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Old 09-01-2012, 05:50 AM   #1
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Will consumers still feel the 'pinch' after Apple ruling?

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/d...829-24zyw.html

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If the swipe is the essential gesture of the smartphone revolution, the pinch is a close second. Many of the coolest things that can be done on today's mobile devices — from finding an out-of-the-way bar to determining whether a thunderstorm is going to ruin your party — are made easier by placing fingers on the screen and sliding them.

The $1 billion court ruling for Apple, which upheld patents for what manufacturers call "pinch to zoom", among other popular features, has clouded the future of the gesture for anyone inclined to buy mobile devices from other companies. Apple made clear its determination to press its advantage this week, announcing plans to seek preliminary injunctions on eight phones made by Samsung, the loser in the case.

The ruling has sparked searches for possible alternatives to the pinch — some have suggested finger taps, circles, wiggles — while also highlighting questions about whether a company should be able to patent how humans interact with their machines once those interactions become standardised.

"I don't know what you do about 'pinch and zoom'," said Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor critical of the ruling. "That's the cost of this decision. All the phones have to use less-efficient tools."
Will these alternatives to the pinch (finger taps, circles, wiggles) be good enough?

And who hold the patent on "circle to zoom", "tap to zoom" etc...




Maybe somebody should patent "blow to zoom." You blow air toward the screen and it zooms. I just came up with this innovation.

Or how about "tilt the head to the right to zoom." Here's how it would work. The screen has sensors that could tell when a person head tilt to the right. This is the signal for it too zoom.

"Voice command to zoom" is another innovation that I'm sure has been patented. You say "zoom in" and the screen would zoom in. Pretty neat!



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If Apple had lost last week, there may never have been an incentive for manufacturers to consider alternatives to the pinch. The same goes for other popular innovations for which Apple claimed valid patents, including the way a screen bounces back when it scrolls too far, or the rounded rectangle shape of the iPhone.
is the writer being sarcastic? the rounded rectangle shape is a popular "innovation?" really?

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Old 09-01-2012, 09:31 AM   #2
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Nope, that is one of the design elements that were upheld by the court decision.
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Old 09-01-2012, 09:41 AM   #3
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Nope, that is one of the design elements that were upheld by the court decision.
Interesting. I seem to recall seeing demos of surface devices that used two fingers for zoom and rotate. Sure, it wasn't a pinch. But that was mostly due to the size of the device. The implementation in software should be similar.
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Old 09-01-2012, 09:58 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by BWinmill View Post
Interesting. I seem to recall seeing demos of surface devices that used two fingers for zoom and rotate. Sure, it wasn't a pinch. But that was mostly due to the size of the device. The implementation in software should be similar.
The Microsoft tabletops?
They can use pinch to zoom at will: cross-license.

Lost in all the angst is that utillity patents are expected to be licensed. Companies can be sued for *not* licensing them. What most companies due is they cross-license each other's portfolios. So patenting something doesn't mean nobody else can use it; all it means is they can't use it for free. But the payment doesn't have to be cash. In fact, except for patent trolls or when dealing with newcomers to the industry (like B&N) without patents, most major companies prefer to cross-license. (Ideas are more valuable than coin.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-licensing

Anyway, pinch-to-zoom is easily replaceable. Google has a patent application from 2009 for a spiral-to-zoom gesture. It is even single-touch so it would work beautifully with the cheapest android gadgets with pressure touchscreens.

http://www.google.com/patents/US20110029917

I had a notebook PC that came with a utility that let you use gestures on a touch pad that used spiral zoom quite effectively.
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Old 09-01-2012, 09:59 AM   #5
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I was talking about a rectangle with rounded corners.
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Old 09-01-2012, 10:04 AM   #6
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When was apple granted the pinch to zoom and other gestures? They're not only incredibly obvious, anyone who has turned a page on a book would come up with using a swipe gesture to turn a page on the screen, only difference is few fingers or hand vs single finger.

Anyone who watches sci-fi films will have likely seen a pinch to zoom too, minority report in 2002 had a full hand pinch to zoom and swipe gestures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwVBzx0LMNQ

I really wish when it came to software, you had to just rely on copyright. Nobody should be allowed to steal your code, but if they can reproduce a feature without seeing your code or how you did it, that should be fine.

Last edited by JoeD; 09-01-2012 at 10:06 AM.
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Old 09-01-2012, 11:50 AM   #7
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blow to zoom would most easily be accomplished with the microphone. the sound of the air blowing at the microphone. tilt to zoom using the motion sensors on board is already used in some cases. tilting your head to zoom could easily be implemented with the front facing camera
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Old 09-01-2012, 12:10 PM   #8
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Apple does not own "Pinch to zoom":

Quote:
So why this persistent myth about Apple' and pinch-to-zoom? A large part of it is because patents are hard for non-lawyers to read and understand, and it's far easier to use a shorthand that obscures important details. Apple's case against Samsung was designed for the jury to recognize interface elements, and that made it particularly easy to slip up: you can fairly call 7,469,381 "the bounceback scrolling," and 7,864,163 "tap-to-zoom," so the lazy slide into calling '915 "pinch-to-zoom" was almost inevitable. It's the media totally blowing the Obama BlackBerry story all over again.
Source
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Old 09-01-2012, 01:11 PM   #9
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When was apple granted the pinch to zoom and other gestures? They're not only incredibly obvious, anyone who has turned a page on a book would come up with using a swipe gesture to turn a page on the screen, only difference is few fingers or hand vs single finger.
Well, there is a bit of an issue in figuring out what is obvious. You're probably right about the swipe thing, at least if you start at the edge of the page. But does pinch to zoom really count as obvious?

