Touchpad Patent Holder Tsera Sues Just About Everyone 168
eldavojohn writes "Okay, well, maybe not everyone but more than twenty companies (including Apple, Qualcomm, Motorola and Microsoft) are being sued for a generic patent that reads: 'Apparatus and methods for controlling a portable electronic device, such as an MP3 player; portable radio, voice recorder, or portable CD player are disclosed. A touchpad is mounted on the housing of the device, and a user enters commands by tracing patterns with his finger on a surface of the touchpad. No immediate visual feedback is provided as a command pattern is traced, and the user does not need to view the device to enter commands.' Sounds like their may be a few companies using that technology. The suit was filed on July 15th in the favoritest place ever to file patent claim lawsuits: Texas Eastern District Court. It's a pretty classic patent troll; they've been holding this patent since 2003 and they just noticed now that everyone and his dog are using touchpads to control portable electronic devices."
Gives new meaning (Score:2)
Visual Feedback (Score:5, Interesting)
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This patent is for touchpads not touch screens
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Wrong.
The device itself does NOT provide feedback. It outputs to another device (opaquely, as it does so without being apparent to the user), and, in addition, no information is relayed back TO the touchpad.
I hate to say it folks, but this particular patent trolling is the first one that I have seen that actually has merit, regardless of the fact that no action was taken for 6 years.
Just because other companies are "all using it" does NOT mean they (the manufacturers) shouldn't have done patent searches and
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Lets see. visual feedback!=audio. So, No.
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Previous ART, 1999, National Semiconductor -WebPad (Score:3, Interesting)
Party like it's 1999 (Score:2)
Too bad the following patents predate this patent by a few years to which they seem to be claiming to have invented.
US3662105: Electrical Sensor Of Plane Coordinates, Issued May 9, 1972
US3798370: Electrographic Sensor For Determining Planar Coordinates, Issued March 19, 1974
Two prior patents which I notice they neglected to mention, and only inc
Re:Previous ART, 1999, National Semiconductor -Web (Score:4, Informative)
PDA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PDA (Score:4, Informative)
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The Graffiti entry area on early Palms provided no visual feedback, and could be used to enter commands as well as characters.
Re:PDA (Score:4, Informative)
The patent exempts computers and distinctly applies itself to portable media/entertainment devices.
I *hate* that kind of patent. It pretty much says that this is something that's already being done in closely related devices, and they're staking their claim at the land office before it inevitably is applied to this class of device. There were about a gazillion GPS and mobile computer patents like this in the late 90s eary 00s.
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Mine even had swipe options to allow me to control applications with my finger. Heck, the "show graffiti" swipe from the bottom to the top of the screen dates back to the first Palm.
Not prior art (Score:2)
First, the patent was filed in 1999, so 2003 doesn't really matter.
Second, the patent doesn't cover touchscreens, it covers using gestures on touchscreens. That is, the panning of the iPhone, or using the finger swiping gesture to change pages.
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As long as it didn't show what you are drawing on the screen, yup, it's prior art.
I have a schizoid view of software patents. Patents that repurpose well known concepts ("Look, its an X... ON THE WEB" or "It's mouse gestures on a touchpad") are obviously bad. But on the other hand, having protection for novel ideas makes sense. 18 years may be too long, but inventing the GUI was worthy of patent protection (even if it never got it).
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Interestingly, Palm is NOT on the list of companies being sued. Either they licensed the patent in question (who knows?), are not viewed as possible infringers (conceivable... perhaps the others all sell MP3 players of some sort and the smartphone/PDA isn't viewed as covered by the patent) or are too small to bother with in this litagation (unlikely).
