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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Apple Gets Their Multi-Touch Patent; Is Palm Screwed?

The US Patent Office has signed, sealed, and delivered a late Christmas present to Apple. On January 20th, the powers that be awarded patent #7,479,949, titled Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics, to Apple. Essentially, Apple wins the war on their multi-touch technology and other copycats should be shaking in their boots.

apple multitouch patent

The patent, which was originally filed on April 11, 2008, is a long detailed description of the technology, with the abstract reading:

“A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.”

And if MacRumors is right about Tim Cook’s intentions to aggressively take legal action against those ripping off Apple’s intellectual property, then the yet to be released to the public Palm Pre, which supports swiping and pinching, could find itself in a sea of turmoil.

Tim Cook has been quoted saying that, “Well, I don’t want to talk about any specific company. I’m just making a general statement that we think competition is good. It makes us all better. And we are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we’ll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal. I don’t know that I could be more clear than that.”

We can’t wait to see how this all plays out. Let us know your thoughts and predictions in the comments.

[via World of Apple]

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