In terms of real life analogues, I would argue no. Pinching tends to squish things in non-linear ways. The opposite action will stretch things in non-linear ways at best, and do nothing or tear things at worse. The same goes for rotation.

When you look at it in terms of computation though, it is much more obvious. The start and end points of the pinch define a transformation, which may be linear. The same goes for rotation. Of course, you could use other transformations to define the same functions since you are just trying to get a set of numbers from the user. An example are sliders being used for rotation in traditional user interfaces: the slider is left-right, yet the action is a rotation.

So how do you define obviousness in these situations?

At the end of the day I would say that this stuff is more trivial than obvious. Since it does fall on the trivial end, it is probably better to deny patents to encourage uniformity (and avoid user confusion) and competition based on less trivial differentiating factors.
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Old 09-01-2012, 01:58 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by BWinmill View Post
Well, there is a bit of an issue in figuring out what is obvious. You're probably right about the swipe thing, at least if you start at the edge of the page. But does pinch to zoom really count as obvious?

In terms of real life analogues, I would argue no. Pinching tends to squish things in non-linear ways. The opposite action will stretch things in non-linear ways at best, and do nothing or tear things at worse. The same goes for rotation.

When you look at it in terms of computation though, it is much more obvious. The start and end points of the pinch define a transformation, which may be linear. The same goes for rotation. Of course, you could use other transformations to define the same functions since you are just trying to get a set of numbers from the user. An example are sliders being used for rotation in traditional user interfaces: the slider is left-right, yet the action is a rotation.

So how do you define obviousness in these situations?

At the end of the day I would say that this stuff is more trivial than obvious. Since it does fall on the trivial end, it is probably better to deny patents to encourage uniformity (and avoid user confusion) and competition based on less trivial differentiating factors.
As a programmer, I can say that rectangles are usually defined by the positions of the opposite corners in software. Using two fingers to simultaneously define a rectangle fits in naturally with that scheme, and is an obvious way to do it if the hardware supports it. In fact, I'd say that doing it any other way is non-intuitive (e.g. tap at one point to designate one corner, then drag another point to designate the other corner). The fact that someone can demand payment from anyone else implementing this is ridiculous to me. So, I'm in whole agreement with your last paragraph.

Now, the hardware which can accept simultaneous touch points can be patented (and probably is). If it was up to me, I'd leave it at that.
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Old 09-01-2012, 02:15 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by rkomar View Post
As a programmer, I can say that rectangles are usually defined by the positions of the opposite corners in software. Using two fingers to simultaneously define a rectangle fits in naturally with that scheme, and is an obvious way to do it if the hardware supports it. In fact, I'd say that doing it any other way is non-intuitive (e.g. tap at one point to designate one corner, then drag another point to designate the other corner). The fact that someone can demand payment from anyone else implementing this is ridiculous to me. So, I'm in whole agreement with your last paragraph.
But then the idea of clicking a button to immediately buy something seems pretty obvious, and Amazon got a patent on that.
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Old 09-01-2012, 02:53 PM   #12
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Apple is the only one allowed to make smartphones. That's about the jest of this whole thing. Too bad Henry Ford didn't patent the steering wheel. I wonder what the rest of the world would have done to steer a car.

Apple is just stifling the electronics industry and is the reason I will never waste my money on a Mac.
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Old 09-01-2012, 03:15 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by afv011 View Post
Apple does not own "Pinch to zoom":



Source
Yes. I was going to post this myself, but it bears repeating. Apple does not have a patent on pinch-to-zoom, and this was not at issue at all in the recent case. The fact that people think it does is a reflection of the generally bad coverage of the case.


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Originally Posted by kevinp View Post
Apple is the only one allowed to make smartphones. That's about the jest of this whole thing. Too bad Henry Ford didn't patent the steering wheel. I wonder what the rest of the world would have done to steer a car.

Apple is just stifling the electronics industry and is the reason I will never waste my money on a Mac.
Allowing people to blatantly copy Apple and steal their patents isn't good for the technology industry.

I don't know why you bring up the car industry; much of what goes into a car is patented, and there are significant legal actions to enforce them. I'm sure that some versions of the steering wheel *were* patented at some point. Do you think inventors should work for free?
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Old 09-01-2012, 03:48 PM   #14
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No, I don't think inventors should work for free, but there should be a limit on what they can patent. There has to competition in the marketplace and it appears Apple doesn't want any. And the funny part is that Apple started off by copying other company's ideas.
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Old 09-01-2012, 04:15 PM   #15
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Allowing people to blatantly copy Apple and steal their patents isn't good for the technology industry.
Here's the thing: a lot of the anti-Apple sentiment isn't anti-Apple sentiment (or even anti-patent sentiment). But there are real issues over what constitutes copying. Many of the features that Apple wants to protect are trivial, obvious, or have prior art.

Those who claim that Apple products are being copied also focus upon the similarities rather than the differences. If you take that approach, it's going to look like everyone copied Apple because you are failing to accept contradicting evidence.

Take a step back and consider a few things: what constitutes copying? What is considered innovation, and what is considered as incremental progress? What should be proprietary, and what should be a part of the public domain?

Rich questions will lead you to richer answers.
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