Multitouch Gesture Patents Could Prevent Standardization

ozmanjusri brings us a Wired report on Apple's efforts to patent the multitouch gestures used on their laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The article discusses concerns over how this could affect the standardization of certain gestures in developing multitouch technology. We've previously discussed the patent applications themselves. Quoting Wired: "If Apple's patent applications are successful, other manufacturers may have no choice but to implement multitouch gestures of their own. The upshot: You might pinch to zoom on your phone, swirl your finger around to zoom on your notebook, and triple-tap to zoom on the web-browsing remote control in your home theater. That's an outcome many in the industry would like to avoid. Synaptics, a company that by most estimates supplies 65 to 70 percent of the notebook industry with its touchpad technology, is working on its own set of universal touch gestures that it hopes will become a standard. These gestures include scrolling by making a circular motion, moving pictures or documents with a flip of the finger, and zooming in or out by making, yes, a pinching gesture."

Universal?

[Ctrl+Alt+De1337]

If there's a company that stands to lose from having a non-standard input scheme, it's definitely not the one that has >90% of the desktop market. I mean, if you not only have to learn a new OS, new shortcuts, in some cases new applications, and now a new input scheme, it seems that Apple would be erecting a new barrier to Mac adoption, not encouraging Mac adoption. If Microsoft implements gestures of its own (like what it has said it'll do in Windows 7), I'd bet those are more likely to become the standard than Apple's gestures.

How about customizability?

[Angst Badger]

It probably wouldn't kill device manufacturers to make the gestures on their devices customizable. That way, if you are used to the Apple gestures, you can use them; otherwise, you can use the defaults or whatever else you prefer. That would make Apple's patents irrelevant, as well as leave Apple at a disadvantage with its One UI to Rule Them All philosophy.

Re:It will pass.

[Troed]

with the exception of phones and other "toy" devices ... that by far outnumber keyboard-mouse-and-monitor computers, and for large parts of the world will be the only "computers" they'll ever use. Besides gaming most tasks done on desktop computers could (and will) easily be done (albeit with better user interfaces - which is what the article discusses) on what is known as "Mobile Internet Devices" (webpads, mobiles, ... ).

The desktop computer as a separate box is a dead end, and the reason you're seeing many companies moving into "mobile" is because they know this.

How is this different from Apple's past behavior?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have we forgotten Apple's "look and feel" lawsuits over 20 years ago where they tried to claim that they owned windows and icons? OK, maybe not that far, but they tried to block Windows from the market over claims that it violated Apple's patents. Never mind that Apple copied the Xerox PARC GUI almost verbatim.

That nonsense seemed to fade away after Komrade Jobs released NeXTstep in 1988 which cleverly replaced the trash can with a black hole, therefore "was totally different".

Apple is at least as evil as Microsoft, and I will contend that Apple is more evil. Many (but not all!) of the bad things done by Microsoft can be attributed more to incompetence rather than malice.

Defensive use?

[bidule]

I am surprised nobody mentioned that those other companies (RIM, Nokia and Synaptics) also hold spurious patents that could block iPhones? It seems Apple is just joining the fray by carving its own territory. Hateful but oh so typical of the industry.

In a sense, the industry uses patent minefield in the same way that France used the Maginot line. When someone blitzkriegs around it with a paradigm shift, everyone is in a hurry to dig new trenches and claim new territories.

Already obsolescent?

[Kupfernigk]

In a world in which digital cameras have face and smile recognition (perhaps the most pointless development of neural network technology anywhere?) how long before the touchpad is replaced by a little short focus digital camera that detects the fingers? In which case, rather than multitouch, you could have three dimensional object recognition and a hugely expanded gesture set.

This is one case where an industry standard is the only thing that makes sense. Make the gesture set standard and allow people to patent specific implementations (physical not software) which offer new features.

Unfortunately, in my experience it's the marketing and sales departments who, because of their competitive mindset, don't understand the benefits of collaboration in growing the overall market. When they do turn up at standards meetings as observers, the results are sometimes laughable but usually cringeworthy for the engineers from their companies. Microsoft XML is a case in point. I confidently expect these people to continue to act as a brake on the wheels of input mechanism progress.

