Apple awarded key iPhone multitouch patent

Apple has a new weapon when it comes to the iPhone.

(Credit: U.S. PTO, via MacRumors)

Apple has been awarded a patent that appears to cover much of the iPhone's multitouch user interface.

World of Apple (via MacRumors) spotted the patent, which was awarded last Tuesday to several Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, iPhone software chief Scott Forstall, and Wayne Westerman, one of the founders of a company called Fingerworks that Apple acquired in 2005.

The patent is extremely long, and covers many of the methods used by the iPhone to display data, such as pinch-to-zoom Web browsing and swipe-to-scroll.

This patent likely influenced COO Tim Cook's comments the day after it was awarded that iPhone competitors should understand that Apple "will not stand for having our (intellectual property) ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal." Those comments, made during Apple's fiscal first-quarter earnings call, were believed to be intended for Palm even though Cook did not single out any particular company in making his comments.

The full patent is available here.

[Jouten_Za]

So much for any touch screen phones that are out there now! Especially the Pre =(

[random truth]

Applesuxleo isnt going to be happy...

[rapier1]

Do you really think Apple isn't going to face legal challenges on this patent?

[Random_Walk]

It is a hardware patent. Unlike a software patent, Apple will not have to rely on a Texas judge to enforce it.

[Mark_Anderson]

Err...

You probably want to read up on what the patent actually allows and deosn't allow because it really only solidifies what Apple already do.

[rapier1]

Actually the patent isn't on the hardware. Its on two aspects of the interface that aren't even 'multi-touch' in the commonly accepted sense of the word. Basically the patent covers the idea that if you swipe vertically it will ignore any horizontal motion and vice versa (1 dimensional movement). Also, if you start with a diagonal sweep it will allow free motion in two dimensions. That is about all this covers. It purely software.

[vmlenigma]

Hip Hip Hooray. Hip Hip Hooray
I kinda don't see the Palm phone taking off, as they expected....they messed up when they decided to put Windblows Mobile on their devices

[t8]

Yeah what a mistake that was. All companies that succumbed to the beast because they didn't want to be the next Netscape didn't do very well because their motivation was fear. Yahoo did the same, they were too scared to compete with Microsoft. Apple and Google weren't scared to compete, and look at the rewards they are reaping.

[deslock]

Why the hell would anyone say hip hip hooray about this? Are you such a fanboy of Apple that you feel offended if someone else has a device that is similar (Palm?)? Seriously there is no other explanation for your ridiculous comment.

[Hep Cat]

This is bad news for Palm. Real bad. If they're relying on multi-touch style gestures in the Pre, it's a real good bet that Apple would win an injunction to keep Palm from shipping the device. Palm could rewrite the software to remove multitouch, but that could lead to a long delay that very well could kill the company.

Notice how Apple doesn't do much licensing these days? They licensed some basic elements of the Mac UI to Microsoft in 1983 - supposedly for Windows 1 and 2 only. Then Microsoft ran with the concepts and built on them - releasing Windows 3, enabling PCs to be 70% as expensive (and 60% as good) as Macs and forever relegating the Mac to a smaller marketshare. Once bitten, twice shy: Apple won't license a thing to Palm.

Of course, then everyone in the press (when they're not sniffing Steve Jobs' bandages) will hate Apple for doing exactly what other companies are defended for - protecting their intellectual property.

[JoeF2]

In your history you left out that Apple swiped the UI themselves, from Xerox PARC.
If Xerox management had been smart, they could have owned the computer industry. But they couldn't see past their copiers.

[nicmart]

Without licensing and cross-licensing, personal computers would not exist. Apple's behavior is shameful.

[CyStarkman]

@ JoeF2

The Xerox situation actually was arranged with a stock trade, not theft. I only recently found this out after living in the urban myth you mention for sometime.

