GLaw
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Authored by GLaw on Oct 18, 2013 16:32:32 GMT
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Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells
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Authored by Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells on Oct 19, 2013 15:00:23 GMT
From the abstract, it describes what my computer mouse has done for years prior to 2006: when a two-dimensional movement is detected, it is reduced to a single direction, eg when I click on a scroll-bar and move my mouse in a diagonal direction, the two separate inputs of detection of movement from the mouse encoders (X and Y) are converted into a single direction (Y) [by ignoring the X] - effectively "a single finger contact". The big difference seems to be that the detectors of movement are direct detections in changes over a touch screen (grid) as opposed to incremental movements as detected by the mouse sensors - with slow processing, my mouse pointers have in past years (pre-2006) failed to keep up with the incremental movements and jumped over the screen, just like touching a grid at different points. The abstract refers explicitly to a touch screen, but any system that can report [multiple] X-Y coordinate pairs would be providing an input into the rest of the system to interpret the "movements" - would they, as long as they were not touch screen related, be unaffected by this patent? (Eg my pre-2006 graphics tablet can provide "finger touch" stlye inputs - would it make the patent unapplicable? Similarly, it has a stylus and a mouse that can both provide input /at the same time/ to the system, providing "multiple [two] finger touch" style inputs - I had at times been confused as to why my mouse pointer wasn't behaving properly until I realised I was holding both the stylus (like a pen) and the mouse at the same time; if I was to use such an input system (effectively providing 2 points of input) to interpret the mouse and stylus movements in a similar vein would I then be outside the limits of this patent as it is NOT a touch-screen that is providing the inputs?) It seems to be a "patent on doing with a computer with a touch-screen" something that has previously been "done on a computer". Why should "with a touch-screen" make it any different? The only real difference being where the (x,y) coordinates are sourced before they get the the software to interpret them - now the hardware to create the (x,y) pairs could be worthy of a patent, by an algorithm to manipulate them one they've been received from an explicit source [even though other sources could provide exactly the same data]? Or more bluntly accurately, it's a patent on doing something previously on a device that does not have the input methods of the previous device - an extension of "do on a computer" to previous inventions to "do on a computer *with a touch-screen*" to previous inventions either "done on a computer" or not.
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swmech
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Authored by swmech on Oct 21, 2013 19:25:18 GMT
It seems to be a "patent on doing with a computer with a touch-screen" something that has previously been "done on a computer". Why should "with a touch-screen" make it any different? And the answer is, of course, "it shouldn't." The "difference" is that it has Steve Job's name attached to it. (sorry, that's probably overly cynical, but...)
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Authored by opensourceftw on Oct 22, 2013 14:57:36 GMT
Dangit, I thought it was a patent on Steve Jobs, so we couldn't have another one.
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