USPTO denies Apple 'Multi-Touch' trademark, calls it 'merely descriptive'

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  • Reply 41 of 51
    What functional value do awarded patents have if judges hoot them off the stage when their owners try to ensure that they are enforced? If a patent claim is "overly broad", "obvious" or has already been awarded, why does the patent office issue a new patent? I, for one, never heard the "too broadly descriptive" term "Multi-Touch" until Apple patented it and I understood that it referred to a vocabulary of gestures used on a trackpad.



    A recurrent them lately has been that Apple never invented anything.
  • Reply 42 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Antinous View Post


    What functional value do awarded patents have if judges hoot them off the stage when their owners try to ensure that they are enforced? If a patent claim is "overly broad", "obvious" or has already been awarded, why does the patent office issue a new patent? I, for one, never heard the "too broadly descriptive" term "Multi-Touch" until Apple patented it and I understood that it referred to a vocabulary of gestures used on a trackpad.



    A recurrent them lately has been that Apple never invented anything.



    because it describes the method for interacting.



    These aren't patents btw.
  • Reply 43 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Antinous View Post


    What functional value do awarded patents have if judges hoot them off the stage when their owners try to ensure that they are enforced? If a patent claim is "overly broad", "obvious" or has already been awarded, why does the patent office issue a new patent? I, for one, never heard the "too broadly descriptive" term "Multi-Touch" until Apple patented it and I understood that it referred to a vocabulary of gestures used on a trackpad.



    A recurrent them lately has been that Apple never invented anything.



    This decision only means that other companies are permitted to use the word "multi-touch" to describe their own user interfaces which are also able to respond to multiple simultaneous points of moving contact on a touch-sensitive display.



    This decision doesn't impede Apple in the slightest from taking action against others who attempt, without permission, to implement the specific strategies of causing user interfaces to react to those multiple points of moving contact in ways that infringe on the user interface reactions that are defined in the set of patents that Apple holds.
  • Reply 44 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DeanSolecki View Post


    You still don't have it quite right. Windows is a synecdoche, as it were, of the OS. Just as Pages is a synecdoche of the word processor.



    If Windows had patented "Operating System" it would be equivalent (for say, Windows 3.1.)



    If Apple had patented "Word Processor" it would be equivalent (for Pages.)



    See the difference? One refers to an element of the thing, the other just refers to the thing itself.



    If I sold a pair of shoes called Laces it would be equivalent to Pages or Windows. If I sold a pair of shoes called Shoes it would not be equivalent.



    Anyone still not getting this? (I feel that maybe I've been too thorough.)



    Well apple is trying to trademark their particular brand of touchscreen experience where using multiple fingers at the same time is one feature, as multi-touch. multi-touch is not the only thing in there, it involves a lot of other aspects too. In fact the generic category for this would be "touchscreen smartphone" or something like that. So, this would be similar to "windows" and "operating system"?
  • Reply 45 of 51
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by inkswamp View Post


    Wasn't the term "window" already in common use to describe part of a GUI back when MS trademarked it? Not sure I understand your point. MS did sell windows... GUI windows.



    Yes, the term 'windows' was in common use to describe that box on a computer screen long before Microsoft introduced Windows(tm). The term was already clearly generic.



    Someone in the Linux arena challenged the trademark when they came out with Lindows (or MS sued them - I can't remember who sued first). Apparently, the case was dropped and Lindows walked away with a bucket full of Microsoft cash. Rumors at the time were that MS was in danger of losing the "Windows" trademark and had to settle to make the thing go away.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    I suspect what was also taken into account is that there are several different technologies to achieve a 'multi-touch' interface. Allowing only one company to use that descriptive term would be like letting only one company use the term "personal computer"



    "multitouch" is not as generically descriptive as "personal computer". "Personal computer" is an obvious thing to call a computer designed for personal use. OTOH, the process of using more than one finger to activate a function on a portable device could reasonably be called a lot of things.
  • Reply 46 of 51
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member
    deleted
  • Reply 47 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    OTOH, the process of using more than one finger to activate a function on a portable device could reasonably be called a lot of things.



    And if any of those things are merely descriptive, they are not eligible for trademark protection.
  • Reply 48 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dav View Post


    Samsung devices: now with Multi-Touch!



    Except now it would be "Samsung devices: now with multi-touch!" It's lost it trade mark worthiness so there is no longer need to capitalized. It's just an ordinary word now.
  • Reply 49 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kerryn View Post


    Except now it would be "Samsung devices: now with multi-touch!" It's lost it trade mark worthiness so there is no longer need to capitalized. It's just an ordinary word now.



    It never had any worthiness as a trade mark. No more than "3 legged stool".
  • Reply 50 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iamnemani View Post


    Well apple is trying to trademark their particular brand of touchscreen experience where using multiple fingers at the same time is one feature, as multi-touch. multi-touch is not the only thing in there, it involves a lot of other aspects too. In fact the generic category for this would be "touchscreen smartphone" or something like that. So, this would be similar to "windows" and "operating system"?



    Windows is the name of a product that employs windows in a GUI, so "Windows" is a synecdoche of the GUI, which is the product.



    This is the distinction that I would draw your attention to, however.



    The trademark in question is not itself a product, but an aspect of a product. It isn't G.I. Joe, it's his Kung-Fu Grip. In this case Kung-Fu Grip is NOT a synecdoche, it is a name arbitrarily assigned to a certain characteristic of G.I. Joe. If instead of being called G.I. Joe he was called Kung-Fu Grip then we could say that the name of the product was a synecdoche of the product, and in this way it would be equivalent to Windows/The GUI.



    If the iPhone itself was called instead Multi-Touch then it would be a synecdoche and we could compare it to the case of Windows/The GUI.



    Since the product itself isn't called Multi-Touch we can only say that the case of Windows/The GUI is not equivalent in that way, since the trademark is referring to an aspect of the product and not the product itself.



    That is only to say that Multi-Touch is not a synecdoche (and thus, at least in that single sense, not equivalent to Windows.) A Trademark is not required to be a synecdoche, but it may be useful in establishing distinction (as opposed to description) such as the case of Windows/The GUI.
  • Reply 51 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    It's safe to say the patents office isn't the reason America's economy is heading down the toilet. Bad foreign and homeland policy and the housing bubble are far more important.



    Didn't say it was THE reason but it's not helping in any way.



    BTW, go Ireland for the World Cup win... even though I'm a Kiwi I just think the All Blacks are highly overrated.
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