warning to anyone who "rips off" Apple's intellectual property. However, Cook didn't mention any specific competitor and believes that Apple's touch control makes the iPhone "years ahead of competition."

AppleInsider points out that Palm's Pre handset will sport a gesture area for simple and intuitive gestures to navigate between menu items. The Palm Pre press release mentions: "The gesture area is separate from touchscreen."

It would be nice if handset makers took consumer behavior and needs into consideration rather than sheepishly following industry fads. Apple surely changed the paradigm of mobile phones with its iPhone. Innovations should challenge competitors and not the end users, who struggle to familiarize themselves with the innovations.

Related Links

Now, Amazon On Your iPhone

iPhone Has Hidden TV Out Feature

More Signs of iPhone Nano

Tag keywords

AppleInsider Palm Pre handset iPhone iPod Steve Jobs Tim Cooks iPhone patent Apple US Patent and Trademark Office iPod Touch touchscreen media player

Discussion Board

P.Girish

,Bangalore, on May 20, 2009 11:43 AM

The patent is not about touch screen, its about using finger gestures (not stylus point inputs) for giving commands to the device. The gestures include - pinch, zoom, cursor-placement with magnifier, rotation etc. None of the devices available prior to iphone had these methods for input. The key behaviours that would be affected by this patent is - scrolling of lists (phone book, etc) with finger then stopping the list with finger touch, de-acceleration of lists after initial push, spring like behaviour of lists when scrolled out of bounds etc. This will not overlap on windows mobile phones with simple stylus inputs.

Report abuse

Kevlar

,Beaverton, on Apr 17, 2009 04:03 AM

There is no way this patent will hold any water in court. The patent is for "detecting one or more finger contacts with the touchscreen display,". For those of you that don't know anything about patents, there is something called "Prior Art". If someone else can show that they did this before Apple, the patent will be void. Just about every windows mobile phone had a touchscreen before Apple even thought about the iPhone.

Report abuse

George

,Houston, on Jan 29, 2009 07:15 AM

Chintan, you must be smoking crack... Apple has 20+ billion in cash ready to use, a propensity to litigate and a newly minted U.S. patent. What does Palm have? A dev team made up of mostly ex-Apple people. Palm is crapping in their pants now.

Report abuse

Mr Angry

,nyc, on Jan 28, 2009 12:13 PM

It's a shame the courts allowed apple a patent on something that's been in us by others for years, shame.

Report abuse

Daniel

,Maui, on Jan 28, 2009 02:52 PM

Oh yeah, been in use by others for years, huh? Like where? In what? None of the touch-screen devices that are popping up everywhere now would be coming to the market, if it weren't for Apple's superb "know how" in bringing workable products and softwares to the mass market. No one cared about multi-touch until the iPhone arrived, now everyone including ALL of the "big shots" want some too. Well that's too bad... They should have spent more time and money on R&D like Apple does, instead of just copying the next big thing.

Report abuse

Jesus

,Everywhen, on Jan 28, 2009 12:47 PM

Oh yeah I definitely missed the fanboyism in that one. Apple will get absolutely crushed if they decide to go after Palm, which has been making touch devices since the dawn of time.

Report abuse

Chintan

,Mumbai, on Jan 28, 2009 12:37 PM

Apple SuckS!!!

Report abuse