This week saw Apple being awarded a potentially killer patent that could be the ultimate weapon in their war on Android.
Patent number 8,223,134 essentially covers the user interface of a smartphone, particularly displaying electronic lists and documents on a portable multi touch device that features a processor and memory. What you may not realise, unless you read quite a lot of the patent, is that it also covers the use of widgets on a portable device, which may be something that Apple try to use against Android at a later date. But for this article we're looking specifically at the content of the abstract which specifically applies to displaying lists and electronic documents on a multi function touch screen device that features a processor and memory and that runs its own software.
If you have read some of this patent already you may have noticed it prominently mentions the use of a scroll bar, and you may be thinking that because it specifies using a scroll bar then you can avoid court action over this patent by simply eliminating the scroll bar altogether.
But you'd be wrong, as Apple specifies within its patent that the scroll bar can even be totally transparent (ie not even visible), yes that means even if you eliminate the scroll bar you may still be found liable in court.
So how is this a killer patent? Because the iphone did it first and now every other smartphone does the same, Apple invented the idea of a multi touch portable device with its own user interface so why shouldn't they use it, even if it is to stifle competition, right?
Well, unfortunately for Apple, no they didn't invent the idea and unsurprisingly there is prior art to this that shows as much, including a multi touch mobile phone that pre dates the newly approved Apple patent application by a year.
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| The Onyx multi touch phone from 2006 |
Still, it doesn't hurt to know there is prior art and so I've been doing some digging around to try and address this specific patent issue that could be used against Android, the fact that it uses scrolling electronic lists and does so on a multi touch device that incorporates at least one processor and that runs software.
Before the iPhone existed, or was patented, computers had used what is called a graphical user interface (GUI). Now we call them simply a user interface (UI).
These computers and their interfaces, as any pre 2007 computer user will be aware, used scrolling lists as part of their daily operation albeit scrolled through with a mouse or keyboard. In fact the use of scroll bars and displaying electronic documents stretches as far back as at least 1973 with the Xerox Alto computer.
Of course these can't be used against the Apple patent simply because they were not accessed using a multi touch touchscreen device. Apple invented the portable multitouch touch screen device.
Or did they?
In 2006 Synaptics Onyx mobile phone, an actual real and usable device (albeit a concept one), was able to differentiate two simultaneous touches (multi touch) and was a small mobile phone able to do things mentioned in Apples later patent such as scrolling through a list on screen using a finger (it could also do drag and drop actions).
You can see pictures of the phone here or a video of it in action, being demonstrated using a computer (because it was a bigger display and therefore more appropriate for demonstration purposes, however as the video explains all the actions performed are done with fingers on the Onyx) here or in the video below from SlashGear.
So already we have an example of a portable multi touch devices performing the ui interactions described in Apples patent, but one that was a physical reality and in use before the relevant patent submission in 2007.
I'm not sure even the most ardent Apple supporter could honestly disagree that the Onyx concept phone meets the requirements of a portable multi touch device, nor that it demonstrates at least some of the user interactions described in Apples later patent application such as scrolling through a list.
But there are other examples that may be acceptable as evidence of prior art such as the 2006 Plastic Logic e-ink multi touch display which comprised of a flexible display mounted over a multi point touchpad which made the portable tablet sized display able not only to interact with user elements such as scrolling through pages (lists) but also allowed the user multi touch control. This was the basis of their later ebook reader the QUE proReader.
Hopefully by now you are starting to see that Apples patent application does indeed stem from actual devices that predate it. Of course Apples patent covers in particular the use of a portable multi touch device with a processor and ram and running at least one program. There are not lots of examples of this before the iphone but the Onyx is indeed one and one is all it takes to serve as an example of prior art.
Apples patent is very vague in certain areas, and so it remains to be seen whether it will indeed be viable as a weapon against any portable device that has a user interface, certainly it is unlikely to succeed in European countries which tend to frown upon software related patents particularly where the concept or implementation was in use or detailed by others in advance of the patent application but in America, Apples home, it is likely to be used more than once in court battles against manufacturers of Android devices such as Samsung Motorola and HTC.
Because the patent mentions the use of widgets it is possible that this could indeed be used against Android even if only in that regard, which would be a shame but given some of the decisions made in Apples favour in American courts, despite some courts in other countries such as Holland and the UK finding against them using the same patents, it is certainly a possibility.
The patent wars rage on, and yes Apple have a new weapon in the form of this ui patent but not quite the doomsday one they hope for.