Here's the complete list of alleged infringers from the suit [justia.com]:
Apple Inc.,
Auditek Corp.,
Bang & Olufsen Ameerica, Inc.,
Bang & Olufsen A/S,
Coby Electronics
For heaven's sake, it's the CLAIMS that matter! (Score:5, Informative)
1. A portable electronic device comprising: a housing; and a touch-sensitive surface mounted on the housing, the portable electronic device controlled by a user tracing a command pattern on the touch-sensitive surface with a finger, the command pattern matching one of a plurality of preset patterns, each of the plurality of the present patterns corresponding to a predefined function of the portable electronic device, the command pattern being traced without requiring the user to view the portable electronic device, wherein at least one of the plurality of patterns corresponds to a predefined function that is performed only for so long as contact is maintained with the touch-sensitive surface, wherein the command pattern is composed of one of more motions of the finger on the touch-sensitive surface, the one or more motions selected from a group of motions consisting of a left-to-right motion, a right-to-left motion, an upward motion, a downward motion, a clockwise circular motion, a counterclockwise circular motion, a diagonal motion, a tapping motion, and holding the pointing device against the touch-sensitive surface.
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Prior Art: Apple's Newton did all that in the mid to early 90's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_(platform) [wikipedia.org]
Jumping the gun? (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, the iPod - The click wheel visually navigates on-screen. The controls are physical buttons underneath the touchpad. Maybe for the fastforward/rewind motions, but its hard to get there blindly if I recall. You still need visual feedback to use it.
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iPhone/iPodTouch/&others disqualified? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me, or does 'tapping' not constitute 'tracing patterns with his/her finger'?
Gestures? Visual feedback is immediate (zooming, scrolling, rotations, etc)
Not going anywhere (Score:3, Informative)
My Palm 1000 from 1996 invalidates the claims in this patent through prior art. I seem to remember the Apple Newton being touchscreen too, but I didn't have one, so I'm not sure.
This isn't going anywhere.
Re:Not going anywhere (Score:4, Informative)
Newton certainly had a touch screen. It also had gesture recognition with things like "scribble" to delete a graphical object onscreen. And, it isn't like Newton invented the touchscreen, either. (Though, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple was out in front at that point with some of the "gesture" stuff, while previous examples used menus and such for everything.)
And, from an end user standpoint, is there that much difference between a touch screen used with a stylus vs. a classic light pen?
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Go on, name just one thing Apple actually invented.
A business method patent for grabbing headlines with a dying CEO?
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Add a speed limit human. [wikispeedia.org]
too much prior art to stick (Score:2)
can't see this one doing any more than costing money. Trackpads have been in computers for a decade and several systems have gestures built in long before 2003. I doubt that suggesting a finger vs a pen/stylus would make this unique enough to make it patentable.
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Actually trackpads even have been used in the eighties in computers. Nothing new here and even gesture based input systems have been in the labs at least in the 80s!
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Add to that that the patent probably also applies to input devices like stylus based drawing pads which have been used since well, even the atari 800xl had one of those beasts.
Well, I hate to *point* it out, but.... (Score:3, Funny)
Tsera's lawyers are just a wee bit *touchy* on this topic...
Sounds familair... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't Palm's Graffiti or even the Newton constitute prior art for this thing??
Remember the good old days, when you had to actually build a working model of something to patent it. You couldn't just have an idea...
Jail them (Score:2, Insightful)
Obama (Score:2)
In the US the Court System needs reforms so games like these can not be played!
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No way. (Score:2)
Tsera isn't suing just about everyone. Jonathan Lee Riches [wikipedia.org] is suing just about everyone.
Seriously? WTFuck. (Score:2)
The iPod got its touch wheel in 2002. Prior art. End of discussion.
I think you meant "idea", not "technology". (Score:2)
I think the summary meant to say "Sounds like there may be a few companies using that idea
The poor choice in wording of the summary reflects the problem with the patent system today. While it makes sense to make technology patentable, since it takes time and research money to develop technology, and a patent system should server to encourage research and development. What we have now is the patenting of ideas, which just slows progress, a
In related news (Score:2)
Good luck with that one. (Score:2)
As I recall, touchpads date back to the 1980's in actual usage on Apollo computers. How exactly is this patent in any way novel?
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Don't joke about it, DO IT!
I have a feeling it may work.
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And I'm going to patent the patent patenting patent process, just to annoy you, you pedant!
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And I'm going to infringe on your patent for vehicular homicide.
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Making the same joke about patenting patent-abuse methods over and over again in every slashdot article about patents.
