Apple awarded patent for touchscreen slide-to-unlock gesture - Page 5

Clearly Apple was not attempting to patent the left-to-right finger movement/gesture, and the USPTO was apparently able to figure that out on their own.

The issue is whether or not Apple has introduced a non-obvious, useful, and novel innovation.

It's clearly useful. It is novel with notable differences from the Neonode implementation. If it had been obvious, Neonode would have have done what Apple did (which cannot be thought of as anything less than an improvement), but they didn't. Apparently the idea of attempting to conceptually connect their left-to-right gesture with the process of unlatching something never occurred to them. It only became obvious once they saw the iPhone. (Just my guess, admittedly, but this is what seems most likely.)

Neonode's idea is very generic. Swiping is natural on a touch screen. But Apple's slide to unlock patent is very advance.

This is like a piece of cloth. Put the cloth on your body is generic and natural to do. However, a taylor can cut the cloth to make different designs. And they can be patented if nobody have designed it before.

You didn't answer any of my questions.

Correct. It's easy to get sidetracked by hypotheticals. I'm more interested in looking at the central issue.

You are avoiding the central issue. Those are really simple questions. However you prefer keeping your head in the sand, because you maybe begin to realize that the answer would mean that you've been wrong all along.

Here are the questions that scare you so much, once again for clarity:

1. Does Apple's slide-to-unlock work when the back light is dimmed, or when the outside light is too bright for one to read the screen?
2. Can one unlock the iPhone without looking at it?
3. Would Apple's implementation of slide-to-unlock work if the on-screen image wasn't there?
4. Is Apple's addition of an animated image, which is central to their patent, essential for the gesture to work as it does currently?

For the last time...

The central issue is whether or not Apple has introduced a non-obvious, useful, and novel innovation.

Your simple questions do not serve to enlighten the issue. Deny that obvious fact and you're the one whose head is buried in the sand!

The only way to prove that my questions do not enlighten the issue is to answer them. Then we would see.

However you refuse to defend your point and instead blankly restate it. Gotcha.

Discourse (from Latin discursus, meaning "running to and from").

In your case, it's only "running from".

You do know this is the Internet, right? Nobody on either side knows patent terminology nor patent law.


I can think of many ways to unlock a touchscreen device: enter a pin, tap on a specific button, tap on a specific button multiple times, tap on a series of buttons, enter a block character, tap-and-hold on a specific area or button, etc. I can probably keep on going after more thought.

But let me ask you about the novelty between the Neonode N1m swipe-to-unlock gesture and Apple's iOS swipe-to-unlock method. Do any devices implement Neonode's N1m swipe-to-unlock idea? Do any devices implement the iOS swipe-to-lock idea?

As far as I know, no phone implements the N1m's swipe-to-unlock gesture. I do believe there are many implementations of Apple's swipe-to-unlock idea. I think this basically states that Apple's idea of using direct manipulation on an onscreen graphical element is the big innovation, idea, invention, whatever you want to call it, not the gesture in of itself.

Is it worth patenting? Well, the question isn't going to be solved. But I think people are giving Apple's swipe-to-unlock the short shrift here. If Neonode's idea was so important, why don't people use it? Every implementation basically uses a direct manipulation of an onscreen graphical element.

Google actually came up with alternative: the pattern unlock, but for some reason, many Android phones don't use it as default. Why?

The addition of the graphics is obvious. Neonode had a tiny low-res screen, which would make drawing animation problematic. Plus, it's not needed at all for the gesture to work.


It isn't. It's an obvious and nonessential addition.


It's called "giving your customers a choice". It's not necessarily a good thing.

He probably does not have an iPhone. I can answer these questions for him.
The answers to 1,3,4 are qualitatively no. So, what is your point?

On the other hand, the only way to prove that your questions do enlighten the issue is to first answer them.

But surely you don't need me to enlighten you by answering your "really simple" questions--ones so simple that you will no doubt have already discovered the answers on your own? All that remains is for you to make your point. So, be my guest. Explain how these simple questions enlighten the central issue.

(Meanwhile, someone else seems to have correctly deduced that I don't have an iPhone...)

