Apple Watch design wins patent on look and feel

Apple invented the multitouch on a transparent screen. .

Not what Wiki Says. In fact, it indicates Apple is deliberately misleading people on this point.

If it was so "obvious to you" why are you not the inventor???

Many reasons, not the least of which it was invented before I arrived on the scene.

Why are you not the CEO of the largest business in the world? Why are you not a multibillionaire?

Did the CEO invent it? I would have thought it was some engineer they hired. Is *HE* a multibillionaire? (The actual inventor.) Somehow I doubt it. It seems a lot of people are getting money for work they didn't actually do, which is another problem I have with a lot of intellectual property methodology nowadays.

Everybody is trying to ride on the output of others. Everybody is trying to get their "rent seeking" hooks into anything they can, and then misuse the law to force people to pay them. It's easier to do this when you are wealthy, but it doesn't make it right.

Not what Wiki Says. In fact, it indicates Apple is deliberately misleading people on this point.

Read what I said, Diogenes. . . Apple invented the multitouch transparent screen. . . Non-of those others were at all transparent. They were opaque pads. There's a huge difference. Apple holds the patents on the multitouch transparent screens. Prior to the iPhone the only transparent touch screens were single X,Y coordinates that worked with styluses. Apple is NOT deliberately misleading anyone on this point. THEY hold the patents which were granted to them and have survived all challenges. SHEESH!

Wow. Transparent screens. Like Indium hadn't been discovered or something.

Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should have been in the Ipad inventing business back in the 1980s. Transparent touch screens strikes me as a freakin obvious idea. As a matter of fact, I seem to recall several variations of the idea of a touch screen from the 1980s and 1990s. There were Membranes, there were LED/Photodiode grids, Light Pens of course, and there were capacitive touch screens back then. The Membranes and the capacitive touch screens were certainly using Indium Tin Oxide to produce transparent conductors, that much I distinctly remember.

That Apple wins court cases is not very persuasive. My observations lately are that the modern Judiciary is about some of the dumbest/ignorant people in positions of power that we have ever seen. As a matter of fact, I am becoming persuaded that the courts are starting to serve very well the function of a negative barometer. If they are in favor of it, it's probably objectively wrong. Examples are too numerous to mention.

I wonder if Apple would have won had an engineer familiar with the industry been the judge instead of some Juris Doctorate that has no actual useful knowledge?

Apple probably developed the best algorithms for interfacing with LCD touchscreens, but once again, I think you are probably giving them far more credit than they actually deserve. As near as I can tell, they just added a third button to a mouse, and pronounced it a magnificent accomplishment.

Maybe I just need to look more into what it is they did, because so far, i'm just not suitably impressed.

capacitive touch screens back then.

Actually there were not capacitive touch screens back then. . . The first capacitive screen on a phone, which was a single touch device, was the LG-KE850 also known as the Prada, which was claimed to have been out before the iPhone. The other screens before that one, were all resistance touch. These are again FACTS, and you can do all the dancing about membranes, LED/photodiode grids and light pens, and Indium Tin oxide crap you want, none of them worked as a transparent multi-touch screen until Apple's engineers cracked the secret of how to do it and showed the world how and were awarded the patent on how. THEY get the royalties from everyone that makes multitouch screens for all kinds of devices.

You know Diogenes, it is absolutely astounding to me how people like you who are so abysmally ignorant about Apple products, technology, and history think they can come on these threads and tell an Apple user, and someone like me, who is intimately familiar and in fact an expert on Apple products, having owned a cross platform consulting business for over 35 years, something you just don't know anything at all about!

Apple Macs have been capable of handling double, triple, wheel, trackball mouses, and more for at least 25 years. . . and they will automatically recognize whatever inout device you plug into them, without installing drivers. The Mac has shipped with a five button mouse with a 360º scroll ball since 2005, and for the last six years, Apple's mouses are both double button but multi-touch sensitive trackpad top wireless mouses. Again, SHEESH!

Actually there were not capacitive touch screens back then. . .

You keep telling me stuff, and when I check, you turn out to be wrong. I don't think you are purposely misleading me, but you really ought to check your statements before you make them.

The prototype x-y mutual capacitance touchscreen (left) developed at CERN in 1977 by Bent Stumpe, a Danish electronics engineer, for the control room of CERN’s accelerator SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron). This was a further development of the self-capacitance screen (right), also developed by Stumpe at CERN in 1972.

