USPTO invalidates all claims of 'Steve Jobs' multi-touch patent - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaelian 

The main problem with these patents is that they patent the result rather than the method. A general patent on heuristics to recognize commands passed through a touch-screen essentially prevents everyone else from implementing touch-screens, because all touch-screen implementations are based on heuristics (you need to make a best guess f what the user wants to do from a sea of input ambiguity).

During the Apple/Moto trial with Judge Posner where infringement on this patent was claimed Apple's own experts could not succinctly explain what was meant by "heuristics".  It's simply a vague and imprecise term, with Posner invalidating a big swath of the patents claims for that and other reasons. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc 

* Apple has made my life far more difficult in many ways as a consultant, just because I have to get through the twisted media stories before I can get to integrating a customer with their devices. Recent stories here have put Apple at the center of Foxcon mother's babies dying at an alarming rate due to them working too many hours. Yes. Infant mortality in 1-child-China is NOW also Apple's... and ONLY Apple's fault.

Perhaps you can buy them off with some cheap Christmas baubles. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

http://www.andrewskurth.com/pressroom-publications-802.html

http://kppb.com/kppb/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79&catid=3&Itemid=29

 

Your always welcome to bring your own citations into the discussion, particularly if they disagree with what I've written. Promise I won''t toss a troll tag at you for challenging me.

 

You're also appear to be confused with the stats. They don't show that 90% of all issued patents have validity issues. The numbers are for challenged and re-examined patents for which evidence of invalidity has to be submitted before the reexamination is even granted. If there's no apparent evidence of problematic patent claims there's no re-exam by the USPTO. Understand now?

Don't you love the way GG completely dodged the issue raised by EricTheHalfBee:

Apparently, his closest thing to a response to that is,

So, first, he goes on the offensive, aggressively (what else can the bold mean in this context) challenging his questioner to produce his own stats, then, just in case we weren't thrown completely off his track, he throws out a complete non sequitur related to trolling. Very professionally done, GG.

But, of course, the point still stands unanswered that the numbers are too general to be meaningful in this discussion. So, why does he post them? Because, as usual, he expects that most of us won't ever click on them, fewer still actually read them, and "citing sources" has become the modern day equivalent of presenting good data in a good argument -- i.e., including links to "sources" lends credibility to your argument, even if the sources are junk.

And, oh, GG, no one thinks you're a troll. You've never, to my knowledge been accused of trolling. We all know you are a professional shill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 

 

Don't you love the way GG completely dodged the issue raised by EricTheHalfBee:

 

 

Apparently, his closest thing to a response to that is,

 

 

So, first, he goes on the offensive, aggressively (what else can the bold mean in this context) challenging his questioner to produce his own stats, then, just in case we weren't thrown completely off his track, he throws out a complete non sequitur related to trolling. Very professionally done, GG.

 

But, of course, the point still stands unanswered that the numbers are too general to be meaningful in this discussion. So, why does he post them? Because, as usual, he expects that most of us won't ever click on them, fewer still actually read them, and "citing sources" has become the modern day equivalent of presenting good data in a good argument -- i.e., including links to "sources" lends credibility to your argument, even if the sources are junk.

 

 

And, oh, GG, no one thinks you're a troll. You've never, to my knowledge been accused of trolling. We all know you are a professional shill.

Can both of you stick to FACTS and cut out the personal stuff? If you want to wage a personal war then do by PM.......

Quote:

Originally Posted by geekdad 

Can both of you stick to FACTS and cut out the personal stuff? If you want to wage a personal war then do by PM.......

Exactly what I did by putting him on ignore months ago. I've never insulted nor attacked him personally (nor any other poster here AFAIK).

Simply overlooking him is the best I can do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ash471 

I find it humorous to read postings by people (including AI) about IP matters.  For the most part you guys get it all wrong. I guess that is why us patent lawyers can charge $300-$500/hr.

 

First off, this patent has not been invalidated. It has not even been "preliminarily invalidated".  The patent is under reexamination.  Apple has received an action on the merits.  Talk to any patent attorney with significant prosecution experience and they will tell you that 90% of the time they get a first action where all the claims are rejected.  This is totally expected and it means nothing in terms of whether claims will eventually be allowed.  

 

Secondly, the patent office doesn't invalidate patents.  They reject or allow patent claims.  The only place to invalidate a patent is a court of law.

 

I haven't read the claims or the prior art that provoked the re-exam, but if this is a typical re-exam, the claims were probably issued too broadly given the newly discovered prior art.  Apple will narrow the claims to overcome the prior art and the patent will reissue. 