Yo dawg I herd you like patents, so we're going to patent your patent so you can sue while you sue.
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You're all violating my patent for "An apparatus that performs an action for the purpose of doing something"
I'm going to sue everyone and everything!
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And I'm going to let you, then violate your patent and offer to compensate you face to face, so that we can finally see what you look like, mister Anonymous Coward, if that is your real name...
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mister Anonymous Coward, if that is your real name...
Did you miss the memo? His name is now "Anonymous Cowardon". Apparently the Slashdot coders decided to give him a new name.
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No - the space is not displayed well
Anonymous Cowardon Wednesday July 22
is
Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22
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*facepalm*
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That would require the Slashdot coders to actual be competent. That little comments box on the AJAX version has also been broken for about as long and no one seems to have noticed that either. You're supposed to be able to dock it to the top of the page but if you click the button it just gets black outline and stays in the same place.
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Did you hear that whooshing sound?
It's the sound of your Alicia Silverstone impersonation.
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That could explain a lot of posts I see.
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How interesting! Tell me more about the AI systems.
Re:And I'm going to patent (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And I'm going to patent (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't work. This is east Texas we're talking about.
Re:I'm going to patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Oops, perhaps a patent to automatically detect if users meant to set the format to Plain Old Text is in order...
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Maybe someone should patent the touchpad interface used by iPods - because Tsera sure hasn't done so here. The patent is for an invention that allows the user to issue commands to a portable electronic device by making gestures with their finger over a touch sensitive surface (just like patent application 20060026535) in order to perform some function which doesn't require visual feedback.
Sure, I'm paraphrasing - and the wording is so vague in some places that maybe they could twist it to apply to scroll wheel on the iPod - but this is really all there is to the patent. It's weak. The really crappy part is that if you decided you wanted to build this into your device (it's an obvious combination of a gesture based interface with a touch screen), then reading this patent would give you no help whatsoever in implementing it. Utter drivel! Can someone explain why is it acceptable to:
1. Have a cool idea
2. Patent idea
Instead of:
1. Have a cool idea
2. Design it
3. Build a prototype
4. Patent novelties in your prototype
Anyone??
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Completely agree, but perhaps have another slant on it.
We might consider it acceptable to patent a pure idea but when taken to court compensation should only be awarded based on a realistic estimate of the companies actual losses due to infringement. Which is to say, if the patent owner cannot produce any evidence of a reasonable attempt to design a working version of the device or idea then there simply are no damages at all.
I don't mind people patenting things (even pure ideas) that they make a true and
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PS: it only proves that the US patent system is broken. I hate to disillusion many
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Re:Patents are Unsane (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism is a bad system but it's pretty much showed itself to be better than the alternatives on a large scale. Or rather hybrids based mostly on capitalism have proven to be better than the alternatives. Same thing goes for democracy.
Human natures is still in the days when humanity was a bunch of small tribes whose hobby was murdering each other. That's not going to change no matter how much you cover your ears and repeat it's not true. Capitalism works because it actually assumes many humans are greedy, selfish bastards who care about little except their own satisfaction. Enough of them are ambitious, intelligent, vicious and driven to butcher any system that's foolish enough to assume they don't exist.
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Better than the alternatives? If capitalism is the best we can come up with, I am not impressed. And democracy in its current state is a joke, it doesnt represent we the people, we havent had real political choices since I cant remember when. Every political party share the same long term goals, they just have different methods of getting there, how is that democracy?
Re:Patents are Unsane (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure democracy has proven itself time and time again to be one of the most consistantly tyrannical forms of government in existance. Even Tyrannical Despotisms have a hard time topping pure democracy in that regard. It turns the entire country into a mob, and when the mob rules, everyone who is not the majority cowers in fear.
Monarchies are unpredictable, will it be 50 years of tyranny or 50 years of prosperity? An Oligarchy is just a monarchy with a board of directors, just as unpredictable as a monarchy but with a better chance of being tyrannical. Theocracies are as bad as monarchies, but have the added element of the religion dictating things. Depending on the religion it may or may not be difficult for the theocratic leader to twist it to his will.