These are again FACTS, and you can do all the dancing about membranes, LED/photodiode grids and light pens, and Indium Tin oxide crap you want, none of them worked as a transparent multi-touch screen until Apple's engineers cracked the secret of how to do it and showed the world how and were awarded the patent on how.

Now that statement is very funny in light of the fact that you are demonstrably wrong. Your "FACTS" don't seem to actually be facts, or are you going to claim that one of Apple's Engineers was Bent Stumpe from Denmark back in 1972? :)

I wonder if he is collecting royalties from Apple, etc?

You keep telling me stuff, and when I check, you turn out to be wrong. I don't think you are purposely misleading me, but you really ought to check your statements before you make them.

Diogenes, I know one hell of a lot about this than do you. . . and it is obvious. What I wrote is that Apple owns the patents on mulli-touch capacitance transparent screens, specifically on mobile platforms, not "touchscreens," not what you looked up. Look at the photograph you posted. Is either of those a transparent or a multitouch screen? Not by a long shot.

They are NOT. QED. They are single touch, capacitance screens which are not transparent and not even display screens. They were simple grids. I specified what Apple holds the patent on to do accurately it on mobile devices and with low voltages consistently at high speed. These were intractable problems. Apple holds the patents on all the multi-touch screens on mobile devices as I told you and makes quite a bit of money on the royalties from other makers from those patents. THESE are facts. Your looking up "facts" from a publicly editable Wikipedia proves nothing. . . where someone with an agenda can change what is written there weekly if they want and add that Apple is lying about it. Apple has no reason to lie about any of that. . . because it would be easily shown in a court of law, and has not.

You are so desperate to show Apple and I lying about something, that you grasp at straws. . . that is funny. I am not going to do your research for you. I am certain of my position on this. . . This has been proved multiple times in court and in challenges to the US Patent Office, and in challenges to the Federal Trade Commission.

Try looking up those patents at the US Patent office instead of Wikipedia. Stumpe's work is listed as prior art in Apple's patents among a huge list of predecessor work required to be listed leading up to their invention.

Responding to you is now beginning to feel as if I am torturing a small insect. There are some real howlers in your commentary, but I just don't have the heart to keep doing this to you.

Now you devolve to ad hominem attack, Diogenes, giving the lie to your screen name which implies a search for honesty. Good luck with that. Using ad hominem is the sign of the side of the lack of factual argument. If you lack facts, you attack the opponent. We have been discussing transparent multitouch screens on mobile digital devices. Prior to the iPhone, they simply did not exist. You can dance all you like, but facts are on my side on this discussion. You use Wikipedia. Good luck with that as well. Patents and patent law side with Apple as do case law. . . and me. YOU simply don't know what you are talking about, as demonstrated your statements about having to "look up" things. Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source for anything.

For example, I find it amusing that the Wikipedia article gives more attention to the fewer than 3 million Microsoft multitouch devices than it does to the over 2 Billion Android and 1. 1 billion iOS devices that use multitouch screens. That is evidence of preferential editing by people with agendas.

You have an agenda to find Apple and me lying about anything. . . to assign a negative intent to their claim. It does not exist nor do they need to do that. Apple has thousands of patents in their name. . . yet you somehow need to deny that simple fact to claim that Apple never invents anything. That is your desperate need to prove your false and irrational agenda of non-innovation by Apple. You demonstrate you do not even understand what innovation, invention, or design are.

Not what Wiki Says. In fact, it indicates Apple is deliberately misleading people on this point.

It indicates no such thing. You read a lot into the Wikipedia article, which states:

"Additionally, Apple also holds several patents related to the implementation of multi-touch in user interfaces,[25] however the legitimacy of some patents has been disputed.[26] Apple additionally attempted to register "Multi-touch" as a trademark in the United States—however its request was denied by the United States Patent and Trademark Office because it considered the term generic.[27]"

Apple's patents were challenged in the lawsuit Apple brought against Samsung. Samsung claimed the patent wasn't valid and also challenged it by Samsung with the FTC. Both venues denied the validity of Samsung's challenges. Now Samsung is appealing, but those appeals are based on errors of law, not factual issues. The factual issues were decided by the jury in one case, and by the entire FTC board in the other. Sorry. BZZZT! Challenging the validity of a patent in trial is SOP. Means nothing. Samsung brought up the same issues you bring up and Apple won. YOU lose.