 

The most ridiculous comments in this thread are the ones where you all opine about whether the patent office is broken or the patent office screwed up.  Unless you read and analyze the claims in light of the prior art you have no idea whether the patent is allowable. A PATENT IS NOT DEFINED BY ITS DISCLOSURE.....A PATENT IS DEFINED BY ITS CLAIMS. 

You are clearly not a patent lawyer because your "facts" are just wrong. I don't even know where to begin. Let's pick one thing to make this easy for you: The highlighted part about the patent office only allowing or rejecting patent claims and that a court of law . If you are a patent lawyer, you'd realize how wrong these three sentences are. I'm giving you a chance to retract, apologize and admit you're full of shit. Or I can do it for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ash471 

One more thing.... the patent office does a pretty good job of searching the prior art.  Examiners have like 10-15 hours to review the prior art, the patent application, and write up a rejection.  You can't expect them to find every piece of prior art known to mankind. 

You are contradicting yourself. Spending 10-15 hours to do any search is hardly a pretty good job. You can argue the history of human inventions is large to make a good search affordable. But you can't argue they do a good job in less than 2 days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tundraboy 

And yet Amazon's one-touch ordering patent stands despite all attempts to invalidate it.

It hardly matters because Amazon transactions often take more than one touch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

Exactly what I did by putting him on ignore months ago. I've never insulted nor attacked him personally (nor any other poster here AFAIK).

Simply overlooking him is the best I can do.

Admittedly my discussion of your post was meta-criticism, but I don't see anything wrong with that. It's interesting to analyze the techniques of the propagandist. As for discussion of your professional activities here, if you'd just come clean about it, we wouldn't have to keep revisiting that particular topic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 

 

Admittedly my discussion of your post was meta-criticism, but I don't see anything wrong with that. It's interesting to analyze the techniques of the propagandist. As for discussion of your professional activities here, if you'd just come clean about it, we wouldn't have to keep revisiting that particular topic.

so then back up your claims with proof! You refused to let it go....so prove it........

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 

 

Admittedly my discussion of your post was meta-criticism, but I don't see anything wrong with that. It's interesting to analyze the techniques of the propagandist. As for discussion of your professional activities here, if you'd just come clean about it, we wouldn't have to keep revisiting that particular topic.

Being metacritical? This is so deep!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanading 

I am astounded. What about this patent was not novel? Previous tablets as far as I know did not function like the iPad, and did not have the following
1) Smart finger detection that adjusts to the user to better predict what the user wanted to do
2) Adjustable virtual keyboard that is combined with predictive text algorithms
3) iOS is custom designed and was based on a proprietary operating system. Yes the kernal was a generic UNIX core but what sat on top was NOT generic!
4) Apple desinged its own custom software to enable the iPAD to work
5) The doc was and is a proprietary connector (NOT generic!)
6) A universal home button
7) Use of accelorometer to detect the screen orientation
8) RUBBER BANDING
9) smooth scrolling
10) Integration with iTune for content management.
These are just a few of the things I can think of so I really do hope that this is a preliminary decision otherwise if I was Apple I would be seriously considering requesting a full investigation of the USPTO for influence from Samsung as this seems to contradict everything that has gone before as surely the people who originally approved the patten knew what they were doing. That was before the iPad became what it is today and was just another invention. Now it seems that as Apple has become big, even the law enforcement are not above trying to make a name for themselves by not going with the crowed.
Until the world returns to normal and people start building their OWN devices without copying other peoples ideas, I think there are some products I need to avoid!

Ummm....

the '949 patent discussed here wasn't about the iPad, nor any tablet for that matter. It's a touch event utility patent not specifically restricted to any particular device. Perhaps you're confusing it with design patents discussed during the Samsung/Apple trial? If so even then none of the items in your list would have anything to do with one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by geekdad 

so then back up your claims with proof! You refused to let it go....so prove it........

You can search the history for this.

So when Apple patents the design of the iPhone everyone says it's a bad idea and rails on them.

Brings out the true nature of the haters really doesn't it?

It seems though that the USPTO likes giving patents for ideas which is why Apple constantly gets reamed by patent trolls.

This is why they should go back to the whole no patent without prototype system. Then you can't feed the patent trolls because for them to get a patent they would need to be intelligent enough to show their idea.

Originally Posted by Darryn Lowe 

This is why they should go back to the whole no patent without prototype system. Then you can't feed the patent trolls because for them to get a patent they would need to be intelligent enough to show their idea.