And what happened with Apple/MS wasn't that they licensed as such but that MS threatened to take excel and word away from Apple's products. Apple conceded and made a loose agreement that kept Excel on their platform but in the end nearly lost them the whole market when MS took the Apple OS and copied it and Apple could not protect the IP

[Hernys]

Not true. The stock trade was arranged way after the UI was copied. THat's like saying that if you steal a car but later you get caught and have to pay a compensation, it's not theft.

[CDubber]

"In your history you left out that Apple swiped the UI themselves, from Xerox PARC." - JoeF2

Wow, I can't believe people are still regurgitating this tired old chestnut. Totally fallacious.

You Winbots need to find some new talking points.

[JoeF2]

@CDubber: Typical knee-jerk reaction of a clueless troll.
For your information: I have been using Linux since 1994, starting with version 0.12.
And it IS true that Apple swiped the UI from Xerox. Adele Goldberg, one of the key people at PARC at that time, refused to give the presentation to Jobs, saying "it is like giving away the crown jewels."
Now go back to your high-school and learn things.

@CyStarkman: I am sure there was some agreement after the fact.
But the Excel and Word threat is certainly not true. MS copied the Mac UI during the Windows 1 and 2 (aka Windows/286 and Windows/386) days. If I remember right, Word at that time was a DOS program, and Excel didn't even exist. Winword was a POS when it first came out. Similar with the first Excel versions.
And yes, I have been around during that time. We had one classic Mac, and a bunch of Unix machines (HP, IBM, Apollo), and a few PCs.

[Hep Cat]

JoeF2: Stop before you make a bigger fool of yourself. The "Office" suite we know today started on the Mac - Word, Excel and Multiplan came first, then Word, as a more robust word processot to compete with MacWrite.

I was there. I don't have to look it up, because I remember; the Xerox chestnut is also false. Go read the story on Folklore.org - I'll wait - and come back here and try to tell me Apple "swiped" anything. Xerox certainly wasn't using the STAR/ALTO GUI for any marketable products at the time.

[solitare_pax]

When you consider that some of the first Xerox copiers sold had a device on them called a 'scorch reducer' (otherwise known as a fire extinguisher) then you know their management team was not very bright.

[shadowself]

OK. Here's an abbreviated version of reality.

A few engineers working of the STAR and STAR related projects left Xerox and started working at Apple. They started experimenting with something similar (GUI, etc.). Jobs saw it and was told by the engineers that he should visit PARC and see what's there. (i.e., work on a STAR like GUI was in development at Apple before Jobs new about it and before he even wen to PARC.) Jobs went to PARC, liked what he saw and pushed the development of the LISA and then the Macintosh. Apple negotiated a license from Xerox.

In the evangelizing of the Mac to various ISVs Apple was very keen to have as much software available for it as possible in the first couple of years. Yes, MS Excel was developed for the Mac first. Also the first truly windowed version of MS Word was Mac only. Being relatively impressed with the Mac and it's interface Microsoft did three things: 1) decided they wanted their software on that platform, 2) decided they needed to do a similar interface for DOS, and 3) decided they could leverage Apple's clear desire to have the most software possible available on the Mac by threatening to kill 1) if Apple did not agree to help them with 2).

Microsoft did threaten to kill all development of a Mac version of MS Word or MS Excel if Apple did not give them a great deal of help on their GUI interface. The deal that was finally struck was that Microsoft would license significant fractions of the Macintosh operating system *SOURCE CODE* for "Windows 1.0 and subsequent versions". As a corollary to the deal Microsoft also licensed some to the IP from Xerox too.

For a while everyone seemed happy. Microsoft got a huge boost to its Windows development by being able to all but copy and paste pieces of the Mac operating system source code into Windows. Apple got a boost by having productivity software that was the first of its kind (MS Excel and the windowed/GUI version of MS Word).

Then some of the source code showed up on Windows 2.0. Apple complained saying that "Windows 1.0 and subsequent versions" meant Windows 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. but that it did *not* mean Windows 1.x, 2.x, etc. Microsoft said the meaning included ALL versions of Windows if Microsoft wanted to put it there. Apple sued. When the source code showed up in Windows 3.0 Apple added that to the lawsuit.