Uh, you're crazy, right? 1 and 2 are outright yeses. Three's a no. Four is contingent on his definition of 'animated image', which I believe (and he should correct me if I'm wrong) pertains to the lock icon and its motion in conjunction with one's finger.

And if that's the case, four is a maybe.

1,3, 4 are qualitatively no because if your finger did not touch the right area and move in the right direction as described in the patent the device won't open.

What does this have to do with understanding basic facts about physical reality? Thanks for playing anyway...


Thanks for your sane reply. So, 1 and 2 are "yes", so far so good. Now, if you can unlock an iPhone by slide-to-unlock without looking at it (2. yes), then you are not making any use of the on-screen image, which means that it may just as well not be there. Therefore the slide-to-unlock, as implemented by Apple, doesn't really need the image, and 3 is also a "yes".

Finally, if the image is dispensable, then it isn't essential for the method to work. The answer to question 4 is thus no. The patent application has been worded so that it emphasizes on a superfluous detail and is clearly gaming the patent system. It should have been rejected based on 1. Lack of novelty and 2. Obviousness and superfluity.

The N1m had a 176x220 pixel resolution display. That's plenty. That's more than the original Treo 600. There are other more plausible reasons such as maybe the N1m's animation performance wasn't very good and the gesture couldn't be implemented. Not having enough pixels isn't a good reason.

If the gesture is not needed to work, why does every post-iPhone smartphone slide-to-unlock feature use graphics?


If it is not needed for the gesture to work, why do all phones using slide-to-unlock use the addition?


If it is a choice, why do basically all smartphones make slide-to-unlock the default? Why isn't the pattern unlock used more often, presented more often.

I also said "tiny". Your thumb would practically be covering the screen, so an animation is pointless. The graphical element showing the action was present in the Neonode.


They use it, because it is an obvious improvement, the key word being obvious. It isn't necessary (or else, you wouldn't be able to use slide-to-unlock without watching, which we already established is possible).

It's not so tiny that a graphical element can't be added. Looks to be about the size of a webOS Pixi/Veer display and they have touch animation features all over the place. The device is 52 mm wide. It's wide enough. From the video review from tnkgrl, her thumb wasn't covering the screen. Even Apple has a shorter stroke slide-to-unlock in iOS5 after a double-click to bring up the camera shortcut button and the audio controls, and also has about a half sized graphical elements for the slide-to-goto app notification.


Obvious? If it was an obvious addition, why is there no prior art of it? Palm devices, WinCE devices, this Neonode N1m, who knows what else, nobody appeared to use it. There were many touchscreen handheld devices 15 years prior to the iPhone.

The Dutch judge in the Apple-HTC/Samsung (don't remember which) court case holds your position on Apple's first slide-to-unlock patent, that it is obvious or trivial, but many things are trivial or obvious in hindsight. If it is obvious, it would have been done before, and Neonode should have done it. If it was trivial, then why do so many touchscreen devices use it today, and don't use the Neonode gesture. If there is a court case with this patent, I think the judge will reverse his/her opinion.

There is a conceptual difference in the Neonode implementation. Neonode used a swipe as a user input: yes, no, back, etc, as if you were entered a command in a CLI or voice control. The iPhone conceptual model is direct manipulation of onscreen elements. The gesture isn't the input, it's the movement of the onscreen elements. Eg, you can move the slider all the way to the right and back off to the left a bit and it won't unlock and the slider will automatically slide to the left. You can move that slider all the way back and forth all day and it won't unlock until the slider is all the way to the right and you left your finer up.

This a huge cognitive mode switch for the user akin to moving from CLI to GUI. That's why the iPhone concept as whole is now that dominant smartphone factor and not Blackberry/Treo or WinCE/Palm pen devices or Nokia Symbian candybars or Psion handtops.

They could have had other reasons than those, it doesn't matter so I'm not going to argue the relevance of your examples. They didn't want an animation, they didn't put one -- and their slide-to-unlock works just as well as Apple's later implementation.


Yes, obvious, which does not imply that Apple weren't the first to use it. But the obviousness implies that anyone could do it without prior art, with little to no effort or investment. That makes it not patentable. Importantly, the additional animation is also dispensable since the gesture works without it. Thus, it's not far from being a mere decoration.

