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Analyst: Defending Multi-touch Could Hurt Apple

Apple COO Tim Cook made it clear that the company plans to vigorously defend its patents, but its multi-touch patent may not be so easy to protect. According to Global Crown Capital analyst Pablo Perez-Fernandez, Apple's multi-touch patent may qualify as prior art and the U.S. Patent Office shouldn't have issued the patent at all.

According to CNBC, Mr. Perez-Fernandez claimed that the technology behind Apple's multi-touch wizardry -- found in the iPhone, iPod touch, and laptop trackpads -- comes from University and Bell Labs work. Bell Labs, for example, developed a way to overlay transparent capacitive sensors on CRT displays, creating a touch-sensitive display long before Apple filed for its patents.

While Apple's public posturing to protect its patents looks to be aimed at Palm and its recently announced Pre smartphone, he thinks the Cupertino company may be looking at Microsoft, too. "They are also trying to pre-empt Microsoft's use of multi-touch in Windows 7 and they are trying to trademark multi-touch, which is ridiculous since the term has been used openly for a long time," Mr. Perez-Fernandez said.

Should Apple end up in court defending its multi-touch related patents, Mr. Perez-Fernandez thinks the Mac and iPhone maker could end up in hot water and potentially lose some of the patents it has already been awarded. Apple, however, would probably disagree since it has a long list of attorneys researching its patents and legal strategies, and Mr. Perez-Fernandez is a financial analyst.

 

14 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

Tiger said:

Instead of taking a defensive posture, why aren’t they out there licensing it? Keep the lawyers out of the courtroom and everybody wins!

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Lee Dronick said:

“Instead of taking a defensive posture, why aren?t they out there licensing it? Keep the lawyers out of the courtroom and everybody wins!”

I am thinking that Apple probably would make more money selling the complete product than they would from licensing.

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Paul said:

Wait, so Apple’s multi-touch patent could count as prior art to its multi-touch patent?  Have they invented a time machine, too?

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daemon said:

Wait, so Apple?s multi-touch patent could count as prior art to its multi-touch patent?  Have they invented a time machine, too?

Prior Art means that it already existed before Apple came up with it.

Prior art (also known as state of the art, which also has other meanings), in most systems of patent law,[1] constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent’s claims of originality. If an invention has been described in prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.

There’s also the other part where it has to be “non-obvious.” Multi-touch gestures as described by Apple are clearly obvious and intuitive (that’s what makes the interface so great), further Apple has attempted to patent every instance where you would use multiple contacts to interact with a 2D interface instead of a single method for determine how to respond to the human input, which I *think* (not sure) is also ground for not being patentable.

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Ian said:

Maybe it’s a good thing that Apple owns this patent rather than some other company. Maybe they know that it is undefendable and are protecting this for everyone. It will go to court, Apple will make a small attempt at defence and when they lose it will become available for everyone to use. Better than a large powerful monopoly holding the patent and refusing to let go of it through appeal after appeal. Just a thought!

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deasys said:

Multi-touch gestures as described by Apple are clearly obvious and intuitive

Yeah, so obvious that anybody could have done it, right?

All things are “obvious” after their invention, daemon.

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daemon said:

Better than a large powerful monopoly holding the patent and refusing to let go of it through appeal after appeal. Just a thought!

Yes, because Apple hasn’t been trying to establish and maintain a monopolistic empire since Steve Wozniac was ousted from Apple by Steve Jobs (look into the Apple Vs Microsoft cases).

The main thing is the USPTO needs to actually start enforcing the laws and regulations that handle whether a proposed patent qualfies (reference the flagrant patent abuse cases U.S. Patent 5,443,036, U.S. Patent 6,004,596, and U.S. Patent 6,368,227).

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daemon said:

Yeah, so obvious that anybody could have done it, right?

All things are ?obvious? after their invention, daemon.

Other people did do it, it just wasn’t offered to general consumers for purchase.

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Dude said:

I don’t think the patents have to be strong to be effective, and Apple knows this. All the patents have to do is stall the competition long enough that Apple can gain a secure majority of the smartphone market. Once that happens, the others can copy multitouch all they want and will not be able to catch up to Apple.

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daemon said:

I don?t think the patents have to be strong to be effective, and Apple knows this. All the patents have to do is stall the competition long enough that Apple can gain a secure majority of the smartphone market. Once that happens, the others can copy multitouch all they want and will not be able to catch up to Apple.

And that’s the problem, Apple is misusing the patent system (like so many others) to establish a monopoly on a technology that is not theirs, which stifles invention and innovation (the two things that are supposed to be protected by patents, but aren’t when the system is so flagrantly abused).

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Dude said:

@ daemon

On a purely intellectual level you are right, however we live in a non-pure world and Apple was burned in the early 90’s by Microsoft when they tried to remain intellectually pure and foster innovation. But they have learned their lesson and will use the system just like all the other successful companies do (Microsoft especially) to gain themselves a majority position before the next cut-throat scoundrel does. This is not an agreeable situation, but it is business in this economic and IP climate. If we don’t want companies to act like this we need to get the politicians changed and the laws changed. Unfortunately I am a skeptic and think that they are all in bed with each other and nobody is looking out for joe public.

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daemon said:

I think we’d be fine if the USPTO would actually enforce it’s rules on prior art and enforce the rule that the patent be “non-obvious.”

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deasys said:

daemon wrote:
Apple is misusing the patent system (like so many others) to establish a monopoly on a technology that is not theirs

But it is Apple’s. Apple innovated and invented what it received the patent for. In fact, Apple not only invented what it patented, it built it.

No one else did. Just Apple.

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deasys said:

daemon wrote: I think we?d be fine if the USPTO would actually enforce it?s rules on prior art and enforce the rule that the patent be ?non-obvious.”

I think Apple’s patent was both innovative (i.e. not an expression of prior art) and non-obvious because otherwise, someone else would have already done it. Apple was the first to patent it and the first to create a realization of it.

So, I presume when you accuse the USPTO of ignoring prior art and obviousness, you’re not referring to Apple’s patent, right?

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