That doesn't work, either. Cue the examples of an intelligent but manufactural handicapped individual with the ideas to make him wealthy but who is too poor to make them physically true himself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ankleskater 

You are clearly not a patent lawyer because your "facts" are just wrong. I don't even know where to begin. Let's pick one thing to make this easy for you: The highlighted part about the patent office only allowing or rejecting patent claims and that a court of law . If you are a patent lawyer, you'd realize how wrong these three sentences are. I'm giving you a chance to retract, apologize and admit you're full of shit. Or I can do it for you.

 

 

You are contradicting yourself. Spending 10-15 hours to do any search is hardly a pretty good job. You can argue the history of human inventions is large to make a good search affordable. But you can't argue they do a good job in less than 2 days.

Which facts are wrong?  The patent office doesn't invalidate patents.  Show me a statute or a rule  that says the PTO can invalidate a patent. Search all you want, you won't find it.  By the way, if you want to know where to look, the patent laws are in title 35 of the United States Code and all the USPTO rules are explained in the MPEP (i.e., the manual of patent examining procedure).  

Invalidity is a specific defense to patent infringement as set forth in 35 U.S.C section 282 (b).  Since invalidity is a defense to infringement, it inherently ONLY APPLIES TO A COURT PROCEEDING.  Courts invalidate patents, not the patent office.  The patent office examines patent applications and either allows the claims or rejects them.  The important distinction here is that an applicant can amend a rejected claim and get it allowed.  You can't amend a patent in court, which is why it can be invalidated.

You don't think 10-15 hours to do a search is sufficient?  Are you crazy?  You realize that 10 hours of patent searching costs thousands of dollars. I'm guessing that the actual searching is even less than that.  Maybe 5 hours.  The patent office only charges $530 (small entity) to file a patent application.  If you do more searching you have to charge more money and pretty soon nobody can afford a patent.   We aren't making plastic widgets here.  This is all done by highly skilled people.  The system is way better off spending fewer hours to get us 99% of the way there and then have a re-exam or reissue system to correct errors that will occur from time to time.    

You think I'm full of shit?  Is that the best you can do to support your argument?  That's what we call an argument ad hominem.  Look it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaelian 

The main problem with these patents is that they patent the result rather than the method. A general patent on heuristics to recognize commands passed through a touch-screen essentially prevents everyone else from implementing touch-screens, because all touch-screen implementations are based on heuristics (you need to make a best guess f what the user wants to do from a sea of input ambiguity).

You raise an important point.  Result oriented claims can often cover things that are not enabled.  For example, what if I wrote a claim that says "I claim a car that goes 60 mph and gets 100 mpg."  There is some case law that says that claim isn't enabled for the entire scope.  However, taken to an extreme, all claims could be said to cover things that the inventor hadn't contemplated, which means they aren't enabled to their full scope.  This is a tough issue and one that the courts have really struggled with.  Unfortunately I don't think there is an easy solution.

By the way, it's nice to see some thoughtful comment on patent matters.  Most comments on this site are stupid statements like "the patent office is broken".   

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee 


As usual you completely miss the point and try to deflect the argument. Nowhere did I mention 90%, so where did you pull this number from and why are you even bringing it up?
And your link to the USPTO stats is also useless since it doesn't address the issue I raised, which is simply this: large companies with extensive experience getting patents WILL NOT have patent invalidations as often as smaller, and less experienced companies. Stats are meaningless when they're lumped together and averaged out.
You have also previoulsy commented on AI about the USPTO granting patents that are invalid. The reasoning is the USPTO lacks resources to spend the time needed to properly go over applications. Yet you now claim they only re-examine patens where there's "evidenced of invalidity". So the same people who granted the patent because they lack resources are now suddenly able to invalidate a patent?
As I stated this is just the USPTO passing off the onus to Apple. I doubt they spent much time at all looking over the patent. Your own link shows an average cost of $10,000 to re-examine a patent. $10,000 worth of time and money to check a patent with billion dollar implications? The USPTO simply doesn't want to make that call.

Gatorguy is absolutely correct.  It is preposterous to think that we would demand perfection in patent examination for all patents.  It simply is not practical.  You can spend millions of dollars in litigation hiring expert witnesses, reviewing documents, scouring the prior art, etc. etc. etc.  The patent office charges $530 (small entity) to file a patent.  You would ruin the patent system if the PTO charged what it would take to ensure validity.  And even then, where does it stop?  Even after millions of dollars in litigation, courts will disagree.  Are we going to spend millions of dollars per patent and then have a vote by all the judiciary to decide the allowability of a patent?