At the time Apple's lawyers might have been the most arrogant on the planet (much, much more so than they are now -- hard to believe, but true). They convinced Sculley and the board to expand the lawsuit to include not only the source code issue but also the entire "look and feel" of the Mac interface.

Apple lost the suit. Expanding it to include "look and feel" was absolutely stupid. Microsoft was able to get the court to focus on this ridiculous aspect of the suit, and Apple lost. Might Apple have won if they'd focused solely on the source code issue? Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know.

[JoeF2]

@Hep cat: You may have been there, but since then, you haven't learned to read...
I never talked about the Office suite. And I doubt that you have been there. I have been.
Word was a DOS program, competing with Wordstar and WordPerfect. I have used all three of them. I may still have some floppy disks somewhere (Wordstar on CP/M-86.) The Mac and Windows versions were rather different, a different code base, as far as I know. The early versions of Winword were unusable, since they were eating text...

[nicmart]

There is a revolution abrewing in intellectual property rights, and the book described in this article is leading the way.

The New Frontier in IP
http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker123.html

[NewsReader_]

It is interesting skimming the text of this patent, they repeatedly refer to a "hand-held device". Some of these comcepts have existed on tablets and the Microsoft Surface years prior to the iPhone. I wonder if it is just careful use of terminology that is either keeping Apple from infringing on any patents in those areas or preventing the prior art arguement with getting their own patent.

It does appear that Palm will be the first company to find out.

[Hernys]

I wonder what happened with the "non obvious" part of a patent review. And to "prior art".

[random truth]

Other forms of multi-touch were implemented using infared cameras that can not be put into mobile devices. I thought that the iphone was ingenious when it came out as I liked the concept after seeing the microsoft surface, but realized that implementation was rather useless early on... Also Apple owns fingerworks who's multi-touch products go back far before the microsoft surface and other tablets... to 1999 when they released their first product.

[gkent1]

Microsoft Surface. Put that in your pocket.

[random truth]

Gkent1,
Hey, it fits in a manilla envelope... A very large manilla envelope.

[rcpmac]

HA HA
MS Surface was introduced 4 months after iphone in 2007.
Surface is featured in a CSI show - iPhone has sold over 12,000,000 units to date

[jim_me]

i don't know how they can patent the pinch and scroll when a lot of these things were there when Jeff Han was working on it. If anything, he deserves the patent... not Apple

[JoeF2]

As the previous poster noted, maybe that's why they refer to a "hand-held device." Jeff Han has prior art, but probably not on hand-helds.

[jim_me]

Fine! Then there's a way around it... just call your device simply a device... not a hand held device. Call it a foot-held device if you want. Hopefully Apple would give palm some breathing room... they're only targeting them because they're a real contender.

[fearboy]

Didn't most of these multi-touch functions appear in Spielberg's Minority Report long before the iPhone?

[mrgoodall]

and data discs and zooming in photos happened in blade runner years ago, but I doubt Ridley Scott owns patents there either. Visualizing an idea and explaining the process behind the ideas implementation are two totally seperate things. But you were joking? right?

[scratchingthesurface]

"In your history you left out that Apple swiped the UI themselves, from Xerox PARC.
If Xerox management had been smart, they could have owned the computer industry. But they couldn't see past their copiers."

@Joel,
The differences between the primitive Xerox interface, and the Mac Classic OS were pretty significant and obvious. From videos I have seen, the Xerox UI was little more than a regular text/document screen, with a few block menus around the edge, and maybe a couple of contextual menus. And of course, there was a basic mouse input device. The whole desktop metaphor, overlaying and collapsible windows, dialog panels, system tool panels, etc. I think was entirely Apple's take on the basic idea. And the Mac team paid Xerox PARC for their IP as the Xerox PARC team were apparently happy it would be of use as there was apparently no interest in it from Xerox at large.

