Apple Snatches Up Blockbuster Patent

[cereal killer]

There's no other way to put this one folks, but the poop is about to hit the proverbial fan. No one here is a stranger to the onslaught of Apple patents that hit the webz weekly. They are so frequent, we gave up trying to keep up with them, but Tuesdays patent bonanza held a very special one known as Multipoint Touchscreen or patent number 8,125,463. The patent reads in part:

A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed.

That encompasses just about every smartphone and tablet on the market. The image above (taken from the 34 page document) is obviously a tablet, or probably the Galaxy Note ( I kid...sort of), being manipulated in multi-touch fashion. Apple's patent attorney's spent a good amount of time and money researching this patent, seeing that it includes 365 US and 74 foreign patents dating back to 1956. Google and it's partners patent law teams, will be scouring over these patents, but patent number 8,125,463 could end up being a giant thorn in the side of any device not running iOS. This won't sit well with many, and we can already feel everyones blood boiling.

Steve Jobs was not kidding when he said he wanted to destroy Android. Stay tuned on this one folks, the repercussions could be staggering.

Thanks WestOkid for the tip!


Source: The Register

 

[esmier]

this is horrible! ow could they be allowed to even own something like this. This is a widely used technology and will hamper innovation if everyone has to go through apple

 

[cturcotte224]

You would think this would violate RAND requirements. Multi-touch capacitive screens have become pretty much essential on tablets and smartphones. It could be argued that the tablet format can't exist without muti-touch captive screens. Yes there are alternatives to these screens, but resistive single touch screens would fail badly in the market place now, I for one couldn't go back to one. So Apple can argue that Samsung is violating RAND requirements by not fairly licensing its 3g radio patents. 3g is still the industry standard, even though other technologies (4g, 2g, etc), exist, even though 2g is out dated and slow, like resistive screens compared to capacitive screens. I don't see why Google couldn't use their mass of highly paid coporate lawyers to fight Apple over violating RAND requirements on this.

 

[alboboy10]

Well if they over turned Motorola and their patent in Europe why would this hold

 

[bazar6]

This has to be viewed as anti-competitive. One company holding the patent that enables Mutli-Touch on a piece of glass? And you know Apple is going to set the price way to high to for companies to license it.

 

[guidot]

Not to mention, this affects RIM and Microsoft as well. Can't wait to see how it pans out. If the government upholds this one I'm moving to Antarctica.

 

[bazar6]

I'd go back to a feature phone...


Just kidding.. that would be worse than moving to Antarctica

 

[Larry_ThaGr81]

That darn company makes me sick

 

[dgstorm]

I doubt this ruling will last long. Just about every tech company on the planet has a stake in touchscreen tech. They are going to swarm all over this like flies on poo.

 

[Larry_ThaGr81]

I'd go back to a feature phone...


Just kidding.. that would be worse than moving to Antarctica

I can't stand Apple's limited UI, so I would go back to a basic phone and drop my data plan, which isn't good for carriers so they too have a lot at stake.

 

[Larry_ThaGr81]

IMO, it won't stand up because it's illegal to monopolize the market. This patent would essentially be allowing for that if Apple wins.

 

[johnomaz]

There is so much prior use, they can't do it. it'll never stand but go figure, Apple did try it.

 

[cybrwulf]

Dear lord Apple continues to become the biggest tech assholes in the industry.

 

[kodiak799]

Not the death of Android, perhaps the death of multi-touch if RAND doesn't apply.

Personally, I think the only multi-touch action I ever use is pinch-to-zoom (and a double-tap can work just as well). I'll survive.

But doesn't Google have the inside track on voice actions? I see a quid-pro-quo on the horizon.

 

[xeene]

i'm not worried.