“The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 7 newly granted patents and 5 design related patents for Apple Inc. today,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“The two notables within this group include one relating to Apple’s iChat feature known as ‘Take Video Snapshot,’ and the other relating to a major granted patent for a multipoint screen,” Purcher reports. “That patent is specifically focused on a larger two handed Tablet or as the patent defines as a Tablet PC”
“It almost appears that Apple held back their tablet, known as the iPad, until certain key patents came to light,” Purcher reports. “Apple’s IPS patent came to light on January 7 and was highlighted in our special report titled Apple’s iPad: Welcome to the Revolution – and on January 26, Apple was granted a major multi-touch tablet patent covering such things as a larger virtual keyboard which debuted on the iPad in connection with their word processor called ‘Pages’ and Apple’s Mail.”
Purcher reports, “Todays granted patent represents Apple’s third patent in this quarter thus far – and further protects Apple’s multi-touch technologies against challengers and would-be competitors such as Google.”
There’s much more in the full article, including Apple’s patent application illustrations, here.
News Flash: Apple knows what they are doing.
“News Flash: Apple knows what they are doing” . . . and we all HATE it! May the bash-blogging continue from near and far!
Okay, now let’s defend these patents more vigorously than the iPhone Multi-Touch ones.
Has anyone at all been sued by apple for including multi-touch gestures in their phone? I thought they were going to vigorously defend their 200+ patents but haven’t heard anything yet. All these phones and tablets must have infringed on at least a couple of patents… What’s the deal? Is there some masterplan were are not privy to?
The M.O. for defending patents appears to be to wait until the product/company makes some money with the infringement, then swoop in and collect some cash.
My theory is that Apple is getting these patents so nobody can try and sue them in the future. How many times have people patented obvious things with only the intent of suing companies that use their patent in the future? Do they really care about patenting such items or are they really trying to prevent millions in legal bills?
@ crayon1
If I were sinister, I’d go ahead and let the phone companies infringe, then hit them as soon as they put out a tablet. Much bigger money at stake then, and better chances of really hurting them.
Apple probably hasn’t sued because Apple is using it’s granted patents being violated by other manufacturers to offset the patents Apple is claimed to be violating and one hand washes the other and no fuss no muss!
In most cases it is not worth suing. By the time the case gets decided newer technology has superseded the litigated one and the point is lost.
Rot’n is probably right that these can be used as bargaining tools.
Apple’s method of beating the competition is to continue to innovate so that the others are always playing catch up. It also gives them an advantage in that because their volume is higher for most of these products and have been shipping for longer, their component and manufacturing costs are lower.
In this business it literally pays to be smart and ahead of the curve.
@Rot’nApple: You’re wrong. That’s a ridiculous argument. There is no offsetting violations in patent law. You either violate or you don’t.
Apple can’t patent a touchscreen device. It’s the multi-touch gestures and UI that Apple is patenting. So other companies can have touchscreen devices, but they can’t use the same input methods Apple has patented.
What will be interesting is how Apple protects Multi-Touch. I’ve seen ads for other products which use the pinch to zoom gesture; I assume that’s covered by Apple’s patents (but maybe not).
Also, the patent protection process is not just, “Hey, there’s a violation, slap a lawsuit on them!” You have to go through a notification process first. Apple may very well be doing that and preventing such violations in the first place.
Companies like Nokia, Google, etc. aren’t going to publish letters from Apple demanding they stop infringing on Apple’s patents. This is all handled behind closed doors. It’s very different from some blogger on an Apple rumors site who gets a cease and desist letter from Apple legal and feels they have to shout it to the world that they’re big enough to get noticed. Companies with shareholders don’t want publicity for alleged patent violations; those get very expensive and affect profits.
It’s all a chess game. Company X sues Apple for patent infringement and Apple sues them back. In the end, they agree on terms to license each other’s tech.
I do wonder sometimes how, if the iPhone had 200 patents on it, some of the phones out there are allowed to exist without legal challenge.
Has there ever been an article put together that explains just what those patents are and whether any of these knock-off touchscreen phones are violating any of them?
What most troubles me is the “pinch to zoom” stuff that is now available on some phones and I believe is also built into the Windows 7 series browser. Anyone?
Did MS patent ‘CommonTouch?”
Who cares not like they are going to use it.
http://www.bing.com When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide
@ I’m a PC
You are a typical windows troll. With your grasp of grammar, I would guess you dropped out of high school when you turned 22.
Bloomfield:
; )
Apple may have some patents, but they are very narrow and one looking at the prior art list for any of Apple patent will realize that Apple could even use it for themselves without violating others patents filed way before Apple learned how to spell t-o-u-c-h. Another words, Apple patents are on top of the pyramid of other patents. Having patent on top of others patents does not grant any rights on patents below it (also knows as “prior art”).
It’s also possible (though highly unlikely) that Apple hasn’t sued these manufacturers that are seemingly infringing on their patents because they *perhaps* licensing the technology from Apple.
I know it sounds crazy, but not any crazier than the other conspiracy theories floating around here these days.
I clicked the first link. Looks like they test their patents with humanoids with alien hybrid fingers!