The fact is, the system needs to be flexible at the outset and then put more resources into a patent that becomes important.  If you can't see why that is necessary, you don't understand de-risking. 

With regard to your comment about the USPTO not wanting to "make the call".  That makes no sense.  The patent office does the job they are asked to do.  Anyone can ask the patent office to re-examine a patent.  If the accused infringer doesn't ask the patent office to re-examine the patent why would the patent office see the need to do it on its own?

Nilay Patel at The Verge discounts this entire story. He specifically berates Florian Mueller from Patently Apple, saying he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee 

 Companies like Apple spend a lot of money on R&D and have legal departments specifically assigned just to deal with patent issues. You can bet Apple has covered all their bases with their patent applications and the percentage of patents they get invalidated wouldn't be anywhere near the numbers GG provided.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

You're also appear to be confused with the stats. They don't show that 90% of all issued patents have validity issues. The numbers are for challenged and re-examined patents for which evidence of invalidity has to be submitted before the reexamination is even granted. If there's no apparent evidence of problematic patent claims there's no re-exam by the USPTO. Understand now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee 

As usual you completely miss the point and try to deflect the argument. Nowhere did I mention 90%, so where did you pull this number from and why are you even bringing it up?

It should be pretty darn clear now why I attempted to explain it to you better. You were obviously (to me anyway) misunderstanding the numbers and what they meant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich 

Nilay Patel at The Verge discounts this entire story. He specifically berates Florian Mueller from Patently Apple, saying he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Florian attempted to discredit Nilay via his Google+ account after the fact.  Sounds like they don't care for each other.

Ok. So. They can grant a patent, let the company spend money defending it, then later go 'Oh ya, never mind its invalid'?

Like wtf? I love how everyone is yelling loudly about how awsome this is though (in other places around the net)....

Patents are evil! Say people that have never created or invented anything in their lives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by techfox 

Ok. So. They can grant a patent, let the company spend money defending it, then later go 'Oh ya, never mind its invalid'?

Like wtf?

No doubt that's how S3 felt last year after proving Apple to infringe on their IP only to have the USPTO come right behind and pull the patents right out from under them in a reexamination.  The sword can cut both ways. In this case it might not benefit Apple. The next time around it may.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee 

Nothing to see here until there's a final ruling. Has anyone looked at the patent? It's not some simple "if you touch the screen then this happens".

 

Actually, this patent IS very simple, and is nowhere the big deal that people are thinking.  Heck, it doesn't even require multi-touch, so it's funny that people call it a multi-touch patent.

 

This patent is about using your finger to scroll, say, a web page up.  Since nobody can move their finger in a perfectly vertical line, the scrolling code looks at the initial flick angle and uses that to determine if you mean to do a vertical-only one dimensional scroll, or if you really wanted to scroll in two dimensions (diagonally), or if you were choosing an item.

 

That's all.  It's a method that anybody writing scroll code could and would come up with.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

The original Surface was in no way, shape, or form the "original idea for multitouch". Particularly since it didn't exist until after the introduction of the iPhone.

Although it wasn't shown to the public until May 2007, the Surface project was started in 2003, and of course did exist before the introduction of the iPhone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ankleskater 

Some kind of a deal or agreement exists between Jeff Han and Apple. But, to complicate this situation, Han sold his company to Microsoft earlier this year.

Never heard of such a deal.  Got a link? 

What's interesting is that it was Jeff Han who wrote the USPTO and convinced them to take the trademark for "Multi-Touch" away from Apple just as their ownership of it was about to be finalized.  His 80 page letter explained that it was a generic term already in use in the industry for years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KDarling 

 

Although it wasn't shown to the public until May 2007, the Surface project was started in 2003, and of course did exist before the introduction of the iPhone.

 

 

And by the same token, iPhone project started many years before the first iPhone device was released. So there is nothing to say that the Surface (and the table form is a completely different implementation to the system used in the iOS) did predate the iPhone.

 

In fact, we now know that the iPad predates the iPhone by a number of years, so Apple's first multitouch prototype was probably between 2001 and 2003.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by KDarling 

What's interesting is that it was Jeff Han who wrote the USPTO and convinced them to take the trademark for "Multi-Touch" away from Apple just as their ownership of it was about to be finalized.  His 80 page letter explained that it was a generic term already in use in the industry for years.

It's probably worth pointing out that no one has been 'convinced' of anything. This is a preliminary move which Apple is within its rights to contest. My guess is that the patent will need to be narrowed to specifics (which is fair enough).