A democratic republic is the most consistantly beneficial to the greatest number of citizens of a country. Democracy is good in small numbers, but very quickly it breaks down and becomes unwieldy. In a democratic republic we break democracy down into manageable chunks, and it works. We have a sort of oligarchy with a high accountability to the public, therefor they have a very great incentive to do the will of the public. However, the will of the public is balanced by individual representatives who, because they are separated from the public they represent, are generally not caught up in the mass hysteria that the public can sometimes generate. Nothing is perfect, but a democratic republic is as close as we have come. You can look at all of the most successful countries in the world - the safest, richest, farest countries - and they are all heavily into various incarnations of the democratic republic. Some still have trappings of old styles of government, but they still be have as a democratic republic.
Think about that the next time someone pushes to have all issues that Congress or your local legislature address voted on by the people. It is really easy to swing from the best system ever concieved to the worst system to have ever existed.
The only reason Capitalism is any good is, if it is kept in check properly and not overly imposed upon (it requires both), it naturally adjusts itself to provide the most benefit possible to the economy it is used in. No other system can touch the flexibility and efficiency of capitalism, but obviously it is easy for it to go astray with poor oversight. The recent economic troubles are a wonderful example of poor management of capitalism. The government was imposing far too many demands in some areas, and putting in too few restrictions in others.
But if you want to change it out with Communism or Fascism, go ahead. Why you'd want to replace Capitalism, which has shown itself to work better than anything else, with a system that has failed spectacularly every time it has been tried is beyond me. Other forms of socialism don't count, they're all just hybrid bastardizations of capitalism. Bartering is out of the question, it is far too inflexible for any kind of large economy.
Re:Patents are Unsane (Score:5, Insightful)
. Why you'd want to replace Capitalism, which has shown itself to work better than anything else, with a system that has failed spectacularly every time it has been tried is beyond me.
I think when people talk of "replacing capitalism" they mean "capitalism" in the libertarian or "free market trumps all" sense, not in the semi-regulated you speak of. When the greed of a select few is capable of causing huge amounts of harm to all of society then there is a problem (economy exists for people, not visa versa), as is when wealth equals political power directly, with no reguard for the the people whatsoever. This is what a lot of people (mostly zealots) mean when they talk of "capitalism", not "any market in which good are exchanged".
Good points. Btw,
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"efficiency of capitalism". You mention efficiency as if it is necessarily a good thing. But when it actually means raping the earth's non-renewable resources at an ever faster pace, then it's not a good thing at all.
Capitalism requires continual growth. Yet continual growth is incompatible with a finite world. Imaginative thoughts about moving beyond this planet and raping other planets aside, capitalism is not sustainable. It must reach an end, and that end will be grim.
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Capitalism doesn't require anything, all it does is allocate resources. Don't blame capitalism for people's and society's indifference to long term consequences. If you want efficient products then either convince people to pay more for them or take the easier way out and have the government tax things appropriately. Worked for Europe and gasoline usage.
Look at China, they're got a vaguely communist oligarchy and they're currently the number one planet rapist around. The pollution there would probably toppl
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Capitalism doesn't require anything, all it does is allocate resources.
Wrong. Capitalism requires investment, unless that investment grows year on year, people won't make it. Which means the expectation of growth is necessary for capitalism.
Capitalism has nothing to do with allocation of resources. You're thinking of free market trade.
And there are not only two political systems. Lack of capitalism does not imply communism. Whilst communism unlike capitalism doesn't require growth, leaders of such syste
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The key element of capitalism is that economic decisions are made by individuals for their own reasons and motivations.
A second important point is that capitalism is not a political system
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Your definition is from Miriam Webster. It includes competition in a free market, but it doesn't say that free market trade IS capitalism as you do. An elephant has a trunk, but that doesn;t mean a trunk IS an elephant.
Free market trade is not Capitalism. Free market trade is only something that capitalists frequently do.
The first usage of the word Capitalism wasn't until 1854, and free market trade had existed for centuries. Indeed since before recorded history.