Re:Universal?

[milsoRgen]

vista sp1 breaks programs left and right even when they are actually compatible.

If you look at the list from the article yesterday, it was a very small number of programs. A dozen or so? And all the companies had been notified in advance. And as I said yesterday, it's been long over due that Microsoft stopped hard coding little fixes and work arounds for improperly coded 1st and 3rd party software.

Sad that you need to expend so much effort just to make products NOT work.

I'm not talking about DRM or file formats, but I will say Microsoft has taken efforts over the years to ensure their products as well as others do work, take a look at the Win2k source code overview [kuro5hin.org], granted that is Win2k but I don't think the development environment really would of changed all that drastically from then to now.

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Re:Pinch was in the original multitouch demo.

[tgatliff]

Patent law specifies that you have 1 year after the "release" of a product to patent its technologies. It is also quite easy to get around this, however, as I would assume MS showed with their FAT filesystem patent. I am still baffled how they actually got a patent on such old technology. I would agree that Apple patenting such trivial items goes contrary to the original intention of the patent system, but it is my belief that the problem is with the patent laws and not with how Apple is using them.

In short, we need a congress that will actually try to update the patent laws to make them relevant in todays world. Actually specifying digital copyright laws would be a nice bonus as well. Unfortunately, though, considering the death grip that the corporate world has on our US government right now, I strongly suspect nothing will change anytime soon. In fact, I think we will need a major economic disruption for any real change to occur, and I do not see this happening anytime soon...

Apple is shooting itself in the foot

[kawabago]

Apple users will be using one set of gestures and the other 95% of the population will be using another set. So kids will grow up knowing the gestures almost everyone uses and they will not choose Apple products because of the foreign user interface. This guarantees Apple's failure in the future.

Re:This is good...

[Wolfbone]

The Apple patents are good for business and the rest of the computing arena, as they will spur creativity and growth as a work around to the patent issues, assuming no one wants to license the patents.

Your claim that the Apple patents (and patents like them) are a good thing is, unsurprisingly, unsupported by the evidence.

http://researchoninnovation.org/ [researchoninnovation.org]

I am really struck by the number of /.ers who fall for naive patent system mythology, though I don't blame them for it. However, to any /.er reading this who is pro-free market but who has listened to some of the woo churned out by the pro-software patent cranks and been made to feel uneasy about taking an anti-software patent stance, I say this: do a little nerdish studying of the subject (patent system economics), "dismal science" though it may be, and you'll come to realise you could've trusted your instincts about software patents in the first place. You won't feel you have to be an apologist for crap patents like these Apple ones anymore, you'll have facts and economic science to back you up, and you'll feel a lot better - I know I did.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Middle Finger

[torkus]

To add to some comments from others, apple is not pattenting 'multi-touch' as an interface. They're trying to pattent the meanings of the physical patterns. (e.g. pinching to zoom out/in)

This isn't about apple's 'creativity' in designing a new interface. The interface has been around since the early 90's with various different mechanics. This seems more like them trying to take ownership of the limited number of blatantly obvious hand/finger gestures practical on a small to medium size screen. If granted, they essentially 'own' multi-touch even though they don't own and actual multi-touch interface. Yet another failure of our pattent system. Also a failure of many to realize that apple doesn't innovate much, they simple take existing technology and put it together in convinient ways (e.g. they bought the click wheel, they didn't develop it)

While they DO make innovative and 'sleek/sexy/cool' products it does not change the fact that they behave just like lots of other 'evil' companies.

Re:Middle Finger

[Saint Fnordius]

You know, sometimes I wonder if companies patent stuff like this mainly to head off patent trolls. Apple has been stung by quite a few of these, and so it's no surprise that they are now patenting stuff that really shouldn't be patentable. (Yes, I'm one of those idiots who feel software patents are harmful, as software is instructions, but not an invention in and of itself.)

It would be nice if Apple could come forward and state that anybody may use their patents for stuff like this free of charge, but their history with the iPod scroll wheel interface is not very encouraging.