The windows in "Windows" of course are a distortion of the more natural and more consistent implementation that Apple "created" (as much as any one does in tech creates anything), and first used. And by all accounts, Gates leapt on and took as many ideas as he could get when he had access to the core Mac system due to a poorly worded contract that was only supposed to help Gates make Office for the Mac OS. Apple continues to create and MS continues to rip-off. It's fairly black and white.

So Apple critics love to say "Apple did it first" AND overlook all MS's many unethical and illegal actions that are simply part of the company philosophy and the way MS does business; actions that are documented, many of which are unresolved and are before courts today. I guess Apple is just remarkably lucky that for a company without a creative bone in its body everything it seems to come up with in any market it enters tends to be successful. Funny. In contrast, MS likes to announce how what they have in the pipeline is soooo much better and when it finally does come out, well, you know how it always ends in a bit of a disappointing mess...

[JoeF2]

The UI differences weren't that big. I saw the famous Xerox PARC video showing the Xerox Alto in 1984. Being a hacker, I took Object-Oriented programming away from it, which was in the form of Smalltalk. The Alto had overlapping Windows, etc. etc. Apple most likely paid for the IP, but rather after the fact. Adele Goldberg, in charge for this project at Xerox at that time, has said multiple times that she refused to show the "crown jewels" to Jobs.
Apple's strategy of who to sue was rather strange at that time, anyway. They sued Digital Research about the use of overlapping Windows in their GEM window manager. The Atari ST, which used GEM, was able to continue to use overlapping windows, since they bought the GEM license before Apple sued. And weirdly enough, they didn't sue Atari, which was pretty much the only use of GEM (it was available for DOS, but, like the early Windows, was hampered by the lack of memory in PCs.)

So, enough of the history lesson ;-)

[Hep Cat]

"They sued Digital Research about the use of overlapping Windows in their GEM window manager. "

That's because Bill Atkinson spent a lot of time and trouble developing the code for clipping regions so that the CPU didn't have to redraw the hidden portion of a window. Xerox did NOT use clipping regions in the ALTO interface. To accuse Apple of much more than inspiration from the Xerox presentation is disingenuous.

While you're giving out history lessons, you might actually want to go read the stories from the people who were actually at Apple at the time - I have. Having worked with Bill Atkinson and heard many stories about the time, I can't vouch for why Apple's legal department did or did not sue certain people, but I do know you're flat-out wrong.

[JoeF2]

@Hep cat: I would have to look things up, but I am pretty sure that Smalltalk supported clipping regions. And since the Alto was pretty much a Smalltalk machine, I doubt that they kept it out.

[badmojo42]

I think its stupid that you can patent how to use a multitouch screen. its like patenting the pencil and suing the pen users for using it the same way. makes no sense....

[Perry_Clease]

Had there been a patent office back when the pencil was first developed then there would have been patent on it. However, the patent would have long since expired, besides I think the pen predates the pencil. Anyway, nothing was stopping Palm, Nokia, MicoSoft, leosuxapple, freakywebster, or anyone else from thinking up this patent before Apple and then applying for a patent. Apple is in the business of making money and I do not expect them to put R&D into something so that someone else can make the bucks. Apple, or any other patent holder, is not obligated to license their stuff.

Follow the link to the patent office and read the document

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=multi-touch&s2=multitouch&OS=multi-touch+AND+multitouch&RS=multi-touch+AND+multitouch

[peckcc]

it seems there is a law suit ready to go.. Rim/Palm/Everyone Else VS Apple vs some common things pinching.. which is hardly patentable. does that mean that next time I/or anyone that pinches around phone we pay Apple. While it quite clever, I used the i-phone and just expected and it worked... I notice RIM did not have on there storm, nor some of the other phones. There are some functions that just nature human law. then there are others that without invention, would not occur. The name i-phone is not apples'.
It belongs to CISCO... What mess.. lot of suing yet to come...
Good luck. I am sticking to the button driven pearl. It cheap and functional.

