Of Apple Patent US 7,479,949 and US 7,469,381

UC Berkeley, Center for Entrepreneurship and TechnologyIEOR 190G Patent Engineering, April 27, 2009

Abhishek Gupta, BA CSJoshua Miller, BS ME

Touch Screen technology refers to using fingers to manipulate objects on a touch screen.

Achieved through variety of ways:◦ heat◦ finger pressure◦ infrared light ◦ optic capture

For invalidity on the two patents, touch screen only refers to single touch methods on the Apple IPhone and Palm Pre.

This includes:◦ Flicking Left/Right◦ Locking the screen◦ Diagonal movements◦ Document edge in screen auto-display

A manipulation of a desktop display An early front projection tablet top

system that used optical and acoustic techniques to sense fingers and objects

Clearly demonstrated touch concepts such as finger gestures or a finger flick

Demo video:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5772530828816089246

Founded by two University of Delaware academics, John Elias and Wayne Westerman

Product largely based on Westerman’s thesis:  Westerman, Wayne (1999). Hand Tracking,Finger Identification, and Chordic Manipulation on a Multi-Touch Surface. 

The company was acquired in early 2005 by Apple, where Elias and Westerman moved to Apple.

“state C detects significant motion on all touching fingers and advances to the manipulation state M, the channel selection is locked in. Additional finger touchdowns or liftoffs will not affect the channel selection during manipulation unless they meet the special synchronization sequence” (pg. 269)

Images placed on a wall, "to advance to the next slide in sequence, one flicked to the right. To go back to the previous image, one flicked left."

"The gestures were much richer than just left-right flicks. One could investigate different behaviors, depending on the direction you moved your finger."

"In this system there were eight options, corresponding to the 8 main points of a compass. For example, a downward gesture over a video meant 'stop'. A gesture up to the right enabled annotation, down to the right launched the application associated with the image, etc."

The advancing from one slide to the next appears to read directly on claim clause of flipping through items in a list and is the same example as in the Apple Patent.

According to the video, the left/right flick can anticipate the horizontal and vertical IPhone locked scrolling.

Also show’s that other commands can be on the 8 other compass points.

http://www.billbuxton.com/PW+Pda.swf

Element Interpretation

Prior Art (Portfolio Wall)

“A computing device, comprising:”

Portfolio Wall works on a computing device, however is sold independently as software

“a touch screen display;”

Portfolio Wall software works on a touch-based monitor

“one or more processors;”

Portfolio Wall requires processor from computing device in order to work

“memory;” Portfolio Wall requires memory

Element Interpretation Portfolio Wall Product

“one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including:”

One or more programs in memory that can be executed by the CPU(s).

Portfolio Wall software is executed on a CPU

Element Interpretation

Portfolio Wall Product

“instructions for detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display;”

It is inherent that if there is a processor and a touch screen display whereby a user can use his finger, that there must be instruction for detecting finger contacts with the touch screen.

Element Interpretation Portfolio Wall Product

“instructions for applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device;”

("heuristics [programs] are used to translate imprecise finger gestures into actions desired by the user." [column 109, line 50-51])

Heuristics are generally inherent in computer programs processing imprecise input, such as the movement of a touch on a touch screen. There must be instructions for the computer to apply the one or more heuristics and determine the desired command for the device from the finger contacts.

Element Interpretation

Portfolio Wall Product

“and instructions for processing the command;”

Executes the commands.

Inherently a processor-driven device uses instructions to process commands.

“wherein the one or more heuristics comprise:”

Element Interpretation Portfolio Wall Product

“a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on an angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display;”

A heuristic (implemented as a program) that looks for initial vertical movement of the finger(s) and decides that strictly vertical scrolling is desired even though the finger may move off a vertical path after initial contact.

According to the video, there is a horizontal screen scrolling heuristic, which can anticipate a vertical screen scrolling heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command rather than a two-dimensional screen translation command based on the angle of initial movement of a finger contact with respect to the touch screen display.

Element Interpretation Portfolio Wall Product

“a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display;”

A heuristic (implemented as a program) that looks for initial movement of the finger(s) not close to vertical and decides that some degree of diagonal (vertical and horizontal) scrolling is desired rather than strictly vertical scrolling.

The Portfolio wall uses a two-dimensional screen translation heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to the two-dimensional screen translation command rather than the one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command based on the angle of initial movement of the finger contact with respect to the touch screen display.“A gesture up to the right enabled annotation.  Down to the right launched the application associated with the image. ”

Element Interpretation Portfolio Wall Product

“and a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.”

A heuristic (implemented as a program) that looks for an unspecified finger(s) contact to move stepwise from item to item in a set rather than scroll through the set. An example reciting the text of this clam clause refers to an image in an album of images.

The Portfolio Wall uses a next item heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.-The video makes this apparent

Based on the prior art of Portfolio Wall – yes.

Although Portfolio Wall is not a piece of hardware, when implemented on a computing device, the software interacts with the hardware to make a finger(s) touch-based device.

Portfolio Wall’s heuristics were similar to touch-based mobile devices available today.

There was no prior art available which was similar to Apple’s ‘381 patent: document edge in screen auto-displays to configuration.