I just don't have the heart to keep doing this to you.

You have no case and you are doing nothing to me. You do it to yourself, Diogenes.

“Responding to you is now beginning to feel as if I am torturing a small insect. There are some real howlers in your commentary, but I just don’t have the heart to keep doing this to you.”
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Dude, you are WAY over your intellectual head here as you try your foolish “duel” with Swordmaker. Swordmaker has you by a minimum of one or two standard deviations in basic IQ...and it shows. You’re simply making yourself look foolish. I’m surprised Swordmaker has the patience to deal with your silliness & ignorance.

You thought that was an ad hominem attack? I guess your perspective is so different from my own, you don't even understand what things look like from mine. No, I wasn't attacking you. I was expressing pity. From my perspective, your claims/arguments totally flopped. Every thing you attempted to prove, I found evidence to the contrary. (And whining about Wikipedia impresses nobody.)

I was going to write up another commentary in which I took apart your last message, but I decided that I didn't like the way it made me feel.

You demonstrate you do not even understand what innovation, invention, or design are.

I can tell what they are not. Taking credit for the work of others and claiming it as your own. Patent trolling, and rent seeking are also not what I would consider "innovation", at least not the sort of innovation I find admirable.

Looking through some of your posting history I get a couple of impressions. You are a big big big Apple fan, (and therefore seemingly lack objectivity when analyzing your paramour) and I also suspect you make a lot of money off of Apple.

As Mark Twain noted, "You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."

You may think i'm hard on Apple, but you haven't heard what I think of Microsoft. As bad of an opinion as you believe me to have regarding Apple, I can assure you that what I think of Microsoft is much worse. :)

The Woz I like. I have no respect for Bill Gates and Co.

Means nothing. Samsung brought up the same issues you bring up and Apple won. YOU lose.

You must think you are arguing in a forum where people have the utmost respect for Judges, Juries and Lawyers. I assure you this is not the case. If you read enough of my posting history, you will discover much of it to be an endless criticism of modern legal methodology and people.

Proof that you can win in court is proof of nothing more than what most conservatives already know; The legal system is a mess, riven with abuse and privilege, and has not a whole lot to do with what is the objective truth.

In the words of Shania Twain, "That don't impress me much."

You have no case and you are doing nothing to me.

That's the spirit! :)

Referring to me as "a small insect" is certainly an ad hominem attack on me. There is no doubt. Expressing gratuitous pity when none is deserved or needed is intended to belittle me in the eyes of others reading this thread is also an ad hominem attack. You are very weak on debating techniques, aren't you? People who rely on Wikipedia for their facts do not know much about it. It is not considered an authority for any purpose in any college and is not accepted in any research papers and will get any student who uses it a down grade because Wikipedia changes from day to day, as non-experts edit it according to biases they hold. Sorry, that is just the way it is. You call it "whining" and that also is an ad hominem. You just cannot recognize it when you use it.

You then attack me with "facts not in evidence" claiming that I "make a lot of money off of Apple." That also is a scurrilous ad hominem attack, attributing pecuniary motives for my posting and my arguments with you on FR. I have numerous times rebutted that claim on FreeRepublic by others on here, and I think you have seen them.

Taking credit for the work of others and claiming it as your own.

Is something YOU have not shown or proved. . . and in fact is another "fact not in evidence." Apple has cited all previous patents and work that lead up to their patents, otherwise they would be invalidated. YOU simply do not understand how patents work, what they mean, how they are granted, or, apparently what they are. I stand on what I have told you because I DO understand patents, patent law, and the state of this particular patent, which you obviously do not have a clue about.

YOUR opinions are based on ignorance, lies, and myth.

Dude, you are WAY over your intellectual head here as you try your foolish “duel” with Swordmaker. Swordmaker has you by a minimum of one or two standard deviations in basic IQ...and it shows.

If this were true, you might have thought he wouldn't make claims that could be so easily disproved. Apple didn't invent the touch screen, they didn't invent the "Transparent" touch screen, (was there ever a non-transparent touch screen? Would you call it a "screen" if you couldn't see anything on it?) they didn't invent the concept of a portable tablet computer, they didn't invent "multi-touch", they didn't invent the LCD display, and in all honesty, i'm having trouble seeing anything of the sort that an honest person would call an Apple "invention" as regards the tablet computer.