[random truth]

A contract was signed before the release of the iphone (g1) where they agreed to both keep the same name. This happens alot. Go onto better business burro and search for HP and you will see what I mean.

[deslock]

@random truth
No, it was agreed on after the release of the g1 iphone. There was an agreement but not until after there was saber rattling.

[random truth]

@deslock
Look at the date of this article I found off google...
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/02/21iphone.html
The iphone did not ship until June 29 2007, go look it up.
The article is from February 21

[hardmanb]

"... when Jeff Han was working on it"

As I understand intellectual property, it is not who invented it, or who "was working on it", but who first applies and obtains the patent. For that matter, I am "working on" intergalactic travel and teleportation.

"... Jeff Han has prior art, but probably not on hand-helds."

I don't know what "prior art" means. It this means art such as sketches or drawings...he could copyright those to prevent copying.

[JoeF2]

Prior art means that if the technology was in use before the patent was filed, the patent may be invalidated, unless the company can show that their invention differs significantly from what was there before.
In particular, if there is a publication about the technology, in the US a patent can be filed up to one year after publication. In the EU, as soon as there is a publication, a patent can not be issued. RSA has fallen into that trap, so they had a patent in the US but not in Europe.

[Hep Cat]

"but who first applies and obtains the patent. "

When you go to work for practically any company (at least here in Silicon Valley), you will find that your intake paperwork generally claims that anything - ANYTHING you create on the company's time or equipment is the property of the company. Even if you have an original idea on vacation and document it using your laptop from work, it belongs to the company. Usually there are large bonuses for engineers who generate methods and apparatus that will make money for the company - but you don't get to keep the IP.

You may not make royalties from the patent, but your name is on it and you can claim it as your own work. However, the intellectual property represented by the patent remains under the ownership of the company.

[rapier1]

European patents work on the 'first to file' principle. US patents work on the 'first to invent' principle. So even if Apple was the first to file if it can be shown that someone else invented fundamental similar techniques prior to Apple's filing the patent can be contested. I expect that it will be.

[ktswami]

Looks like we'll be seeing lots of "single-touch" devices, but no multi-touch swiping and flicking outside of an Apple device (iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac trackpad).

Remember the inane lawsuits in 1990 by Lotus against Borland about "1-2-3" UI mode in their Quattro Pro spreadsheet? The Supreme Court told Lotus to take a hike (but it took 5-6 years, and you know what that means in the software world...Borland was dead).

Will be interesting to see how well this multi-touch UI patent will hold up in court...

[AppleSuxLeo]

There is more than one way (patent) to accomplish the same thing. Unless Palm copied Apple`s software this means nothing.
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]

[Erictheruler1]

Am I wrong or shouldn't that guy from kids in the hall that was squishing heads own the patent for pinching thing together?

[Droopy--2008]

This Fortune article gives a little history that might be helpful.

Apple vs. Palm: Geeks with grudges

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/01/26/apple-vs-palm-geeks-with-grudges/

[why do i need a name?]

let's not forget that Palm probably has a nice, large stack of patents that cover many of the aspects of a smart phone, PDA, organizer, address book, and more things that I care to think of. Apple's art in this area (Newton era) has probably expired.

AAPL was rumored to have forged ahead on much of the iPhone development and lauch without pulling together the rights to practice the art of people like Nokia, Palm, Motorola, Samsung, and everyone else in the phone business. Now that iPhone is a big business, it would not surprise me at all that those guys are licking their chops at a couple of percent of a huge business.

I'm also not surprised that Apple is amassing a pile of patents for a touch-screen phone interface, and other aspects of the phone so that when the onslaught from the others comes they have something to defend with. However, I'd be pretty worried if I was their chief IP guy trying to walk into Palm with a single patent and being thrown a stack that is about 5-feet thick and a comment of "and what do you think we should do about this?"

