Apple and Microsoft Face Touchpad Lawsuit
Apple, Microsoft, iriver and more are being sued over the touch technology used in their respective PMPs.
According to court documents filed, a small company called tsera is suing an array of companies for patent infringement. The Register cites the Texas-based company as saying it owns "all right, title and interest in" a patent for "Methods and apparatus for controlling a portable electronic device using a touchpad." As a result, Tsera says that a barrage of products on the market including Apple's iPod classic and nano, LG's Chocolate VX8500 and Microsoft's Zune utilize such technologies without its permission.
While there are roughly 20 companies named in the suit, it seems Tsera is focusing on Apple for "willful" infringement because it allegedly knew about the aforementioned patent infringement in 2004, a year after Tsera was awarded the patent. The company is seeking significant damages from Apple and royalties from everyone else named.
The patent includes MP3 players, portable radios, voice recorders and portable CD players. Tsera defines the touchpad technology as follows:
"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. A microcontroller within the device matches the pattern traced by the user against a plurality of preset patterns, each of which corresponds to a predefined function or command of the device. If the pattern traced by the user is a reasonably close match to any of the preset patterns, the device performs the predefined function corresponding to the matched pattern. The touchpad replaces the numerous buttons that are typically used to control portable electronic devices, thereby enhancing usability and reducing manufacturing costs."
The full patent is available here. So what's the verdict? Half-baked grabbing-attempt from Tsera or a genuine case for patent infringement? Let us know your thoughts below!
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It sounds like a fair description of the apple jog dial - ever since it wasnt actually a dial.
Patents like this really annoy me though, the description is so vague that i'm tempted to describe 'an apparatus that projects images in 4 dimensions, those being 3 spatial dimensions and time' when someone does the hard work and actually builds a holographic projector i can sit back and watch the cash roll in........
I hope this company gets counter-sued into the ground.
It's just anti-progress to see that they're trying to profit off of such an obvious idea. Like patenting sound coming out in analogue waves converted from digital. Imagine if someone had patented that?
gotta love stupid patents and the idiots that actually award them.
You would imagine the touch pad / screen on the 1993 Apple Newton would offer Apple enough protection under prior art.
Agree with @a1exh - Description could equally be applied to a slightly larger "portable electronic device using a touchpad" also known as a laptop computer FFS!
I would imagine there's prior art - but then again, maybe the use of touch things in the way described was original back in 2003 (i.e. not used for standard laptop control). The gesture thing would be more like "Black & White played on a laptop with a touchpad" if that counts as prior art, rather than just a touchpad (which were probably around before the patent was filed). On the assumption that it's a patent that should never have been granted it'd seem fit that it failed - particularly if the holder didn't actively seek to mitigate his loss by telling people / engaging constructively with them (other than Apple who I'd quite like to be sued a bit more, but that's because I'm a bad person probably).
That said, ipods etc don't (if I remember rightly) use something quite like what was described in the patent do they? the circle thing only really registered movements in a certain set of directions and probably needed visual input to check it was the right way - that's more like a scroll-wheel on a mouse and they'd been around for a good long while (like other control wheels / dials)