What they did do was combine a lot of technology developed mostly by others, and created some good algorithms for it, and put it in a nice saleable package.

You’re simply making yourself look foolish. I’m surprised Swordmaker has the patience to deal with your silliness & ignorance.

More than patience, he's the one that sought out this discussion. He messaged me, not I him. As for me, I am getting to where I don't see the point of arguing with people who keep asking me if i'm of the body of Landru.

Why no. No I am not. :)

You then attack me with "facts not in evidence" claiming that I "make a lot of money off of Apple."

I said I "Suspect you also make a lot of money off of Apple. " This may be a wrong impression, but it would certainly explain your behavior.

YOUR opinions are based on ignorance, lies, and myth.

So you are disputing the facts as Wikipedia has presented them? I will note at the bottom of each Wikipedia page, there is a list of citations for the information they put forth. Are you going to assert that all those are wrong too?

I think your quibble about Wikipedia is just a dodge for dealing with unpleasant facts. The Facts Wikipedia stated are true, and as the old Lawyer joke goes, when you can't pound the facts, you pound the table. :)

But if you insist on disputing the facts Wikipedia cites, pray tell which ones, and I will look up alternate sources for these facts in dispute. (Here's one for example.) I very much doubt I will find any in contradiction though.

In the words of Shania Twain, "That don't impress me much."

WOW! You are quoting Shania Twain? More proof of your membership in the low information group. Frankly, our jury system does a pretty damn good job of getting things right. I pity you if you think it doesn't. I trust a juries far more than I trust the judges. The wisdom of juries are the cornerstone of our entire system. Conservatives know this. Your thinking they doubt this makes me wonder at your claim to be a conservative.

As to your insulting ". . . insect" remark and its effect on me. My ego is not effected in the least by your little efforts to wound me. I am so respected in my county I was appointed as the foreman of the first Criminal Grand Jury in our area in 25 years by a panel of Superior Court Judges. I sat in that position for one year. Again, I do know something about what I am talking about. We were not a "ham sandwich Grand Jury."

The County DA so respected our panel's judgement that he asked us to sit as a petit jury on a murder case in which they were not certain they had enough evidence to arrest the suspect. For six weeks, the DA had me sit as the judge in the case, ruling on evidence, admissibility of witnesses, etc., as they presented their case, while the DA acted as prosecutor and another Assistant DA acted for the defense, making objections. After they finished the case for the prosecution, they rested. no case for the defense was presented. We found they did not prove their case for conviction. I, however, wrote an alternative theory for them to investigate that DID result in an arrest and conviction three years later. I am not any kind of "insect" or someone of no consequence.

Frankly, Diogenes, it is YOU who is not impressive at all.

That Ars Technica article is amazing for what it does NOT include. . . it does a lot of talking to avoid mentioning ANYTHING at all about what transpired in 2006-2007 and skips over everything that happened there. It talks a lot about non-transparent input devices such as the Hot Air Ware DSI Handgear from 2002:

Then 2006 and the Ted Talk of Jeff Han on multi Touch on a table screen . . . using intersecting light beams from top and sides but no real user interface and drawing cool pictures. Whoop do doo. Then the article jumps to the Microsoft Big Ass Table in 2008. They then talk about Samsung and Microsoft's development partnership for PixelSense. . . in 2011.

Where is the development of the multi-touch capacitance screen by Apple in 2006 and 2007 and it's introduction with the iPhone on January 9, 2007 for which Apple holds all the patents????

Not one word, Diogenes. . . there are far more touch screen mobile devices from those patents, than were ever made than any of the things mentioned in this article and they devote one single sentence to them in this article in the last paragraph the article which talks about the development of the multi-touch for Android and iOS. Otherwise, not one single word in the entire article. This article you found is obviously about large scale touch screens, mostly optical grid, a few with resistance, a bone tossed to capacitance. . . and you could not even tell what you were looking at.

No one has asked you. . . we are not interested in your membership in any group. You are the one who comes into Apple threads and tries to educate us with your ignorant opinion when you don't know what you are talking about.

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