As to the semantics of the gesture, I already wrote that it was immaterial, go back to my previous post if you are interested.

Why do you ignore my reply? [insult removed] The image is important. I don't think you have used an iPhone.

You basically agreed with me. My fourth question was:


You said "no". I think so too.

You have no idea what the Neonode developers wanted and didn't want. I'd love to hear what they were thinking though.

Right off the bat, we know the Neonode method doesn't work as well as Apple's. Why? No one uses it. So, their slide-to-unlock method doesn't work just as well.

It's conceptually like learning a command in a CLI. With Apple's method, it's obvious just by looking at it. In addition, Neonode "overloads the operator" by using a left-to-right swipe to mean yes, unlock, and the right-to-left swipe as back or no. They are using it as a command input with multiple meanings, kind of like the 2-button design (plus D-pad) in dumbphones all these years. That to me sounds like they weren't trying to implement a direct manipulation touchscreen UI and were using gestures as an input command. Very conceptually different.


Apple doesn't implement a "gesture" for slide-to-unlock. The input to unlock the phone is to slide the slider all the way to the right, then lift the finger. Like I said before, you can touch the slider, and slide it half-way, stop, go backwards, wiggle it, slide it all the way back and forth, you can do this all day, and it won't unlock until the slider is all the way to the right and you lift your finger. Since when is doing these kinds of things a "gesture".

It's not a "gestural" command syntax like the Neonode. It's primarily a direct manipulation UI design. In such a design, you don't use gestures. You use your fingers to move graphical elements.

Apple actually uses some finger gestures in the iOS UI. When you are in a list such as mail or a list of bookmarks, a horizontal swipe, in either direction, across a list item will cause the UI to bring up a delete button right inside the list item. A touch or swipe is a cancel. On the iPad 2, a 4 or 5 squeeze will bring you to the home screen. I actually don't like that they do this. It's a convenient shortcut, but it could be done by direct manipulation.

The graphics are also indispensable. That's why everyone uses graphics. It's not trivial either. It's a breakthrough design. It involves a lot of work to get to work as smooth and location-fuzzy, direction-fuzzy, and velocity-fuzzy as Apple has done it. If the animation/graphics is dispensable, why does everyone use it?

Patentable? Who knows. But the direct manipulation design embodied in the original iPhone was the breakthrough and that's why everyone uses it. If it was a gestural command, it would be more prevalent. It's used, but sparingly imo: webOS uses it activate the app switching interface. Playbook uses it for the same type of thing from all four edges. Android probably uses it for notification screen, I don't know. Apple doesn't use it for their notification screen.

Everything you mention was already addressed previously. I know well enough, and have no interest in reading once again, what Apple's developers are dreaming about when designing a GUI, or what you believe that they believe when doing so.

A swipe with a finger is a swipe with a finger, with or without pictures or fairy tales. In this particular case, a groundbreaking touch interface was invented and marketed by Neonode years before Apple applied for and was unjustly granted a related patent.

You never did address any of my questions.


You're wrong. The proof is right there, observable in almost every smartphone today. Nobody has implemented a gestural input design like in the Neonode phones. Basically everyone is implementing a direct touch manipulation UI like the iPhone. There are some gestural inputs in today's designs, but the value is all in direct manipulation.

Because everyone is happy with the obvious addition of a guiding graphics. The original Xerox mouse had three buttons, but almost everyone uses the superior two-button setup nowadays, whoever that may have been who did it first.


The real lawyers I believe, but we are here to express our own opinions. Mine should be abundantly clear by now.

I believe you had one more, purely rhetorical question, which you answered yourself.

I understand you want to overemphasize on the conceptual differences in the two UIs, but none of that is in the text of the patent, the patent addresses specifically unlocking the device, and it's clear who had implemented it first. I never argued that the image modification wasn't Apple's or what it means within Apple's UI, but I don't see why other should be prevented from using the gesture provided that they don't prescribe the same deep semantics.

Including no components--previously known or not--that are dispensable to the realization of an outcome is not a criterion for granting a patent.