But it does make for a nice hit-magnet headline.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee 


As usual you completely miss the point and try to deflect the argument. Nowhere did I mention 90%, so where did you pull this number from and why are you even bringing it up?

That's part of his spin, which always includes a special selection or misrepresentation of "facts", while usually omitting important ones.

Here's a more complete version of the numbers GG is misusing:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayz 

 

And by the same token, iPhone project started many years before the first iPhone device was released.

Yep, of course.

However, what I was replying to, was not about the iPhone.  It was about a claim that the Surface "didn't exist until after the introduction of the iPhone."

What the poster undoubtedly meant to say, was that it wasn't shown off in public until afterward.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KDarling 

Actually, this patent IS very simple, and is nowhere the big deal that people are thinking. Heck, it doesn't even require multi-touch, so it's funny that people call it a multi-touch patent.

Actually, this patent IS very simple, and is nowhere the big deal that people are thinking. Heck, it doesn't even require multi-touch, so it's funny that people call it a multi-touch patent.

 

Although it wasn't shown to the public until May 2007, the Surface project was started in 2003, and of course did exist before the introduction of the iPhone.

 

Really? Simple? It references 6 other Apple patents. It also references 40 patents by competitors. There are 362 pages of figures and descriptions. Did you even look at the patent (the link is in the article)? I'm guessing you didn't to make such a ridiculous statement.

And to GG, time to add you to the block list (should have a done this a long time ago instead of wasting time with your circular arguments). Besides myself and anonymouse there are a lot of others who accuse you of the same things. You are nothing but a troll. Subtle, but still a troll.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee 

 

Really? Simple? It references 6 other Apple patents. It also references 40 patents by competitors. There are 362 pages of figures and descriptions. Did you even look at the patent (the link is in the article)? I'm guessing you didn't to make such a ridiculous statement.

Yes, it really is simple. 

As many people on other forums can tell you, I've been posting about and doing touch development for over three decades now, including capacitive two decades ago, and the last decade and a half on handhelds/phones.  So I do know a great deal about touch, and handheld touch patents in particular.

As with any patent, all that matters are the claims, and in this case they're especially short and easy.

I have already explained what this one was about:  determining the direction to scroll when a person makes a gesture on the screen.  That's all.  Nothing earth shattering.  Doesn't even require more than one finger.  If Apple loses the patent, it will not hurt them.

It's ironic that it's called the "Steve Jobs Multi-Touch Patent", because it isn't about multi-touch per se.  I think people who don't understand patents are wow'd by the mostly unrelated and long description section, which Apple likes to throw into many of their iPhone related patents.

Cheers!

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffDM 


Which doesn't prove your "professional shill" comments. I think you can stand to dial back your accusations.

Are you saying I should just call him a liar?

I've given my reasons for why I'm certain he's a shill many times in the past, and the evidence against him is overwhelming, but, I'll be happy to use a more generic term if that's preferred.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haar 


LOL, well, then why is Gatorguy's post always perfect, and error free (aside from the facts IMO/ LOL) . it takes alot of time/skill to get the perfect facts to Reinforce his/her Agenda... Ah, the irony of too many facts.
Has Gatorguy ever said something against SAMSUNG?

Yes I have. Most recently I specifically said Samsung should be found guilty of infringing Apple's trade dress. In fact I did so on more that one occasion. Prior to that I opined that it was obvious Samsung was using Apple design elements a little too liberally. I would think you know how to use the forums search tools to discover my posts on Samsung for yourself so give it a try. FWIW I've also criticized Google as well as Motorola. What you won't find is much criticism of Apple themselves. Certainly no more than I've called out their competitors.

If you perceive posts that question other's comments or specific unsupported pro-Apple assertions as necessarily anti-Apple that's nothing I can do anything about. 

BUT thanks for the compliment about "perfect posts".  To be honest I often have to edit some of them after the fact for accuracy. With that said it's not by accident. I've spent a lot of time on research to be reasonably sure what I post is correct, and other forum members here have helped with that. I think I'm pretty darn good at it too. But I'm not paid to post by any tech company or advertiser, nor do I even own any stock in any mobile company or service provider. It's all for free, just like your opinions are. 

If you have any questions about me, feel free to ask in a PM. Any member is welcome if they have questions. I don't think any forum moderator or admin, any of whom can track where I'm located and probably know exactly who I am, believes I have any connection to any company other than my own. So ask away. 

I'll keep an eye out for your PM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

... To be honest I often have to edit some of them after the fact for accuracy. ...

If only you edited so they were true, that would be appreciated much more than your version of "accuracy".