No, the essential element that Capitalism
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If there is "free market trade", one of the thing
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Of course capitalism existed before anyone described it. I'm just pointing out that gross difference in time frames beween the two concepts. Put it another way: Capitalism requires money. free market trade existed centuries before money.
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Even your example is capitalism. The farmer invested his capital (his seed and labor)in producing crops. The trapper invested his capi
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And I'm only pointing out that the flaws you mention are ones of human nature rather than of capitalism. They afflict any system, communism was simply an example.
Investment requires the potential of growth in that investment but that doesn't mean you need overall growth. Even now most of the money to be gained from investments comes from loss in other areas rather than overall growth. Look at gambling, overall you never win however that doesn't stop a lot of people from playing. Prediction markets are anoth
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Also, it's very hard to end up with no overall growth. If resources are scarce than growth will be fueled by ever increasing efficiency in using existing resources. Most likely also by acquiring new resources, like say shoving an asteroid into earth orbit, since their high costs will no longer be that prohibitive. The amount of sunlight hitting this planet pretty much means we'll be colonizing other planets long before energy becomes a real problem. Real problem in this case means we're using enough, think
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So basically Switzerland with their reasonably small cantons and a Democratic system has the best possible government structure of those currently known.
[which the USA, due to non-proportional vote, gerrymandering and HUGE states (bigger than many Western European countries) doesn't even begin to get close]
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Re:Patents are Unsane (Score:4, Informative)
A democratic republic is the most consistantly beneficial to the greatest number of citizens of a country. Democracy is good in small numbers, but very quickly it breaks down and becomes unwieldy.
Most people forget the we do not live in a pure democracy, but rather a democratic republic where the minority is protected from the excesses of the majority. A true democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for lunch.
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We require more Vespene gas!
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What, exactly, do you think capital is??
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Er, the military industrial complex uses very little oil, actually. Most of our military vehicles are electrical or biodiesel at this point.
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you cant be serious. military fuel consumption makes the Department of Defense the single largest consumer of petroleum in the U.S.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199 [energybulletin.net]
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Actually to be more accurate, the US DoD is the largest oil purchaser in the world.
Re:Patents are Unsane (Score:4, Funny)
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Shhhhh! Don't give them any more ideas.
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No, it makes them the biggest purchaser and stockpiler. Not the biggest user. Enormous difference. But go on, keep quoting the CEO of the American Petroleum Institude, Red Cavaney. It's not like he, as CEO of ConecoPhillips, was the primary architect of Bush's eight year campaign of lies about the nature of petroleum, nor is it the case that Bush regularly told lies about the military to generate support he desired.
But I suppose knowing the first thing about the source you're citing is too much to ask from
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Indeed he might play the capitalism game extremely well, and still be able to argue that a different system would be better in every way. Without there being any contradiction in his actions.
Well, sure. But that would require rhetorical skills, backed up by familiarity with competing economic models and time spent contemplating them. The poster I was responding to falls a bit short of that mark.
(Although I am impressed that he was able to talk the video clerk into renting Fight Club to someone who was obv
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I would have to say that there is plenty of prior art. I know I have an old pentium based compaq laptop that has a touchpad mouse that is older than this patent.
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Yes but your touchpad mouse gives an "immediate visual feedback" which wouldn't be the same as the claim in this patent.
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"Apparatus and methods for controlling a portable electronic device, such as an MP3 player; portable radio, voice recorder, or portable CD player are disclosed. A touchpad is mounted on the housing of the device, and a user enters commands by tracing patterns with his finger on a surface of the touchpad. No immediate visual feedback is provided as a command pattern is traced, and the user does not need to view the device to enter commands.
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Even if anyone believes invented it first, purposely waiting for it to get big before suing everyone for it has to be considered just a little fishy.
Fishy, but perfectly legal. Remember that patents and copyright/trademarks are completely different.
I could have a patent on something and hold on to it until 6 months before it expires and sue everyone that violated it.
Now, is the patent itself valid? Let's hope not.
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I've wondered the same thing myself. Could some lawyer person explain why the concept of laches [wikipedia.org] does not apply to this kind of scenario?
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You can certainly try. Be sure to post back with the results of this experiment.