This sort of reasoning would make it impossible for someone to obtain a patent on any procedure that simplifies or facilitates a pre-existing procedure. For example, we all know how to screw in light bulbs. Someone could develop a sleeve which simplified the process of getting a light bulb positioned to more easily start the process of screwing it in. By your reasoning, a patent could not be granted because the sleeve is actually dispensable to the screwing in process. How ridiculous!

This is why I've asked you to get back to the central issue of whether or not the innovation is useful, non-obvious, and novel. These are the criteria.

Exactly, which is why Apple is not attempting to patent "a swipe with a finger."

As a reminder, this is the title of the patent application:

"Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Image."

You can't just remove the parts that are not convenient to your argument!

No analogy is perfect, but here's a story that offers some parallels...

A Tale of Two Golf Resorts:

Golf Cub One:
At this golf resort, people could communicate only by swinging their golf clubs; no talking was allowed. Swinging in one directions meant "yes," and swinging in the opposite directions meant "no." Since swinging was the only mode of communication, special meanings were agreed upon for certain situations. For example, in front of the clubhouse, people could indicate that they wanted to start a game by swinging towards the green. If the clubhouse was in sight, and the swing was in that direction instead, it was to be interpreted as the client being ready to pack up and quit.

Some problems were encountered with the staff in situations where people did not swing as fully as they should or were not entirely facing the right direction or were just practicing their swing in a location close to the clubhouse. The staff, not being sure what was intended, sometimes missed their cues and did not come running to start the game or, on the other hand, complicated things by failing to ignore an unintended signal.

Golf Club Two:
This Golf Resort was and is still located just down the road from Golf Club One. They say to their clients, "We have several ways for people to communicate but we know that people like to swing their golf clubs. We want a foolproof but interesting way for you to get started. We also know that when people see a train leaving a station while tooting its horn, it means the show is on. So this is what we do..."

Basically, the clients start by swinging their golf clubs to hit a special toy train that then toots its horn as it gets going around the track. The train and its track are located conspicuosly in a pre-specified and unchanging area next to the clubhouse. Swinging the golf club into contact with the back-end of the single-car train causes it to toot as it travels up the track before quickly stalling and gliding back downhill under gravity to its starting point. And the toot is recognized as the signal. It works like a charm, and they call it "Push to Start."

People became very excited about the approach Golf Club Two was taking because it was easy, reliable, almost intuitive, and somewhat entertaining.

Many people felt that this was a great thing that Golf Club Two had done and that it was not inappropriate for them to claim it as their own innnovation. Others were of the opinion that this was nothing special, no real innovation, and that the credit should go to Golf Cub one because clients there were already swinging their golf irons in front of the clubhouse as a way of expressing their readiness to start.

What do you think?

Did you really read my answer? I said 1,3,4 are qualitatively no. Your answer is 1,2,3 yes, 4, no. This is quite different from mine.

The graphics aren't guiding. They are the mechanism by which an iOS device is unlocked. That's not obvious and it's not trivial. It's not a left-to-right swipe gesture. It's a movement of the slider from the lock position to the unlock position. Like I said before, you can move the slider back and forth any way you want, repeated swipes, but it doesn't unlock. The swiping isn't causing the unlock. It's the process of moving the slider to the unlock position that does it.

If people are happier with such an unlock and it was obvious, why didn't it appear on Treos? Windows Mobile phones? And any of the other myriad of handheld touch devices. They had 15 years to implement a method that is being used a lot today.

On mouse pointing devices: the dominant mouse design has a scroll-wheel and is patented by Microsoft. Worthy of a patent? (Never mind that there are trackballs, trackpads and IBM nipples.) Also, Apple sells a mouse with no buttons. It has a single click mechanism that uses touch input. And they sell multi-point trackpad. I think the Apple Magic Mouse is better than the scroll wheel and 2 button setup. They refused to use a scroll-wheel and iterated a few times to come up with something better, and I think they did with the Magic Mouse.

On happiness: you say it as such a trivial thing. But happiness is the most significant thing about inventions. Because yhey do things better and they make people happier. That's the point of every invention.


Not lawyers. Judges. Yeah, and obviously I'm trying to talk you down from it.


