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.
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!