Chicago (IL) - The announcement of Palm's new smartphone (dubbed Pre) has clearly sent shivers down Apple's spine; partly because several key engineers with a deep knowledge of Apple's secrets switched over to Palm, but mainly because Pre is the first iPhone rival to use multi-fingered gestures like pinch zoom. Armed with the 358 page iPhone patent awarded last week, Timothy Cook who runs Apple in Jobs' absence has now threatened Palm with legal action. Palm is not letting on that it's shaken, but make no mistake - too much is at stake here: Both Palm's very survival and iPhone's fate. If the two companies meet in court, it could turn out to be the most interesting and entertaining lawsuit of 2009 (or the decade).
"Boy, have we patented it!", said Steve Jobs during the world's first iPhone presentation in January 2007. Two years and several would-be iPhone killers later and the mobile industry still lacks a cellphone that would employ multi-fingered gestures like pinch zoom that made the iPhone famous. It's not that iPhone rivals lack technical expertise to engineer multi-touch-capable smartphone. On the contrary, it is sheer fear of lawsuits by one of the world's most powerful consumer electronics giant that is keeping multi-touch as an exclusive realm of the iPhone. With Pre, Palm is willing to challenge this and put its future at stake in the process as the company might find out that Jobs' words were not empty threats.
Apple got the iPhone patent
As revealed in Apple's mammoth 358 page patent application filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office last spring, Apple put its money where its CEO's mouth was. The patent application, entitled "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics," describes all aspects of iPhone's touch screen, UI and methods in details. The patent, awarded to Apple this past week, credits no other but Steve Jobs as the registered holder, followed with 24 other named engineers like vice president of iPhone software Scott Forstall and Wayne Westerman. The latter is the key to multi-touch technology used in the iPhone.
MOTHER OF ALL IPHONE PATENTS
Apple was awarded last week a mammoth 358 page patent that covers all aspects of the iPhone's user interface, with especial emphasis on multi-touch and the way gestures are implemented.
History of multi-touch
Origins of multi-touch date back to 1982 when the first touch screen was engineered at the University of Toronto that could register more than one touch at a time. At the same time, Bell Labs (now part of Alcatel-Lucent) published what is believed to be the first paper dealing with user interfaces associated with touch screens and made its first multi-touch screen two years later. The technology went unnoticed until 1991 when Pierre Wellner published a paper about so-called digital desk that envision multi-fingered gestures, including pinching motions.
It captured the imagination of University of Delaware academics Wayne Westerman and John Elias who started experimenting with possible uses through their Newark-based startup, Fingerworks. The company made keyboards and touchpads with opaque surface that could recognize gestures and Westerman even published a dissertation on the subject in 1999. Their work caught attention of Apple who was at the time researching early iPhone ideas so the company acquired Fingerworks in 2005. As part of the deal, Westerman moved in Apple's headquarters to continue developing multi-touch for Apple's handset.
A closer look at "the mother of all iPhone patents"
The 358 page patent is also called "the mother of all iPhone patents" with a good reason. It outlines iPhone's features and UI in excruciating detail, including the software and how gestures like finger swipe or pinch zoom are detected. The patent also provides a sneak peek at next-gen iPhones by listing several features not included with current-gen iPhones, like applications for blogging, instant messaging, digital video capturing, video conferencing, MMS, etc. Multi-touch aspects of the patent, without any doubt, are the most important to iPhone's future.
Continued on next page: Palm Pre, Legal clash between Apple and Palm, Conclusion...