And you want to underemphasize the differences. Here is claim 1 of the patent:




Where does it say anything about accepting a swipe input like in the Neonode? No where. The granted patent is entirely about moving a graphical image from a lock location to an unlock location. That's it.

The image does not simplify the process nor does it make more efficient, so the lightbulb and sleeve analogy is moot.

The innovation is marginally useful, obvious, and arguably novel (just about any GUI element relies on movable images).

You guys are taking turns in coming up with verbose arguments and I frankly am losing my interest, sorry. I'll hardly be able to come up with any arguments that will suddenly convince anyone here anyway...

You're wrong.

Judging from my iPad experience, the image and its apparent manipulation enhance the gesture in several ways (whether or not that includes simplification, which is not a requirement in any case), and this underscores the fact that, for patentability, a proposed innovation is considered as a whole rather in terms of each of its individual components:

1) It precisely defines where the finger movement must take place, minimizing the likelihood of errors related to positioning.

2) It statically specifies where the finger movement must begin and where it must end in two dimensions, further reducing the possibility of inadvertent triggering or misinterpretation of signals.

3) It dynamically illustrates the required movement before the action is initiated and then shows a ready signal when the finger is placed in the correct position for starting the action (and not otherwise).

4) It suggests that your finger must touch the surface of the screen, adding a level of required specificity in the third dimension (i.e., height above the screen).

5) It provides the illusion of moving an object (i.e., sliding it) in a way that adds meaning to the gesture that is relevant and feels natural at a conceptual level.

6) It allows for both visual and audio feedback upon satisfactory completion of the gesture.

7) It allows the user to change his/her mind about unlocking and instead abort the procedure at any point during the gesture prior to lifting the finger from the image at the end of the motion.

There's probably more, but I think that's clear enough. The addition of the image and appropriate animation related to the required movements enhance and improve the entire experience of using a gesture to unlock.


Here's another example (again, just supposing):

Someone develops a drinking straw that allows better performance in getting the last bit of fluid out of a glass. The innovation involves a mechanism whereby the straw senses the level of fluid, and its diameter is reduced dynamically when the remaining fluid in the glass is lower than a certain level. Prior to this development there were no straws in operation that incorporated dynamic adjustment. Is the inventor entitled to receive a patent?

Does this innovation meet the criteria of being non-obvious, novel, and useful? This is what matters.

...NOT that straws have been in use almost forever.

...NOT that most people wouldn't buy it.

...NOT that the straw can perform its function even when the new mechanism fails.

...NOT that only a few people are interested in draining their glasses of the last dregs.

...NOT that the innovation is, therefore, only marginally useful.

...NOT that the new mechanism is not necessary for the straw to operate.

...NOT that this component is not indispensable to the basic funtionality of a straw.

...NOT that the addition of such a mechanism might have been obvious.

...NOT that the mechanism is used elsewhere and is therefore obvious.

Bear in mind that the significant criteria must be applied to the entire package rather than its components. So claiming that a component, e.g., a graphical image, is obvious by itself has absolutely no bearing. Similarly, claiming that the image by itself does not improve or enhance the process in some way is irrelevant. It's the totality that must be examined!

1. The Neonode N1 is referenced directly in the newly issued patent, so the USPTO has already looked at the prior art in the case of the Neonode N1 and determined that the patent claims were non obvious.

2. If you were handed an iPhone and an N1, having never used or seen one before, could you operate the device intuitively?

To answer a previous posters questions:

1. Does Apple's slide-to-unlock work when the back light is dimmed, or when the outside light is too bright for one to read the screen?
Only if you have been trained to operate it.

2. Can one unlock the iPhone without looking at it?
Only if you have been trained to operate it.

3. Would Apple's implementation of slide-to-unlock work if the on-screen image wasn't there?
No, you would have nothing to slide.

4. Is Apple's addition of an animated image, which is central to their patent, essential for the gesture to work as it does currently?
Yes, you need to slide the image to unlock it. If you were not trained on how to operate the phone you would not know how to unlock it if the image did not exist. Even with training if you did not have an image it would be clunky to operate it.

There is a reason that the Taiwan government is scared of this patent and what it will do to the industry that has been created by copying the iPhone.

Apple claims to have applied for over 200 patents related to the iPhone. This is just one of them.