Tuesday, February 21st 2012
Neonode Beat Apple to "Slide to Unlock" Patent by 3 Years: Analysis
Even as Apple is going on a childish suing spree over every touchscreen device manufacturer that uses a "slide to unlock" mechanism to wake sleeping devices up, it has emerged that Apple wasn't the first to patent such as technology to begin with, it was Neonode, which envisaged the concept 3 years earlier, and patented it. Neonode is a Swedish mobile phone manufacturer. Neonode had this patent filed under US Pat. No. 8,095,879, its claim that details the technology leaving no room for ambiguity:
Source:
DailyTech
12. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the user interface is characterised in, that an active application, function, service or setting is advanced one step by gliding the object along the touch sensitive area from left to right, and that the active application, function, service or setting is closed or backed one step by gliding the object along the touch sensitive area from right to left.
33 Comments on Neonode Beat Apple to "Slide to Unlock" Patent by 3 Years: Analysis
Or, they'll bribe someone.
no one can beat them at that
Lawyers love these patent trolls :D
Always when u think this cant get more worse, Apple shows us the true.
For some reason i wish apple would go bankrupt but this wont happen :/
The only thing Apple has going for them is their marketing dept, which you have apparently also become a victim of ;)
Also someone in this thread is being trolled hard :D
we sue u as is patented from 50000 years
In order to sustain any advantage they must be able to keep their products unique in comparison to other people's, that means that other people need to be hindered when they try to emulate Apple's success.
However, I don't think that's reasonable at all. I think Apple have already made their billions from those inventions and patents should only be able to do so much. Apple of course will fight tooth and nail to preserve it.
What is staggering to me is Apple's share price. They've incredibly overvalued. Unless they come out with a killer product every 5 years then they're going to fade away. At a certain point critical mass will marginalise their products. iPods have very much vanished as products in comparison to their heyday, Apple has cannibalised that market with iPhones (wisely though). iPhones at the moment are "the phone to have" for most people (not for me and I suspect many people here) but I think there will be a tipping point where people choosing between an iPhone, a razor, a nexus, a galaxy etc will not choose the one phone that doesn't let them do as much as the others. Likewise if the pad format continues then eventually the ipad will have nothing to offer.
Historically any company that patents something enjoys the benefits of it, but usually not for as long as the patent. Apple are no different - but it's understandable why they devote a fuckton of legal resources to try to maintain it.
Their share price is silly though.
everything else is fine though
its a shame the man ape who invented the door sliding lock didnt patent it ,now he'd be rich'
cheers though ,yet another example of patent ridiculousness ,
who patented the on off button and have they got apples number?
The "touch" screen is far superior than on my SE X10. (it's not touch, it's a grid of light diodes).
Do loop = 0 to ad-infinitum
m_vector=random(x)+random(y)+random(z)
call lawyers[patent, movement(m_vector)]
Next loop
Do loop = 0 to ad-infinitum
call lawyers[sue]
Next loop