Threats for patent infringement actions should not be done half-assed. The courts are littered with failures of someone who had a bulletproof case only to find a loss. Want to see an interesting one, look at Kodak v. Sony back in the late 80's over the technology used in 8mm camcorders. Kodak had sony dead to rights on this, but lost after a scorched earth prior art search by Sony.

[iBuzz]

I have to wonder about the strength of Palm's patent portfolio. After all, as you mentioned, Palm was basically copying/improving upon the Apple Newton for much of the design of its Palm Pilot. If Palm did not sue Microsoft for patent violation over Microsoft's touchscreen Windows CE mobile devices, it would seem that Palm doesn't have much to stand on. And, if you remember, Palm did go after Microsoft, but only on a trademark dispute over Microsoft's PalmPC branding, forcing Microsoft to change to PocketPC. I doubt Palm (who started by trying to improve upon the Apple Newton) has much to defend here.

[JoeF2]

In most cases, patent infringement stuff indeed never gets to court, because both sides have patents. So it is cross-license time.
Most cases that get to court are patent troll cases.
There are occasionally very valid cases, though. One case I happen to know a bit about (I know somebody who was an expert witness in that case) was a case against Microsoft, that they lost. They had to modify Excel to prevent database embedding.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/07/microsoft_pays_excel_man/

[AppleSuxLeo]

Steve J Windbag also announced Apple had invented Visual Voicemail and Verizon has Visual Voicemail...provided by Alcatel-Lucent. Just one example of the RDF he puts out.

[random truth]

Yep, Verizon got it* a year after the iphone.... for $2.99 a month.
*On select phones.

[Hep Cat]

AppleSuxLeo is such a bad troll. He can't get his facts right, but he(?) still comes over here and voids his bowels all over the comment section just to get a rise out of people. Pathological, and certifiable.

[AppleSuxLeo]

The point is Verizon`s Visual Voicemail has nothing to do with Apple...it was developed by Alcatel-Lucent.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Palm Pre `s gestures work on it`s gesture area , below the screen , so one doesn`t have to contaminate the screen or cover it up while the gestures are working , as in turning the pages of a book. iPhony has no gesture are , but i`m sure Apple will be copying their gesture area and UI soon enough.

[CDubber]

Oh please, because Palm's gestures are limited to a small strip at the bottom of the screen, that somehow makes their idea original and immune to Apple's patents? Someone needs to put down the haterade and submit to a full-body reality check. And yeah, I'm *sure* Apple will be copying Palm's "gesture strip" real soon. Hilarious.

Troll Different.

[Speiler9]

Dear ApplSuxLeo - I'm not sure if you are aware but you may have been super-ceded by a new type of troll, one with even more time to waste, slightly less intelligence, a poorer command of written English and an even greater propensity to resort to grand unsupported generalisations and poorly masked profanities.

[deslock]

@CDubber
I agree Applesuxleo may be a troll but your own comment is choking on itself too.

If their small strip at the bottom doesn't qualify for being a difference, why is Apple's contention that being "handheld" makes it different than all the other mulit-touch gestures on devices out there? It's all BS and should be invalidated based on prior art.

[mordantennui]

So wait........did nobody think to patent touch screens?

[rapier1]

Touch screenhave *long* since lost their patent protection.

[SeizeCTRL]

That is such BS! Multitouch devices were out long before the iPhone. Apple did not invent multitouch! This is just another prime example why our patent system is retarded. JazzMutant had the Lemur out several years before the iPhone and it's multitouch.

http://www.jazzmutant.com/

[Droopy--2008]

I believe Fingerworks had multi touch before Jazzmutant and I also believe Apple bought Fingerworks. Could be wrong though...

[Perry_Clease]

Well ******** about it here will not change the situation, contact your elected representatives.

[Droopy--2008]

I think your finger got stuck on a key so I couldn't make out what you were trying to say.