Pinch-to-Zoom and Rounded Rectangles: What the Jury Didn't Say 147
CharlyFoxtrot writes "Steve Wildstrom at Tech.Pinions takes on some of the what he calls folklore surrounding Apple v Samsung, investigating what was and wasn't part of the case and how the media got it wrong: 'There's one serious problem with the first sentence, which was repeated dozens of times in stories in print and on the Web. Apple only has a limited patent on the pinch to shrink, stretch to zoom gesture that is a core element of touch interfaces. And the 826 patent wasn't in dispute in the Samsung case because Apple never asserted it. In fact, this particular patent does not seem to be in dispute in any litigation.'"
Re:As if... (Score:-1, Interesting)
the media says and the sheep follow... i totally agree. nobody ever thinks about the money. seriously. think about the money. does the 'media' make money if no one listens? does the media make money if the sheep never follow? i hate to say it, but it always boils down to money. more clicks on your webpage equal money. more people watching your tv channel equals money. create a headline that grabs attention and you are effectively grabbing wallets. once you throw the money perspective on everything, these things become clearer. believe me, i am not knocking money. i love money. i want more of it. money CAN buy me love. we just need to be smarter about things. all of us - myself included.
Re:As if... (Score:5, Interesting)
The claim very clearly does describe "pinch to zoom." To say that it doesn't is simply disingenuous. That's different than saying it's a valid claim.
Oh, BTW, the link's counter-example, scrolling with two fingers, doesn't work with Google Maps, it causes a change in pitch instead of scrolling (at least it does on my non-Samsung, Android phone, running ICS).
Google Warned Samsung They Were Infringing (Score:5, Interesting)
From the jury foreman:
"One of the most decisive pieces of evidence was reading the minutes for myself of a meeting that was held at a very high level between Google executives and Samsung executives.
It was for a tablet and Google was concerned that for the sake of their operating system that the look and feel and the methodology that they [Samsung] were using to create their tablet was getting too close to what Apple was doing.
And in the memo themselves - remember this was minutes - they stated that Google demanded that they back away from that design.
And later there was a follow-up memo among themselves, these executives, and in black and white it says: we elect to not pass this information down to the divisions that were actually involved in the design.
So, from the sake of the engineers they went merrily along continuing their design not given any orders to back away.
They knew nothing of that meeting. To me that kind of raised a light bulb in my head that when I got in the jury room I wanted to read the minutes of that meeting myself.
When we went into deliberation in the jury room we not only had all the physical evidence of everything that was presented, but we also had sealed source code in its entirety from both sides, we actually had the memos that were talked about in the trial... and there was a piece of evidence after a piece of evidence that just clearly stacked up. "
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19425052 [bbc.com]
Re:As if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but no. That's what happens when random slashdotter's try to describe a patent that they believe means "pinch to zoom" when in fact it does no such thing. This patent clearly describes a more complicated gesture.
The reason Apple is not defending pinch to zoom is they didn't invent it. It was clearly demonstrated in the original Ted talk that inspired Apple to peruse multi-touch technology. I've been involved in two situations where I found that one of my patent claims was not valid due to prior art. In the first case, the patent examiner had already approved my claims, and he argued with me that my claims were still valid. He restricted my claims in the most minimal possible way to avoid the prior art when I pushed the matter. That's fine... I think he was trying to be good to a rare inventor who was trying to be honest about prior art. In the second case, my customer (I was a contractor for Zvi Orbach) told me after we'd submitted a patent why it was invalid due to prior art at Chip Express. I called the patent office, and was advised that I should not attack claims I'd filed for a previous employer. I had already quit, in part due to this issue, though Zvi had given me many other reasons to stay away from him.
Re:As if... (Score:2, Interesting)
Er... my point to my rambling comment is that Apple clearly lacked an honest inventor in this case. Their lawyers will naturally try to keep their clearly invalid multi-touch patent on the books, never suing anyone with it, simply because they know it's invalid. It's only the inventor who breaks the law by not bringing prior-art to the patent office, and as I found out, there is zero penalty to inventors who break this law.