Motorola recently sued Apple, and one of the patents covers siri's audible voice prompt, so Apple will have to innovate around that. Also, media playback resume among several devices is Google's innovation. Apple will have to innovate around that. And that's just the beginning. None of them are FRAND, which means higher penalties and bans.
I agree, companies have a responsibility to defend their innovations.
Pinch to zoom was unheard of on any device (mobile or not) at the time of iPhone's launch. Not surprising considering no one had multi-touch screens either.
Although the Han ted talk is from 2006, before the iPhone but after the patent (2005).
The oldest multitouch device I know is the MERL Diamond Touch table (2001) which clearly predates everything Apple did. I am unsure whether or not somebody had implemented Pinch&Zoom on it before 2005.
In 2007 I worked on a Multitouch Table project as a student (http://digitable.imag.fr/). We built our own FTIR table and implemented a basic interface. We used Pinch&Zoom; I implemented it myself and I can assure you I had never seen an iPhone before. It is so obvious that when you include it in an interface you do not have to explain it to the users, they will try it naturally. If anybody using a multitouch interface tries that within 10 minutes, how can it be patented?
Patents cover inventions of methods and processes to accomplish something-- implementations, not the idea or the feature.
Thus pinch-to-zoom as Jeff Han demonstrated it, using cameras to take pictures of your hands is not the same thing as apple doing it using software to turn noisy amorphous blobs into finger points on a capacitive touch screen.
Other people can implement pinch-to-zoom because pinch-to-zoom cannot be patented.
Both Apple and Jeff Han could have patents on their very different implementations of this same feature.
Unfortunately people really seem to believe that patents cover features, and I think this is due to the deliberate spin put on the discussions by anti-patent people.
If you disagree, try reading the pinch-to-zoom patent itself.
Patents cover inventions of methods and processes to accomplish something-- implementations, not the idea or the feature.
Thus pinch-to-zoom as Jeff demonstrated it, using cameras to take pictures of your hands is not the same thing as apple doing it using software to turn noisy amorphous blobs into finger points on a capacitive touch screen.
Other people can implement pinch-to-zoom because pinch-to-zoom cannot be patented.
Both Apple and Jeff Han could have patents on their very different implementations of this same feature.
Unfortunately people really seem to believe that patents cover features, and I think this is due to the deliberate spin put on the discussions by anti-patent people.
If you disagree, try reading the pinch-to-zoom patent itself.
Minority Report had the concept, but with two hands. Something new would be the notifications stolen from android. But in any case, it's a patent and companies are required to protect their innovation!
Motorola recently sued Apple, and one of the patents covers siri's audible voice prompt, so Apple will have to innovate around that. Also, media playback resume among several devices is Google's innovation. Apple will have to innovate around that. And that's just the beginning. None of them are FRAND, which means higher penalties and bans.
I agree, companies have a responsibility to defend their innovations.